natural or available grass-land. The remedy is simple. The mill-dams are impediments to the free action of the landowners, but very generally this difficulty may be overcome. The wetness of the meadows is not, even near the mill-heads, due to soakage from the river, but from stagnation in the soil of water derived from springs on either side of the valleys. As a remedy, first a ditch should be cut as near to the side of the valley and as far from the river as possible. In some cases pipes of large bore might be used; the spring-water should then be led below the outfall provided by the next mill-dam; the cleansing of the ditches, brick-rubbish, or any hard material, should be placed or even piled on the surface of the meadows; then with ordinary attention to keeping up the river-banks and filling up all transverse ditches, much valuable land might be reclaimed from its virtual sterility.
Water-Cresses.
A new rival to the water-meadow has sprung up of late from the artificial culture of water-cresses. Fifty years ago those who sold this plant were content “to strip the brook with mantling cresses spread.” One such was Mr. Bradbury, to whom the idea suggested itself that water-cresses might be cultivated to advantage. He obtained permission first to try the experiment in spring-ditches at West Hyde, in the parish of Rickmansworth, just on the borders of Bucks, and satisfied the occupier of the land that the cleansing of the ditches and regulation of the height of the water in them as practised by Mr. Bradbury was beneficial. The ditches were next let at a certain rent and under certain restrictions, and very shortly Bradbury’s cultivated water-cresses became a regular article of traffic in the London market. From this small beginning a large trade has sprung up, which now extends to the Manufacturing Districts. The persons who hire the spring-ditches for the cultivation of the plant scour and cleanse them with much care, level their bottoms, and often expand their area till they form a series of shallow lakes, in which the height of the water is regulated by dams. These dams are either permanent—formed of stones or two lines of boards, supported by stakes, between which clay is rammed; or temporary—consisting of moveable boards, bricks, or other materials. These, in some cases, are either placed transversely to the flow of the water, to keep it to its required level in the subdivisions of the beds, or else so arranged that the stream may be conducted under the bank-side, apart from the adjacent bed, as by an irrigation-carrier, to any spot below. Very frequently borings are made in the chalk to facilitate the issue of the clear spring-water in its purity, which is deemed of great
