On the Agricultural Improvements of Lincolnshire. 297 
shire ; its effect may be conveniently seen in the Digby, the 
Dorrington, and other Fens, not far north of Sleaford. Mr. 
Cooke, of Uigby, has given a plain and practical account* of the 
process to this effect. Tlie peat of that neighbourhood is poor 
and hollow, producing naturally not more than 5 quarters of light 
oats, worth 20s. ; and 20 bushels of very light wheat, fit only for 
seed, worth at the time 50>y. per quarter. Beneath this peat, 
however, is found, at a depth of 4 feet, a blue soapy clay. 
Trenches, then, are dug down to this clay, at the interval of 11 
yards across the field, and a large quantity of the clay thrown out 
from their bottom upon the surface, after which they are fdled in. 
The operation costs only 54a'. per acre ; but henceforth the land 
produces 30 bushels of good wheat, worth more by 8s. per quarter, 
so that very bad land is changed into very good land for less than 3/. 
This cheap transformation of soil has been carried out with great 
spirit in the Lincolnshire fens, since Mr. Young's Report ; and as 
he does not speak of the process, the whole credit of it is due, I 
suppose, to the present generation of farmers. Another trans- 
formation of the same character has been executed, with equal 
vigour, by the employment of chalk ; and as this process takes us 
out of the marshes where we have so long lingered, and leads us 
upon the high wolds, I will now endeavour, in discharge of my 
task, to trace the farming history of these hills, examining what 
had been done by the last generation when Mr. Young wrote, and 
how much the farmers of this century have improved upon what 
they had received from their predecessors. 
Of this high range, equal in extent, as I have said, to the 
county of Bedford, and now a pattern of neat fences and good 
farming. Young says, in 1799, " Forty years ago it was all warren 
for 30 miles, from Spilsby to beyond Caistor " (indeed the present 
Lord Yarborough remembers when, in riding from Spilsby, the 
southern point of the wolds, to his own seat at Brocklesby, many 
miles beyond Caistor, and in sight of the H umber, he met but 
two fences) ; " and, by means of turnips and seeds, there are now 
at least twenty sheep kept to one there before." Having visited 
these hills in 1760, Mr. Young is an unimpeachable witness as to 
their former condition. Great improvements, it appears, had taken 
place between his two visits, for elsewhere he says, — 
" Remembering as I do this county, about forty years ago, no circum- 
stance in it surprised me more than the astonishing change effected in 
respect to the turnip crop. At that time there was scarcely a turnip to 
be seen where now thousands of acres flourish ; and the few sown in 
the whole county were unhned, except by here and there a gentleman. 
This has been a most meritorious progress, closely attending thai first of 
improvements, enclosing heaths and ivastes. The crop is not yet perfect 
* See Journal, vol. ii., p. 406. 
