the poacher and the proprietors of the right; the latter, however, down to the latest times, destroying the nets of the former and harrying the interloping gunners in their pursuit of wildfowl. Any attempts to exercise so-called public rights-such as grazing cattle from a distance, taking fuel to "foreign" homesteads, burning ashes to put on land out of the interested parishes, or squatting, or even camping as gipsies do, on this wild but not no man's" land tract was promptly resented and resisted. In this state of nature, then, the whole fen or common remained until the middle of the fifteenth century, when the attention of the country was directed to the removal of the flood water drowning thousands of acres and rendering them uninhabitable and profitless. The main works were undertaken and carried out by the Earl of Bedford and his associates. As a reward for their costs and exertions, portions of the districts benefited (the Great Bedford Level) were allotted to "the adventurers," and as among other larger and vastly more important works was a drain or "cut" of some miles length from Grunty Fen to the river Ouse near Littleport, a rectangular allotment of 426 acres of the highest land in the centre of the 1,776 acres of the fen was enclosed and became freehold land, but subject to a tax for the purpose of maintaining the works by which the great level of the fens had been rendered comparatively dry. A portion, however, of this 426 acres lay so low that the water had to be lifted out of it by a scoop wheel driven by a windmill. Nothing more was done by way of relieving the fen from submersion until about the year 1838, when, in order to prevent the body of water poured into the fen from the slopes of the surrounding seven parishes from passing down the Bedford Level drain into Littleport parish, a catchwater drain or dyke was cut all round the fen at the foot of the slopes or rise, but at such a height as to allow of its discharging itself by gravitation into the river several miles above Ely and Littleport. This work, costing 2,500l., of course indirectly benefited the fen, which thenceforward received no more water than what fell in rain on its own area. It was now a common, bright with water in winter in the pools, as they were called, in the north, but only dotted with watersplashes elsewhere. There were fewer reeds, flags and rushes, but more thistles and ragweed. It was a paradise for goldfinches in the summer and fairly attractive for snipe in the winter. Great changes, however, had meanwhile been going on in the land that surrounded this fen. The seven parishes claiming rights on it had one after another, since the commencement of the century, been enclosed. Fine fields of grain and enclosures belted it in, and the contrast between the "made" land with its hedges, roads, farm premises and labourers for ever busied on it, ploughing, sowing, mowing, reaping, and the dull sulky waste below with its stunted horses and uneasy cattle for ever shifting about in hungry search for a mouthful, was most striking. It had not the varied beauty of a wild Hertfordshire or Sussex common. No encroaching crops on the edge of it (this catchwater drain barred that), with the elder hedge round the cribbed garden, the white linen drying on it, the poultry at large, the children at play, the donkey flitted hard by; beyond, the patches of gorse and ling and the scattered ponds or pits where ducks and geese thrive and busy themselves in the most perfect health. It was obvious that this "unmade" land could not remain in its state of nature, or rather of mauled nature, for this Bedford Level drain and the catchwater drain between them had made the life of the pike precarious, and deprived the wild duck of a safe nesting-place and resort, but had left enough water to unfailingly rot the scabby sheep, and establish ague in the shepherd's home. There was to be another change, the great one; the one thousand three hundred and fifty acres were to undergo the expensive process of manufacture and be "made" land as the word is understood in old-inhabited and cultivated countries. In order to effect this change it was necessary that all having a legal interest in the fen or common should be consulted, and that the majority should agree to the course to be adopted. The persons interested besides the owners of the 426 acres of adventurers' land, were the commoners and the landowners of the seven parishes, and under action taken by outsiders the poor of these parishes as well as the lords of manors had also to have their claims, which did not come to much, taken into account. A short record of the proceedings has come down in writing from a landowner who, acting for himself and others, promoted the enclosure. It runs as follows: In the autumn of the year 1857 I began to see what I could do towards the enclosure of Grunty Fen. It consisted (besides the four farms in the centre of it, comprising 425 acres allotted to the adventurers of the Bedford Level Corporation) of about 1,400 acres. Attempts and suggestions for its enclosure had been made during the past century, among others by Bentham the historian of Ely Cathedral, but they had always failed, and the enclosure had come to be looked upon as an impossibility. The fen was covered in places with anthills, and in summer with thistles which enticed large flocks of goldfinches. The portion under Witchford was swampy and was the abode of snipe, and there was rarely a day in the year on which some gunner was not in pursuit of them. The last day I ever shot on the unenclosed fen I killed thirteen couple. This portion also was dug up for "sods." No