James Sanderson

“ The profitable results obtained from drainage expenditure furnish sufficient grounds for imparting a fresh and vigorous impulse to the draining of land. The present indeed is a most suitable time, as money is so abundant that it can scarcely find employment, while, from the almost total cessation in the constructing of railroads, labourers were never more plentiful. ”

“ It is, however, only fair to tenant farmers to state that many of them are equally anxious with their landlords to have their farms drained on a proper system, as I have found in the draining of the extensive estates of the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Marquis of Downshire, and Admiral Warde, where the tenants not only readily agreed to pay the interest on the outlay, but in every way facilitated the progress of the works. Owners and occupiers, indeed, reap equally satisfactory returns from drainage, the former getting their estates permanently improved without expending one shilling of their own ”

“ Durham, with its moorish surface-soil and carboniferous subsoil, has one-third of its produce injured by stagnant water; one-half of Middlesex, although situate under the shadow of the Metropolis, yields, for the want of draining and liming to reduce its stubborn soil, only hay for cattle. The extensive breadth of land which stretches from Seven Oaks Weald to Reigate on the one side, and to Tunbridge Wells on the other, is, on account of its heavy labour expenditure, from neglected drainage, scarcely worth cultivating ”

“ In the northern counties of England, in Devonshire, and in Wales, there are at least 2,000,000 of acres of mountain land now almost valueless, but which, at a comparatively trifling cost, could be made to yield rich pastures. A very large breadth of moor and forest land contributes almost nothing for the support, of man; while, in not a few districts, one-fifth of the total area is occupied by superfluous and irregular fences. ”

“ Adding to the undrained area above referred to, the extensive breadth of undrained land in Scotland and Ireland, the large reclaimable mountain area, the wide tracts of convertible forest and moor land, and the very large area reclaimable from the sea, and from the straitening and embanking of rivers, we see that the undeveloped food resources of Great Britain are still vast, and tend in no small degree to brighten future prospects. ”

“ The subject may seem unimportant to many, as it may be reasonably inferred, from the fact of this country being dependent on foreign supplies to the extent of nearly one-third of its entire consumption, that its agricultural resources are developed to their utmost limits. While the premises are true, the inference is groundless. The actual condition of English agriculture reveals a widely different state of matters. ”