428 
Fanning of Dorsetshire. 
stand in the way of the rapid removal of water, floods, except at 
liay-harvest time, would not be greatly regarded ; indeed, along 
the Stour — the Dorsetshire Nile — they are necessary visitants to 
grazing farms, and the rich silt which they leave behind them 
assists in furnishing in March a cut of grass like a water-meadow 
of the most " proofy " kind. It is in these meadows that the 
heavy oxen of the Blackmoor Vale put on their meat preparatory 
to house fattening. But if the water cannot be got off tlie land 
until the pasture is soured, the benefit is changed to an unmiti- 
gated evil. The whole subject is summed up in the words of 
one who is a sufferer by floods, " We have no objection to see 
the water on our land if Ave can only get it off again." In the 
neighbourhood of Wimborne, where the Stour and the Allen 
join and flood considerable areas, one occupant of a piece of 
" accommodation " land assured me he had not been able to 
enter his fields between Michaelmas and Lady-day. The very 
sinuous brook, which, coming down from Toller, falls into the 
Frome at Maiden Newton, will so completely flood the neigh- 
bourhood after a seven or eight hours' rain, that tlie people of 
the former place cannot leave the parish until it has subsided. 
A summer's flood, besides carrying av, ay the hay, has completely 
spoiled the aftermath, the sand brought down by the floods ren- 
dering the grass so gritty that cattle rejected it. No doubt some 
of this mischief could be cured by straightening the crooked 
stream, but unfortunately it divides different properties, and an 
alteration of the stream v/ould involve an interference with 
different interests. Before the railway v/orks there, the neigh- 
bourhoods of Chetnole, Yetminster, and Bradford were subject to 
heavy floods, which rendered many roads impassable ; and a few 
years since, in attempting to cross a fcjrd in this locality, a man, 
boy, and horse Avere swept away by the current and drowned. 
Improvements have been made by those who have had tlic con- 
duct of the railway works, chiefly by Mr. Peniston, the resident 
engineer, and many of the roads that were formerly impassable at 
floodtimes can now be crossed with a dry foot : a bridge has also 
been erected where the calamity occurred. If one were made at 
Toller, the temporary imprisonment of its inhabitants might be 
avoided. Mr. Farquharson is of opinion the floods in his neigh- 
bourhood have been reduced chiefly by cleansing the bed and 
sloping the banks of the river. On the branch of the Yeo, which 
rises at Melbury, much damage is attributable to the insuffici- 
ency of the weir at Bradford mill. A similar statement, varying 
only in locality, might be repeated throughout the county upon 
nearly every mill-weir. Upon the small stream from the scanty 
sources of the Piddle river no fev/er than five mills occur within 
four miles, where one, it is estimated, would answer the require- 
