which sell at five shillings a thousand. Plucked geese pay, in feathers, one shilling a head in Wildmore Fen*"

barous custom; but it has,

The common mode of plucking live geese is considered a barperhaps, prevailed ever since feather beds came into general use. The mere plucking is said to hurt the fowl but little, as the owners are careful not to pull until the feathers are ripe; that is, not till they are just ready to fall; because if forced from the skin before, which is known by blood appearing at the roots, they are of very inferior value. Those plucked after the geese are dead, are not so good.

The general improvements that have been effected in this county, within the last twenty years, and that are now gradually making, have co-operated to alter the general appearance, the agriculture, climate, &c. in such a material manner, that the surface has assumed a new aspect, the value of land is greatly increased, the means of social and commercial communication have been facilitated, and rendered more convenient, and the comforts of domestic life greatly promoted. Still, though much has been done towards effecting these important ends, there is scope for material improvements: for the roads in many parts of the county are in a very bad state, and though toll bars are raised to tax the traveller, he is not provided with advantages adequate to the levied rates. In the neighbourhood of Boston, Spalding, and Louth, the Commissioners have commenced a plan of forming firm and substantial roads. This is mostly done by laying a quantity of shingles, brought from the Norfolk coast, in the centre of the road, and mixing them with the silt of the place. The latter is a sort of porous sea sand, which has been deposited by the tides at a period when they covered the whole of the fens. It becomes firm with rain, but in dry weather forms a loose sand, of a dark red colour, driven about by the winds, and unfit for vegetation. Mixed with clay and loam it affords valuable breeding pasture for sheep, and in some places, under

* Young's General View, p. 394.

under tillage, produces large crops of oats. This grain is almost the only object of agriculture in the inclosed fen-lands; and immense crops of it are produced with little labour or skill.

"There is an extraordinary circumstance," says A. Young, " in the north-west corner of the county. Agues were formerly commonly known upon the Trent and Humber sides—at present they are rare; and nothing has been effected on the Lincoln side of the Humber, to which it can be attributed; but there was a coincidence of time with the draining Wallin-fen in Yorkshire to this effect: that county is now full of new built houses, and highly improved, and must have occasioned this remarkable change."

The Wolds extend from Spilsby, in a north westerly direction, for about forty miles to Barton, near the Humber. They are, on the average, nearly eight miles in breadth, and consist of sand and sandy loam, upon flinty loam, with a sub-stratum of chalk. This is peculiarly their appearance about Louth, and in the extensive rabbit warrens between Gayton and Tathwel. But where the friable loams prevail, rich upland pastures are seen pleasingly intermixed. From Binbrook to Caiston, with the interruption of Caiston Moor, a sandy soil prevails; and thence, sand with an intermixture of argillaceous earth, till they change into the rich loam of which Barton field, a space of 6000 acres, principally consists.

Beneath this line, and parallel with the eastern shore, lies an extensive tract of land at the foot of the Wolds, in the direction of north west to south east, reaching from Barton to Wainfleet, of various breadth, from five to ten miles. This tract of country, called the marsh, is secured from the encroachments of the sea by embankments of earth, and is agriculturally divided into north and south marshes, by a difference in the soil, called middle marsh. The first comprises a large extent of rich salt lands, the value of which is well known to the grazier; the second consists of stiff, cold, and tenacious clay, consequently

of inferior value; and the intervening land is a rich brown loan," stretching across from Belesby to Grimsby. Between these two ridges, of Wolds and Heath, is a tract of varied, but useful · · land, though accompanied by much of a different character. From "The heath-hill, looking eastward, there is no cliff; yet the country slopes gradually into a vale, of soils too various for description, but not good in its general feature. Half way to the Wolds, in a line not regular, there is a rising tract of good land, that is narrow, on which the villages are built; this sinks again into another part of the various-soiled vale to the Wolds. Thus forming, between the Heath and the Wolds, first, the narrow ridge on which the villages are built, set at about sixteen shillings; then the Ancholme flat, at fourteen shillings; the ridge of pasture, at sixteen shillings; a flat of moor very bad; and then the Wolds*." Between these are the following Fens: first, those which lie below the sloping ground of the south Heath, running north by east from Grantham to Lincoln, extending again by the west from Lincoln to the banks of the Trent. Second, those low lands lying upon the river Witham,* forming a triangle between the points of Lincoln, Wainfleet, and Croyland. And lastly, those which lie between the north Heath and the Wolds, in the vicinity of Ancholme.

