370 



On Trunk Drainage. 



or brooks pass through many small and intermixed properties, for 

 it would hardly be possible, where many parties were interested, 

 to get all to agree to an efficient plan of improvement, or to the 

 exchanges of land required to perfect alterations in the course of 

 a stream. 



To improve thoroughly the drainage of some districts, the whole 

 length of the watercourses through, and far enough beyond them, 

 to gain a good outfall, should be subjected to a well-ordered system 

 of drainage, which should embrace, where practicable, the con- 

 struction of carriers for irrigation ; and to insure that the improve- 

 ment should be made on the best principles, it would be well that no 

 work of such magnitude should be proceeded with until the plan 

 of it was approved by an inspector appointed by Government. 



The expense of these improvements might be charged on the 

 land benefited by them ; and I am convinced there would be an 

 excellent return for the outlay. An amount equal to the value of 

 the loss occasioned by the floods of this year on some streams 

 would I doubt not pay a great part of the expense of rendering 

 them not liable to overflow ; and in cases where the land could 

 be converted to water-meadov/, its value may be more than 

 doubled at a comparatively insignificant outlay. 



To exemplify to some extent the injury resulting from the pre- 

 sent state of the rivers, I would draw attention to the state of the 

 great outlets for the water of our district — the Thames* in Glou- 

 cestershire, Berkshire, and Oxfordshire ; and the Avon in Wilt- 

 shire. Those who know the Thames in the neighbourhood of 

 Oxford, especially between Oxford and Lechlade, will recollect to 

 have often seen the country along the whole of its course between 

 those places inundated for a great width, the water covering the 

 land upwards of a mile wide where it meets some of the many 

 small streams that discharge themselves into it. 



The Avon between Malmesbury and Bath overflows after heavy 

 rains, covering the lands adjoining to the extent of from 50 to 200 

 acres in a mile. 



The loss and deterioration of the land occasioned by the floods 

 and want of outfall on these rivers is enormous, as most of the 

 land might be made of the very first-rate quality. Now all of it 

 is injured, some almost valueless. There is no opportunity of 



* As a sufferer in common with many neighbours by the increasing floods of the 

 Thames, I cannot but think that the whole subject of navigable rivers throughout 

 England deserves re-consideration, now that their utility for the transport of goods 

 is very much superseded by railways ; while on the other hand the more rapid con- 

 veyance into them of water by drainage renders them more than ever injurious to 

 the health of towns, and obstructive to agricultural improvement. There are fields 

 in this neighbourhood which have been covered for months ; and in a former year 

 a large meadow of my own was not seen from the end of July until the following 

 March. — Ph. Pusey. 



