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Agriculture of Norfolk. 
STATE OF THE DRAINAGE. 
Few agricultural readers will expect to see much respecting 
drainage in a report of Norfolk, as few will suppose there is any 
necessity for draining in a district generally considered not only 
sandy, but dry. Whereas, in fact, almost every variety of drain- 
age may be found in Norfolk, and there are few places to be 
named from whence you can go many miles without finding 
drains of some sort ; indeed, even where the largest quantities of 
clay have been used, to qualify a blowing sand, the land has, in 
many instances, undergone extensive drainage. The marshes 
and fens in the neighbourhood of Lynn and Downham are 
drained by machinery, so as to throw the water out of the drains 
in the lowest levels into raised channels capable of conveying it 
to the outfalls. Wind was the power applied to this purpose 
until recently, and even now there are in some places so many 
wind-engines erected for drainins:, as to remind us of the corn- 
mills near populous towns. Yet these are at present little more 
than proofs of the truth of the history of the adjoining levels. So 
long as no power was known more suitable, it was all very well to 
make good use of that which they had, when they could ; but, it 
has been observed, there is generally least wind during the time of 
the greatest floods, that is, when draining-mills are most required. 
Who then can be surprised that steam should be applied to the 
purposes of draining? And, accordingly, nearly the whole of this 
district is now effectually drained by the use of steam-engines. 
One of these, of 60-horse power, has recently been erected in the 
Feltwell New Fen District, at an expense (for the engine, and 
house, &c.) of about 4000/. This engine, made by Messrs. 
Headley and Hawthorne of Newcastle, drains 7000 acres of fen 
and 1000 acres of high land, and is supposed to be capable of 
draining double the extent if necessary. 
The low land east of Norwich, irregular in breadth, but ex- 
tending from that city to Yarmouth, is partially drained by steam- 
power also ; but this must be more generally applied before the 
draining can be eflectually done. The owners of land in the 
neighbourhood are becoming aware of this, and probably a few 
years hence it may be found one of the most productive tracts in 
the kingdom. 
Navigation is not the only interest which has occasionally 
proved an obstacle to effectual drainage. In one district land 
was pointed out to me as suffering from water being kept high 
in the drains around it, that it might in its main course drive the 
wheel of a corn-mill. Thus the water-power of the miller, although 
cheap to him, was not so to the community. The loss in pro- 
duce from the land around was very great, and the direct injury 