FENS, RIVERS, DRAINING, &c. The Fens of this county, it has been observed, form one of its most prominent features. They consist of lands which, at some distant period, have been inundated by the sea, and by human art have been recovered› from it. In the summer season they exhibit immense tracts chiefly of grazing land, intersected by wide deep ditches, called droves, which answer the end both of fences and drains. These are aċcompanied generally by parallel banks, upon which the roads pass, and are intended to keep the waters, in flood time, from overflowing the adjacent lands. They not only communicate with each other, but also with larger canals, called dykes and

* Young's General View, &c. p. 9.

drains,

drains, which in some instances are navigable for boats and barges. At the lower end of these are sluices, guarded by gates, termed gowts or gouts. During the summer, numerous flocks and herds are seen grazing over this monotonous scene, and many of the pastures afford a rich and luxuriant herbage; but in the winter, or the autumn, if it should prove wet, the aspect is changed; the cattle quickly disappear; the scene rapidly alters; and the eye must pass over thousands of acres of water or ice, before it can find an object on which to rest, save the numerous wild fowl which then occupy this watery expanse.

There are several causes which combine to produce this drowning of the lands. Many of the fens lie below the level of the sea; some are lower than the beds of the rivers; and all are beneath the high water mark of their respective drains. The substratum of the Féns is silt, or sea sand, which is a well known conductor of water. Through this, when the drains are full, the sea water filters; and, unable to pass by the drains, rises on the surface, and is known by the name of soak. To this is added, after rains, the water which flows from the higher lands, the overflowings of the ditches and rivers, and inundations from the sea, by the frequent breaches made in the banks formed for fencing it out. It is a circumstance no less interesting to the philosopher, than mortifying to the inhabitants of this county, that in many situations where the latter are almost ruined by this element in winter, during summer they are greatly distressed for it, even for the most common purposes. They are often in want of it for watering their cattle. In dry seasons, rich marsh land, which would feed a bullock an acre, being destitute of fresh water, cannot be depastured, and consequently becomes of little value; for any thing of the nature of a flood, to which the vallies or low lands of more unequal districts are so often exposed, has been unknown in this part of the kingdom since the general system of draining has been practised. At this season the drains are very shallow, and the ditches dry, the soak filters off through the silt; and, except in a few places, springs of Nn 3

fresh

fresh water are unknown; so that the cattle must be driven to a great distance for it, at a certain loss in the proof, and at a heavy expence. Another evil also arises from those ditches becoming dry; being the only bounds between fields and farms, each occupier is continually liable to trespass from the straying of his neighbour's cattle, and to actions of trespass for the damages committed by his own.

Of the immense tract of Fen-land in this, as well as the adjoining counties, much has been written, not only because it forms a prominent feature in the face of this part of the kingdom, but from having excited particular attention in the early periods of our history, at various times engaged the most pointed attention of the legislature, and to the present hour has elicited the genius, and employed the most strenuous energies of man, in attempts to facilitate its improvement. Of these attempts, made at different periods, and still making, to obtain the same desirable end, I shall take a cursory view. Previous to which, however, it will be necessary to enquire, whether these lands were originally in a state of Fen, or from various causes became so, subsequent to the period assigned by some writers for their existence? For this purpose, it will be necessary to advert to the natural rivers, and shew how they wind their devious courses through these marsh lands to the sea.

It was the opinion of an able writer, who had entered more fully into this subject than any who preceded or have followed him, that there was a time when these parts of the country were not inundated by the ocean; and though he could not affix any precise time for the event, he suggested several causes, which might either suddenly or gradually have tended to produce it. Speaking of the Isle of Axholme, he says, "For many ages it hath been a fenny tract, aud for the most part covered with waters, but was more anciently not so; for originally it was a woody country, and not at all annoyed with those inundations of the rivers that passed through it, as is most evident by the great num

bers