286 



Farming of Lincolnshire. 



rivers. In South Holland are no less than 59 square miles of 

 country, or 37,760 acres, outside the Roman bank, and enclosed 

 from the sea since the year 1660, the newest bank being about 

 4 miles from the first or oldest. And along the coast from 

 Fosdike up toward Grimsby, although many places have lost by 

 encroachments of the sea, there are probably 16,000 acres of land 

 reclaimed during a comparatively modern period. A total quantity 

 of 84 square miles, or 53,760 acres, have thus been stolen from 

 the waves by embankments within the last 190 years. This is 

 some of the highest land in the Level, being in some cases 16 or 

 18 feet above the general fen land ; and it rises in successive 

 steps at each of the 3 or 4 embankments which have been con- 

 structed, the latest enclosure being the highest. 



Though the Lincolnshire coast is protected from excessive tidal 

 abrasion by Spurn Point serving as a jetty to the tide- wave, the 

 waste of the Yorkshire cliffs is very great ; and this, with other 

 material, is principally carried into the mouth of the Wash. A 

 very small proportion of the sediment held in suspension by the 

 flood-tide returns with the ebb, and the bay is therefore being 

 slowly warped up by the sandy accumulations.* The sediment 

 consists of a very fine silt, composed chiefly of particles of flint 

 and limestone, but containing likewise alumina and animal matter. 

 When the thickened tide-water is restrained by some simple im- 

 pediment — as faggots fastened down with stakes, &c. — -from re- 

 turning rapidly into its channels, it will deposit from 6 inches to 

 2 or 3 feet of soil in the course of a summer. This deposit is 

 not a simple sand, but a rich nutritious soil, composed of argil- 

 laceous and siliceous earths, with portions of mica, marine salt, 

 and mucilage. The land is fit for cultivation as soon as enclosed, 

 and produces excellent crops. 



The great south-eastern alluvial district may be computed at 

 362,000 acres, and the marshes north of Wainfleet at 88,000 

 acres — and when the lands west of Lincoln are included — making 

 a total of about 455,000 acres in one uninterrupted level (an area 

 equal to the whole of Oxfordshire). 



The Ancholme Flat, containing probably about 28,000 acres 

 of alluvial land, has generally a peat soil resting upon clay. The 

 northern parts of the district have a deep clayey warp of a dark 



* When the immense quantity of matter thus left is considered, — the Yorkshire 

 coastalone losing '2| yards annually for thirty miles between Kilnsea and Bridlington, 

 — it is not surprising that the Wash should be nearly filled by sand banks, and its 

 river channels so uncertain as to shift occasionally several miles in a few years. Indeed, 

 with the exception of one broad channel running through the centre of the Wash with 

 an average depth of 10 fathoms, the rest of the bed is a series of sands dry at low 

 •water, and shallows of one or two fathoms. The " Norfolk Estuary " and " Lincolnshire 

 Estuary" schemes are for enclosing a large tract of these sands, and the " Victoria 

 Level," if ever executed, will shut up 150,000 acres by barrier banks, leaving a four- 

 miles channel down the middle of the Wash. 



