Chapter XVIII: Section IX

_Miscellaneous Observations on the present appearance_, _produce_, _and state of the Fens_.

The elevated spots on which the towns and villages are built in many parts of the fens, appear like islands rising in the midst of low and level marshes; and the churches being generally erected on the highest parts, may be distinguished at the distance of several miles. The cottages in many places are nothing more than mud-walls, covered with thatch or reed. The application of the land is various. The crops of oats are particularly exuberant, the produce being frequently from forty-five to sixty bushels an acre; great quantities of wheat and coleseed are also grown, and generally with a proportional increase. Many thousand acres are also appropriated to pasture.

In the neighbourhood of Elm, Upwell, Outwell, &c. considerable quantities of hemp and flax are grown; but the culture of these articles, as a preparation for wheat, does not receive that attention which their importance demands. Some very fine butter is made in the dairy farms in this district; and the vicinity of Cottenham is famous for a peculiar kind of new cheese of a singularly delicious flavour; which is partly ascribed to the mode observed in the management of the dairies, and partly to the nature of the herbage on the commons. Many parts are remarkably favourable for the growth of corn; but the situation of some of them renders them so extremely liable to be overflowed, that their luxuriant produce is too frequently destroyed by the floods. {74} It is generally said, however, that if the occupiers have one good year in every two or three, they will make a very tolerable shift to live. The sheep in some parts are said to be very subject to the rot, which has been attributed to the neglected state of the fens in those places, occasioning the ground to produce rank and unwholesome herbage.

The grounds are perhaps no where richer or more fertile, in any part of this low country, than about Wisbeach and Long Sutton. The pastures there are exceedingly fine and luxuriant. The crops of corn also are in general abundant, but much more subject to blights than in the hilly parts, and the grain is said to be lighter; and much inferior in quality to that of the high country.

Towards March and Chatteris, the land, though apparently very good, is said to be apt to produce such an increasing quantity of thick moss, as renders it in a few years unfit for pasturage; to remedy which, the farmer has the surface pared off and burnt, preparatory to its being ploughed up; by which means the moss is effectually destroyed, and a good manure provided for the ensuing crops, which are for the most part very plentiful. After a while it is again converted into grass land, and so continued till the moss gathers and appears as before, when the former process is again resorted to, as the only remedy.

One very great inconvenience, which the inhabitants of this low country labour under, is the want of good water, especially in dry summers, owing to the scarcity of springs. Rain-water is the only water they can have for domestic uses, almost throughout the year: to preserve which they have troughs and spouts constructed and fixed under the eves of the houses, by which it is conveyed into cisterns and reservoirs for the use of their families. Even such populous towns as Boston and Wisbeach have no better means of supplying themselves with good water; which in most parts of Britain would be deemed an intolerable grievance. To Lynn, however, the above case does not apply. The country on its eastern side abounds with good springs, from which the town is plentifully supplied with excellent water, as not to be exceeded in that respect, perhaps, by any place in the kingdom.

In Marshland and other parts of the country, it is with no small difficulty that water can be procured for the cattle in very dry seasons. Instances not few, are said to have been known at such times, of their being driven daily some miles to water, as none could be procured at a nearer distance. Such is the spongy quality of the soil in these parts, that pits dug to preserve the rain water would not retain it unless they were previously bottomed with clay, by which the water is prevented from sinking into the earth. Such pits are dug almost in every field; and for all the care and expence bestowed upon them, they are often found empty and useless long before the end of a very dry summer. Thus it appears, that this country, so fertile and desirable in some respects, has its advantages greatly counter-balanced by some very serious inconveniences, from which the more hilly and sterile districts of the kingdom are happily exempted. On the whole, when the advantages and disadvantages of this low fertile country are fairly compared with those of the more barren and mountainous regions, it will probably be found that the favours of providence are much more equally distributed than we are sometimes apt to imagine.

Here it may be further observed, that the system of agriculture, and even the implements of husbandry are different in marshland and the fens from those of the higher parts of Norfolk; which is probably to be ascribed to the soil, or quality of the land being very different in the one from what it is in the other. In the former it is for the most part strong and heavy, but weak and light in the latter, so as not to require more than two horses to draw the plough, and which are uniformly managed without a driver.