96 



Bedford Level, 



sown except for convenience. The land is too heavy for turnips, 

 and will not produce good coleseed, so that the system of ^^dead"- 

 fallowing is necessarily adopted. Consequently, very few sheep 

 indeed are wintered ; perhaps only 3 or 4 acres of turnips being 

 grown on a large occupation of 300 or 400 acres. Leicesters 

 and Long-wools are bought in spring to eat off the grass and the 

 few seeds which may be sown, and sold in autumn. A great 

 number of beasts are kept during the winter upon hay, straw, 

 and oilcake, being sold in the spring as stores." Little under- 

 draining has been done on the low lands, but in most districts the 

 steam-engines can keep the water low enough to make an outfall 

 for the drains. The prevailing opinion of fen- farmers is, that 

 the peat-soil is so porous as to require little or no under- 

 drainage, and accordingly they are satisfied with cutting one or 

 two drains in a field and partially refilling them with wood or 

 thorns. But a good tile-drainage is very much needed to dry the 

 peat and provide a quicker passage for the downfall water, the 

 principal difficulty being that the peat has a tendency to insinuate 

 between the joints of the tiles, and the drain, lying on a dead level, 

 is liable to be choked by accumulations of sediment. This, 

 however, has been greatly obviated by the use of pipes with 

 ^' collars," that is, rings of the same material which cover the 

 crevices between the pipes, each collar containing about 2 inches 

 of each adjoining pipe. There is no regular system of low-land 

 management pursued ; indeed, so much depends on the proper 

 admixture of the soils and subsoils, and the well making of the 

 manure, and use of artificial manures, that it would be injustice 

 to a good enterprising tenant to restrict his routine of cropping^ 

 and difficult to prevent a bad one from injuring the land. 



The principal crops are wheat and oats, the alternate crops 

 being varied by beans, seeds, and fallow both for coleseed and 

 turnips. Coleseed is the chief green crop, and perhaps the fol- 

 lowing five-field course may be more general than others: — 1st, 

 coleseed; 2nd, oats; 3rd, wheat; 4th, beans or seeds; 5th, wheat; 

 or perhaps the following six-field course: — 1st, coleseed ; 2nd, 

 wheat ; 3rd, oats ; 4th, wheat ; 5th, seeds ; 6ih, wheat. 



A great deal of artificial manure is used in this Level ; bones 

 for the green crop invariably, guano as a top dressing for wheat, 

 beans, &c., and abundance of linseed-cake in the farm-yards. 

 The sheep grazed in the neighbourhood of Ely, and in Littleport 

 Fen, are Leicesters ; sometimes Long-wools and the half-bred 

 Down and Leicesters are bought^, but Leicesters are most general 

 throughout the level. Along the whole of the northern boundary 

 extends a narrow tract of land, called " the Hundred-feet 

 Washes," included between the great barrier banks of the Hun- 

 dred-feet and Old Bedford Rivers, 21 miles in length, and 



