On the Agricultural Improvements of Lincolnsliire- 295 
James, that he would not suffer any longer the land to be aban- 
doned to the will of the waters. 
But before leaving the neighbourhood of Axholme I must 
mention the practice of warping, known in no other part of the 
world. We have seen that in the southern part of the county 
the sea casts down a fine mud or silt, which obstructs the mouths 
of the rivers, and fills up any shallows that are partially enclosed 
from the waves. The Humber, where it mixes with the sea, con- 
tains in dry seasons so much of this silt or warp, that if a glass 
tube be filled with it to the height of 15 inches, an inch of sedi- 
ment, we are told, may sometimes be seen at the bottom. About 
seventy years ago it occurred to a landowner at Rawcliffe, that if 
this water were laid upon his land the sediment would be secured ; 
and his success established the system, of which I saw an example 
near Axholme, The water is brought up from the Humber by 
a canal, chiefly made for the purpose, the level of which at high 
tide is much above the adjoining land. Two adjoining fields, of 
perhaps 50 acres, had been surrounded by a temporary bank 
about 6 feet high, which confined the water when admitted from 
the canal bv a cut through its side. The tide, when I saw these 
fields, was retiring, and they had the appearance of a muddy 
harbour covered partly with water, ])artly with slime, bi t in 
part showing the original herbage which was not yet buried. 
This marine appearance was striking in an inland field, 10 miles 
distant from the upper end of the Humber ; still it was only the 
commencement of the operation, for the object of warping is not 
to improve the existing soil by a slight covering of mud, but to 
create an entirely new soil. As Mr. Young observes, — 
" What the land if, intended to be warped, is not of the smallest conse- 
quence — a bog, clay, sand, or a barn floor, all one — as the warp raises 
it in one summer from 6 to 16 inches thick, and in hollows or low places 
2, 3, or 4 feet, so as to leave the whole piece level. Thus a soil of any 
depth' you please is formed, which consists of mud of vast fertility, 
though containing- not much besides sand, but a sand unique." 
The owners of the canal charged in this case 15/. per acre for 
the use of the water, but the benefit corresponds with the price ; 
for this new soil will sometimes bear wheat and beans alternately, 
with Sin occasional naked fallow, for twelve or thirteen years 
without any manure ; and the crop, Mr. Young says, should be 
30 or 36 bushels of wheat, 60 of beans. An acre was once 
measured to produce 99 bushels of beans. Yet, even for such an 
improvement, there is great enterprise in the landowner who ex- 
pends 15/. per acre; and great confidence in that landowner's 
spirit must also have been entertained by the adventurers who 
risked their capital on a canal with the hope of selling the water, or 
rather the future land, at such a price. This practice is now imi- 
