288 On the Agricultural Improvements of Lincolnsliire. 
one that was found practicable. Another family from Blankney 
was lost on this heath twice in one night, in returning from a 
ball at Lincoln, and was obliged to remain upon the waste until 
morning. 
Passing Dunston Pillar, the road continues due north for 4 
miles along the level hill-top, through the same beautiful farms, 
until it dips to cross the narrow breach or valley in which Lincoln 
city is placed, and through which the western streams find their 
way to the sea, but immediately rising, passes by the lofty 
cathedral through a Roman arch, and stretches along the ancient 
Roman way (Ermine Street) for nearly 20 miles, in a perfectly 
straight line northwards, upon North Lincoln Heath, over the 
same shallow sandy soil, but among the same neat enclosures, 
heavy turnip-crops, numerous flocks, spacious farm-buildings, 
surrounded by tlie same lofty and crowded corn-ricks. Thus, in 
travelling due north for 40 miles from Sleaford to Brigg, you 
traverse the raised platform of the South and North Heath, as 
may be seen by reference to Arthur Young's map; and during 
the whole time you pass through the best farming upon very 
moderate land, recently enclosed, as the fences themselves show ; 
and, M liat struck me particularly, you not only see generally very 
high farming, but you see in 40 miles hardly any bad farming — 
scarcely two or three slovenly fields. The standard of cultivation 
is evidently very high, and to raise this standard is of course the 
great means of improving the farming of any district. 
During the whole day we saw to our right, on the horizon, a 
high range of hills stretching parallel to the heath from south to 
north. These were the wolds of Lincolnshire, being a continua- 
tion of the chalk-hills, and it was to the northern extremity of 
this range that we crossed ; and here, on a subsequent day, in 
looking over the farm of Mr. Uppleby and Mr. Graburn, at 
Wootton, and the farms of Lord Yarborough, constituting alone 
30,000 acres, I found on the chalk also the same peculiar features 
of high farming as upon the opposite range of the heath ; 
again also it was in every farmer's mouth that this vast tract of 
hill had been redeemed, like the Heath, from nearly equal deso- 
lation within living memory, and they had certainly been brought 
to a state of which, having always lived upon chalk-hills or near 
them, I could not but see the superiority. Here, then, there is a 
still larger range, estimated at 230,000 acres (nearly the extent 
of Bedfordshire), added in our own times to the corn-land of 
England. 
It being the wish of our President that in each English county 
an inquiry should be made into the present state of its farming, 
compared with the Reports made to the Board of Agriculture 
during the war, in the hope of fulfilling this object I have twice 
