Continuous Corn Growing. 
53 
But seven years' anxious thought, hard labour, and liberal 
■well-directed outlay of capital, have been required to make 
Blunsdon what it now is. To the purchase-money, which aver- 
aged 70/. per acre, fully 20/. have been added in draining and 
other improvements. Eleven miles of wide, worthless, wasteful 
hedgerows have been grubbed up ; 180 acres of poor sour wet 
grass have been converted into profitable corn-land ; instead of 
small enclosures, there are now a field of 240 acres, another 
•of 150 acres, two of 50 acres, the others somewhat smaller. No- 
where have I seen draining more carefully and thoroughly done ; 
nowhere does steam exhibit greater triumphs of deep, thorough, 
•clean culture. The land is mostly a strong clay-loam, tolerably 
friable from admixture of vegetable fibre, the result of its having 
only recently been brought under arable culture. It is of deeper 
•and better quality than Mr. Front's. Underneath the loam is a 
thin stratum of yellow marl mixed with clay, resting about two 
and a half feet down on beds of marl and blue clay, which extend 
downwards for many feet. The superior quality of the soil 
doubtless mainly depends upon its being at the meeting of the 
three geological strata, the coral-rag, Oxford clay, and the 
alluvial deposit which constitutes a portion of the old basin of 
the Thames. Forty acres having been little more than three 
years in Mr. Middleditch's possession, are still, as he describes 
them, in a transition state, and have not yet been entirely freed 
of their former heritage of couch, docks, and garlic. 
During three years Mr. Middleditch effectually drained his 700 - 
acres, at a cost varying from 8/. to 15Z. One field of 8 acres, 
drained with 4:-inch pipes, actually cost 19/. 35. 6c?. per acre. 
A portion of the money required has been borrowed from the 
Lands Improvement Company, at an annual charge of 6/. 14s. Id. 
per cent., which in 25 years pays both principal and interest. 
Olten he has had 100 men busily at work, in gangs of three or 
lour, making the four-foot excavations at a cost of from 25. 6(Z. to 
7s. 6c?. per chain ; a trustworthy man on day-wages is told off 
to lay the pipes for about 20 excavators ; to ensure the levels 
being kept, and the fall, which is sometimes not very great, 
being made the best of, water was systematically let down every 
■drain before the pipes were laid. The draining of heavy land 
being uncertain, and often ineffectual, when the pipes run askew 
or across high-backed lands, the drains at Blunsdon have in- 
variably been placed in the original furrows, which vary from 
•5 to 7 yards. Little reliance is placed on 1-inch, or even 
2-inch pipes, which Mr. Middleditch considers liable to get 
displaced or blocked, and he has accordingly buried but few 
smaller than 3-inch pipes, whilst in the lower portions of the 
