and one spade's graft beneath, how deep soever it be, if thou wilt drayne thy land to purpose. I am forced to use repetitions of some things, because of the sutablenesse of the things to which they are applyed, as also because of the slownesse of peoples apprehensions of them, as appears by the non-practise of them, the which wherever you see drayning and trenching you shall rarely finde few or none of them wrought to the bottome." But for these common and many trenches, ofttimes crooked too, that men usually make in their boggy grounds, some one foot, some two, I say away with them as a great piece of folly, lost labor and spoyl, which I desire to preserve the reader from."*

Equally sagacious are the directions about outfalls "to take thy water clearly from thy drayne." On the subject of straightening tortuous and sluggish watercourses, this man of the Commonwealth was in advance not only of his own day but of ours:

"A strait water-course cut a considerable depth in a thousand parts of this nation would be more advantageous than we are aware of. And though many persons are interested therein, and some will agree, others will oppose; one creek lyeth on one side of the river in one lord's manor, and another lyeth on the other side: why may not one neighbour change with another when both are gainers? I dare say thousands of acres of very rich land may thereby be gained, and possibly as many more much amended that are almost destroyed."

And he proposes a law which shall give facilities for this improvement, and shall protect all interests. Having discoursed to the Lord General on seven prejudices to land,

In the materials for forming the conduit in a covered drain, no advance seems to have been made from the time of Cato to that of Walter Blith. Cato says, "Sulcos lapide consternito. Si lapis non erit, perticis saligneis viridibus quoquoversus collatis consternito. Si pertica non erit, sarmentis colligatis." Blith's directions are: "Thou must take good green faggots, willow, alder, elme, or thorne, and lay it in the bottome of thy works; or rather take great pibblestones or flintstones."

he thus proceeds: "The eighth prejudice may be the many water-mills which destroy abundance of gallant land; turning it to a bog, or to mire, or else to flagg, rush, or mareblabb; some mills, worth 10. or 12. per annum, destroy land worth 201., 30%., or 401. per annum. I knowe it of my own knowledge."-Every word of which is as true in the year 1849 as it was in 1652; and the remedies which he proposes are now even more appropriate and efficient, because we are able to substitute steam power for wind and horses, which he contemplated. To prostrate the weirs on all our sluggish streams would be the greatest recovery of "gallant" land which now remains feasible in England. The day of their doom is probably at hand. Most of our water corn-mills are of barbarous structure, inconveniently situated as to roads, and expensive in the maintenance of their weirs, floodgates, banks, and goats. Many on the larger streams lose one-third of their time in winter from excess of water, and those on the smaller the same amount in summer from deficiency. We remember an instance in which all the mills on the river Soar, in Leicestershire, stood still for six weeks continuously on account of flood. Through all the north and centre of England, as well as through considerable portions of the west, good engine-coal is delivered at all railway stations at from 4s. to 7s. per ton, and 3s. 6d. per ton is not an uncommon price at the pits. These prices will be more effective enemies to the beggarly water-mills, and more powerful friends to the gallant lands, than Walter Blith's denunciations. In a report made by Mr. Josiah Parkes to the President of the Board of Health, we find the following remarks, to which we give our hearty as

sent:

66

The sluggish rivers of the midland and southern counties of England oppose great impediments to land-drainage, being usually full to the banks, or nearly so, and converted into a series of ponds by milldams erected at a few

miles' distance below each other; so that frequently no effectual drainage of the richest alluvial soil, composing the meadows, can be made without forming embankments, or by pumping, or by resort to other expensive means. The greater number of corn and other water-mills throughout England ought to be demolished for the advantage of agriculture, and steam-power should be provided for the millers. I believe that such an arrangement would in most cases prove to be economical for both parties.

"A striking example of the economical and beneficial result arising from the destruction of milldams, and the substitution of steam for water power, has recently been exhibited under the operation of The Rye and Derwent Drainage Act,' resulting from the wise and friendly cooperation of the Earls of Carlisle and Fitzwilliam (the chief proprietors), with other landowners, to knock down three milldams and give the millers steam, thereby restoring the river to its natural bed and proper function as the great artery of drainage, and enabling thousands of acres of land to be drained and reclaimed, or brought into more profitable cultivation at a very moderate cost. This excellent work has its termination at New Malton, in Yorkshire.

