being wholly in meadow, suffers very heavily from the destruction
of its hay. So sudden are the inundations, that it frequently
happens that hay made in the day has, in the night been found
swimming and gone. A public-house sign at Wansford commemorates the
locally-famed circumstance of a man who, having fallen asleep on a
hay-cock, was carried down the stream by a sudden flood: awakening
just under the bridge of that town, and being informed where he
was, he demanded, in astonishment, if this were 'Wansford in
England.'"

The fact that the floods in that neighborhood now reach their height in
half their former time, in consequence of the drainage of the "upland
farms," is very significant.

Mr. Denton thus speaks upon the same point, though his immediate subject
was that of compulsory outfalls.

"Although the quantity of land drained was small, in comparison to
that which remained to be drained, the water which was discharged
by the drainage already effected found its way so rapidly to the
outfalls, that the consequences were becoming more and more
injurious every day. The millers were now suffering from two
causes. At times of excess, after a considerable fall of rain, and
when the miller was injuriously overloaded, the excess was
increased by the rapidity with which the under-drains discharged
themselves; and as the quantity of water thus discharged, must
necessarily lessen the subsequent supply, the period of drought was
advanced in a corresponding degree. As the millers already saw
this, and were anticipating increasing losses, they would join in
finding a substitute for water-power upon fair terms."

It is not supposed, that any considerable practical effects of drainage,
upon the streams of this country, have been observed. A treatise,
however, upon the general subject of Drainage, which should omit a point
like this, which must, before many years, attract serious attention,
would be quite incomplete. Whether the effect of a system of
thorough-drainage make for or against the interest of mill and meadow
owners on the lower parts of streams, should have no influence over
those who design only to present the truth, in all its varied aspects.

As some compensation for the evils which may fall upon lands at a lower
level, by drainage of uplands, it may be interesting to notice briefly
in this place, some of t