Page:The Victoria History of the County of Lincoln Volume 2.pdf/438

Rh scheme by which the Welland was made to cut a new and deeper channel through the yielding bottom by means of artificial banks proved a most valuable adjunct to the whole system of drainage. To begin with, two rows of faggots were laid some twenty yards apart on the mud at low water, which after a few tides were found to be full of a substance called warp, a mixture of fine sand and mud, which rendered them fairly solid. Another tier of faggots was then laid on the first, and soon became embodied with them by the warp; and so the embankment rose till above high-water level, and the Welland was confined between its new banks and began to dig out a new channel, some three miles into the sea. At the beginning of the nineteenth century this reclaimed fen-land was letting at over £1 an acre, its previous value, a quarter of a century before, being from 1s. 6d. to 7s. an acre, and the cost of conversion varied from 5s. to 25s. an acre. The Ancholme, which was cut at the end of the eighteenth century in a straight line for 20 miles through North Lincolnshire to the Humber, converted land originally worth from 1s. to 3s. 6d. an acre into land worth from 10s. to 30s. an acre immediately after the completion of the scheme of drainage. This is carrland, consisting of unctuous peat, which derives its richness from a mixture of sediment brought down by former floods while the peat was deposited. Most of the Isle of Axholme was once under water, and would be now if the embankment were neglected, as it is mostly below high-water mark. It is now well drained by a system of canals and side vents, and is one of the most fertile and productive tracts in the county. In bygone days the farmers used to attend Doncaster market in boats. The system of warping in the Isle of Axholme was as follows: A warping drain was cut from the Humber, the level of which at high tide was above the level of the fields to be warped. These were enclosed with a temporary bank, some six feet high, and connected with the warping drain, so that at each high tide the fields were flooded. When the tide retired it left a deposit of silt, and thus in course of time, from two to three years, an entirely new soil was created, no matter what the original soil was—bog, clay, sand, or whatever it might be. The original cost of warping was £15 an acre charged by the owners of the warping drain, and the necessary expenses of connecting and banking; and the new soil would bear wheat and beans alternately, with an occasional naked fallow, for twelve or thirteen years without any manure, wheat yielding from 30 to 36 bushels an acre, and beans 60 bushels. An acre was once measured to produce 99 bushels of beans. Needless to say that potatoes are the chief crop now. Warping has also been done round Gainsborough, 20 miles up the Trent and 60 miles from the open sea. Another system of improving the soil was adopted in South Lincolnshire with Digby, Dorrington, and other fens. The peat of that neighbourhood was very poor and hollow, producing per acre not more than five quarters of light oats, and twenty bushels of very moderate wheat. Beneath this peat, however, at a depth of 4 feet, was a blue soapy clay, so trenches were dug down to this at intervals of 11 yards across the field, and a large quantity of clay thrown out from their bottom upon the surface, after which the trenches were filled in. The cost of this was 54s. an acre, but the land now produced 30 bushels of good wheat to the acre, and worth 8s. more a bushel than hitherto. For some little time after the