Fanning of the North Riding of Yorkshire. 509 
Though the subsoil may be porous, there are sufficient inter- 
cepting strata to render it to a certain extent stagnant, and all 
attempts to cultivate this land in its undrained state are the most 
utter and irremediable failures. 
There have been some instances of this description of land 
being improved and rendered fertile in this neighbourhood, 
which would do credit to any part of the kingdom, nor has the 
cost been so enormous as may be supposed. 
Mr. Thomas Durham, of Ainderby, took a farm as a yearly 
tenant of Colonel Wyndham, which nearly ruined every previous 
occupier for thirty or forty successive years, for a rent of something 
like 7s. Q)d. per acre. The produce at that time could not be more 
than five or six bushels per acre, and no tenant otherwise would 
take it. He immediately commenced a system of drainage. 
The soil was for the most part a blowing grey or yellow sand, 
but consolidated by powerful land-springs. He laid out drains 
so as to tap the sources of the springs, and as the subsoil was 
porous, he could ascertain their situation by holes cut the depth 
of the drains, for if his drains dried them, it was a proof that no 
intervening stratum of impervious matter occurred. The drains 
were some seven or eight feet deep, and did not occur at any regular 
intervals, one drain, Avith a few necessary branches, drying five 
or six acres around it, or even more. The tiles were about four 
inches bore, and the whole were of the horse-shoe kind and laid 
with flat bottoms. They were covered with straw to prevent the 
ingress of the silt, and effected wonders on the hungry sand. 
The expense was more in the cutting than in the tiles, and so 
powerfully did the abstraction of the water act on the running 
subsoil that in many cases the sides of the drain had to be ke]it 
asunder by planks until the tiles could be laid, and in many 
places the springs below the tiles boiled up so violently that it 
was impossible at first to obtain any sort of foundation for the 
soles. The cost, of course, varied, but we think from 3/. lO*. to 41, 
per acre would cover it. Then, however, the work was only 
begun ; the foundation was only laid. 
By the application of bones he made the barren sand produce 
a fair crop of turnips. These he consumed upon the ground 
with sheep ; sowed barley and seeds ; eat the seeds with sheep, 
and then sowed turnips again, taking three green crops and con- 
suming them with sheep for one grain crop, until the whole was 
rendered capable of growing wheat ; and we think it no stretch 
of truth to state that it grows 4^ to 5 quarters of barley to the 
acre, and 23 to 25 bushels of wheat. So satisfactory is his tenure 
under so good a landlord, that it is better than a lease, and no 
advantage will ever be taken of the increased value of the pro- 
