268 
On Draining. 
haps mention a more remarkable instance of the difference in the 
properties of warp, than what occurs at Bridgwater, in Somerset. 
The river Parrot is famed for the almost evergreen fatness of the 
pasturage bordering its banks, lands which were formed origi- 
nally, it may be presumed, when that river was an estuary of the 
sea far inland. Its deposit immediately in the neighbourhood of 
Bridgwater has occasioned a great manufacture of very superior 
bricks and earthenware; and there is one article of almost univer- 
sal domestic use, called the Bath brick, for cleaning knives, &c., 
made at Bridgwater only, and it is singular that the sludge or 
mud from which these bricks are made is collected from the river 
Parrot's banks, within about a mile above and a mile below the 
town of Bridgwater. The banks of those particular two miles of 
the river alone afford the precipitate fit for the manufacture of the 
Bath brick. The deposit formed, whether more inland or more 
seaward, is found to be unfitted for the purpose. So, in the 
warped lands formed from the water of the H umber, whether 
passed immediately from that river, the Ouse, or the Trent, great 
difference in the quality of the deposit and fertility of the soil in 
respect of the proportions of clay, sand, and salt is discernible and 
well known. 
Great difference also exists as to the necessity of draining 
warped lands, arising from the depth of warp, the character of the 
subsoil on which the warp is run, and the particular composition 
of the warp itself in its proportions of clay and sand. Near to 
the mouth of the H umber it strikes me that there is a much 
larger proportion of alumina (clay) deposited, in respect of silica 
(sand) than about Goole, Thorn, and other warping districts. 
There is no doubt also much more common salt in the composi- 
tion the nearer to the Humber mouth. 
The quantity of salt in which the wheat plant will flourish is 
curiously illustrated in the warp soils about Patrington, and would 
be scarcely credited, unless seen. The whole surface of a large 
reclaimed warp piece on Mr. Marshall's estate was planted with 
wheat for the first time in the autumn, 1844. When I saw it in 
the autumn of 1845, the surface of the ground was crystallized all 
over with salt, evidencing the enormous quantity which the mass 
of the bed must have contained ; yet, from this first crop the 
tenant told me he had threshed out 24 bushels per acre. The 
order of culture there, after warping, is to leave the land to the 
occupancy of what is called the sheep grass, which naturally skins 
it for three years, when that begins to die off. It is then ploughed 
up, and sown with rape, allowed to go to seed. This plant is 
considered to remove the very injurious excess of salt, and great 
crops of it are obtained. Wheat follows, and after that, any other 
crop to the farmer's liking, without regard to systematic rotation. 
