Derby Prize-Farm Competition, 1881. 473 
question of preventing a return of the malady does not seem 
to be solved. No human precaution could possibly })rovide 
against a return of wet seasons ; and when pasture-lands shall 
be again sodden for years, fluke-rot will be prevalent, do what 
we may. But the state of every river and almost every stream 
upon the farms we visited, shows how fearfully arterial drainage 
has been neglected. The whole valley of the Trent, with the 
valleys of its numerous tributaries, seems hardly capable of hold- 
ing a twenty-four hours' rainfall. The Trent itself is in a fearful 
state. Shoals exist in the bed of the river to such an extent as 
to force the whole current of the stream into new channels, while 
every turn seems to become more crooked, and every angle more 
acute. Not only is no effort made to remove these natural 
impediments to the rapid flow of the water, but many obstacles 
seem purposely or ignorantly placed in the river to resist or 
impede its progress; No wonder then that floods in wet 
seasons are common, and that thousands of acres of the broad 
and fertile valley of the Trent have been well-nigh ruined by 
the continual overflow of the river. Fourteen floods from July 
1880 to February in this year, are enough to break any tenant 
of a Trent meadow. Not that all floods are injurious : winter 
floods that do not remain too long upon the land are beneficial ; 
but in the summer, when the hay is washed away, the aftermath 
silted and spoiled, and the whole valley one vast quagmire, 
these floods are most disastrous. Only in the valley of the 
Dove did we see any effort to prevent a recurrence of these 
evils, and there the river was being embanked for miles. 
Legislation appears necessary before any grand scheme of 
" flood prevention " can become general ; but we found a 
perfect unanimity of opinion against the measure introduced 
this year to Parliament. It was unanimously condemned, and 
the suffering tenants all say that they would rather have no 
legislation then that such a bill should become law. The 
idea of taxing the uplands finds- universal disfavour, and it is 
firmly contended that underdraining has not contributed to 
the recent floods. The arable lands we inspected were mostly 
drained for the removal of the surface-water. Previously the 
excess of rain which fell upon these clay soils ran off the surface, 
but when properly drained the water should percolate through 
3 or 4 feet of soil before it finds its way into the ditches. 
And there is not only this large amount of soil to filter through, 
but a greater quantity of moisture is held in the subsoil by 
suspension. No doubt of late years the best-drained heavy lands 
have been so constantly sodden as to have lost their porosity, and 
the rainfall has run directly off the surface ; but that has only 
reduced the ground to the condition it was in before it was 
2 K 2 