"If all the rivers of England were surveyed, from the sea to their source, the mills upon them valued, the extent of land injured or benefitted by such milldams ascertained, and the whole question of advantage over injury done to the landowners appreciated and appraised, I have little doubt but that the injury done would be found so greatly to exceed the rental of these mills, deduction being made for the cost of maintaining them, that it would be a measure of national economy to buy up all the mills and give the millers steam power."

We wish our limits would permit us to follow the Captain through the dissertation on over-ploughing, thick and thin sowing, and various sorts of manures, and to extract a very

acute passage on the application of chemistry to agriculture. We strongly recommend the third edition of "The English Improver" to such of our readers as are not scared by a discursive style and great neglect of arrangement, and are willing to winnow a great deal of corn out of a very confused heap of chaff. The work is embellished by a frontispiece, at the top of which the royal and parliamentary forces encounter each other in hostile array. In the centre they are beating their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruninghooks; and at the bottom they are ploughing with two horses abreast, and performing other agricultural operations. Various plates give drawings of a wind-mill. fitted with a scoop or lading-wheel for draining fens, and a great number of agricultural tools and implements; among others, The Harfordshire wheeled plough," condemned by Blith for its clumsiness, but still retaining its place in parts of that county; and "The double Plough, ploughing two furrows at one time," which still lingers in the midland counties. Nor must we forget a picture of the gallant Captain, given in connection with a water-level devised by himself, and which seems to be identical with one lately re-introduced into this country from Italy, and patronized by Prince Albert and other eminent agriculturists. The Captain's figure is very imposing, but in most unagricultural garb-a wig as fine as the Speaker's, ruffles, trunkhose, and spurs. He holds in his hand the levelling-staff, which is fitted with a sliding bull's-eye after the modern fashion. We part from this sagacious veteran with much affection. A fine patriotic spirit pervades all his reflections, as well as a strict morality, tinged perhaps with a little puritanism.*

* Since we penned the above, we have observed that Mr. Parkes introduced Captain Blith to his hearers in a lecture delivered at Newcastle before the Royal Agricultural Society, and published in vol. vii. of their Journal. Mr. Parkes has selected for quotation from Blith several of the same passages as ourselves, and he mentions one remark

In England the two cases of injury from water which has passed through the earth, and water which has not, are very frequently complicated, and run into one another by an almost insensible gradation. Except in very barbarous and some sub-alpine districts, the era of draining for mere springs has passed by, and the work has on the whole been well executed. We possess better materials for forming a conduit, and some better tools, but probably no other advantage over old Elkington.* We know very little beyond what he taught us, and perhaps do not require to know more. Joseph Elkington was a man of considerable genius, but he had the misfortune to be illiterate, and to find a very inefficient exponent of his opinions, and of the principles on which he conducted his works, in John Johnstone. Every one who reads the work, which is popularly called Elkington on Draining, should be aware, that it is not Joseph who thinks and speaks therein, but John, who tells his readers what, according to his ideas, Joseph would have thought and spoken. In one portion of the book, entitled "On Hollow and Surface Draining in general," which is discussed in nineteen sections, Johnstone teaches avowedly in his own person, his first sentence being, "This is a part of the draining system not coming within the limits of Mr. Elkington's practice." It is enough to say that these nineteen sections do not contain a single suggestion of any value to a modern drainer. A reader who has some previous acquaintance with the subject will get a general idea of Elkington's discovery and method from the earlier portion of the book, though, unless he has seen some of Elkington's work, he will not therefrom form an adequate opinion of his sagacity. Johnstone measured by general capacity, is a very shallow drainer. He

able point which had escaped us, that this old drainer, " prescribes, in all cases, excepting for water-meadows, the driving the drains right up and down the fall of the land."

• "An Account of the most approved Mode of Draining Land, according to the System practised by Mr. Joseph Elkington." By John Johnstone, Land Surveyor. Edinburgh, 1797.