374 



Farming of Lincolnshire, 



to lie all the winter without further preparation, and then sown 

 in spring-. The first crop is oats, merely to shelter the seeds sown 

 with it : these are grazed with sheep two years, so as to let the salt 

 drain out of the land, and also to enrich the soil. The next crop 

 is wheat, and is often sown for three or four years in succession. 

 Many farmers, anxious to begin of the large yields,, ^raze the seeds 

 only one year, and then break up for wheat. The new warp 

 appears spontaneously to produce fine white clover, and brings 

 weeds never seen on the same surface before, particularly mus- 

 tard, cresses, and wild celery, with plenty of docks and thistles. 



Underdraining is the first thing done upon new warp land — 

 and, indeed, upon all other sorts in the neighbourhood — the 

 warping giving a much greater fall for the drains into the 

 ditches. Clover, or red and white clover and rye-grass, is re- 

 commended as the first crop (of course protected by oats during 

 their growth), and the main reason is, that the soil, having been 

 recently deposited by the action of water, is liable to run 

 together in any continuance of wet weather. Such being the 

 case, it is highly desirable to keep the land open by adding a 

 certain quantity oijihre—tlie clover-roots give that fibre. Wheat 

 and potatoes are the staple produce of warp land, with occa- 

 sionally beans and line; the land being freshened, as it were, 

 by seeds, should fallow not be necessary. 



The warped lands east of the river Trent have nearly all been 

 made since 1800; all the larger warping-drains in that district 

 having been cut, and all the great improvements commenced since 

 that period. There are some places where the warp was not 

 laid on sufficiently thick to give the land a good natural drain- 

 age, having been done 30 or 40 years ago, when there was 

 neither patience to allow it to be done well nor a sufficient ex- 

 pense gone into by the owner. There was great anxiety to begin 

 to crop the land as soon as possible, and the water was shut 

 off much too soon, according to the modern system of warping : 

 this circumstance, together with the fact that the spongy peat-^ 

 moor has been settled and consolidated by the weight of warp 

 above it, has not given those lands a sufficiently good drainage 

 when cut into fields of from 6 to 10 acres each, and they will 

 ultimately have to be re-warped, at a cost of from 71. to 10?. per 

 acre. Nearly 7000 acres have been warped since the year 

 1800 on the east bank of the Trent; the work is still progress- 

 ing, and many hundred acres of peat and sand have yet to be 

 covered by this process with a bed of the richest soil. The 

 first crop on the warp here is Seeds, a little rape being occasion- 

 ally sown with it ; then beans, then wheat, then flax, and after 

 this wheat again ; by which time the land will be foul enough to 

 need a fallow, as couch-grass propagates amazingly in this soil. 