one seemed to know who had any legal rights on the fen; every one did what was right in his own mind on it. It was grazed to any amount, and people had in late years begun to dig it up and carry away the soil on to the adjoining lands. It had become a regular nuisance, and as it lay immediately under the new manor house which was built in 1847-48 I was determined the nuisance should cease. During the year 1857, therefore, I ferreted about in the records of the Court of Exchequer and in the Petty Bag Office, and ascertained what was the history of the other fens before they were enclosed. I ascertained what entries there were in the Court Rolls of the different manors adjoining the fen in regard to it, and having mastered all the facts that I could gather I arrived at the conclusion that the fen in former times, centuries ago, was precisely in the same position as the other fens in the Isle of Ely, and was part of the wastes of the adjoining manors and was in fact an inter-common. Prospects were held out of a pro rata allotment to all the highlands in the parishes abutting on the fen with small common-right allotments to the houses. This secured the requisite number of assents (besides those of the lords of the manors) and an Act was obtained for the enclosure. In time a valuer was appointed to adjust the interests of those having a legal claim to participate in the division of the fen, to plan and lay out the lots, to make the public roads and watercourses, and to hand over the recovered acres to separate ownership and cultivation. Six hundred and twenty chains, or seven miles and three quarters of public roads, 30 feet wide, metalled 12 feet wide with 3 inches of gravel on 7 inches of burnt ballast, were made. These cost, with the drains or dykes alongside them, and some other independent watercourses and outfall works, 6,286l. 11s. 2d.; the bridges and tunnels connected with these, 4241. 3s. 8d. The valuer's remuneration at 16s, an acre on 1,350 acres caine to 1,080. In addition to these the fencing and levelling the recreation allotments cost 61l. 14s. 2d. It will thus appear that it cost the landowners-many of them very small people8,4521. 9s. as well as a tax of 100l. a year for the passage of the water to the River Cam, equal at 3 per cent. to a capital sum of 3,300l., or 11,4521. in all, to bring the fen out of its wild state up to its first stages of recovery. If 50 acres be deducted for public roads and watercourses from the 1,350 acres of the fen, the remaining 1,300 acres had to bear this first cost, equal to a charge of 8l. 16s. per acre. Before, however, the allottees could bring their new possession into cultivation, the division fences had to be formed and gates put down. As planting, fencing, and rearing the quickset hedges was done at the cost of about 1s. a yard, and there still remained the levelling of the surface which was covered with holes and hillocks, the estimated total cost of these subsidiary operations would hardly come to less than 21s. an acre, bringing the cost up to 10l. an acre before a ploughshare could be driven through the turf or a beast be turned out to graze. In order to render a very large portion of the land fit for cultivation, under-draining remained to be done, costing in 1862 about 31. an acre, but at the present time nearly double that sum. Some of the reclaimed land is certainly of a very fine quality, but a portion would not repay the cost of cultivation, and is still almost in a wild state, though encumbered with this heavy outlay. The seven lords of the manors had allotted among them 23a. Or. 7p., and there was set for the poor of the seven parishes 24 acres in all of recreation ground, and no less than 237 acres of allotments subject to rent charges. The crowning evidence of modern civilisation is seen in a railway bisecting the fen, with two stations on it, bringing London within a two and a quarter hours' run, and St. Ives market within a run of thirty-five minutes, of these stations. It is to be hoped that the short history of the process and cost of "making" the land, entirely apart from the cultivation of it, may with the other instances already given in this Journal (see footnote, p. 136) help to demonstrate the fact that the farm lands of England, before the cultivator or husbandman could turn a furrow or stock an acre, had first to undergo the process of manufacture at a large outlay of enterprise, money, and labour. This the owner exclusively incurred and provided at his own cost and charges, and acting on lines distinctly special and antecedent to the cultivator's appearance on the scene. The latter then brought fresh capital and different methods into play, but not before the landowner had manufactured the artificial area to fit it for his productive operations. Hazelbeach, Northampton. ALBERT PELL. 142 Official Report. ANNUAL REPORT FOR 1898 FROM THE PRINCIPAL OF THE ROYAL VETERINARY DURING the year 327 morbid specimens were sent by veterinary surgeons and others to the Laboratory which was established at the Royal Veterinary College in 1890 for research in Comparative Pathology and Bacteriology, and which has since been maintained by the aid of an annual grant of 500l. from the Royal Agricultural Society. A great variety of diseased conditions were represented in these specimens, the majority of which were forwarded owing to uncertainty as to the nature of the lesions present in them. In many instances the diagnosis of the disease from which the animal had suffered demanded a microscopic examination, and in a considerable number experimental inoculations had to be conducted. As was to be expected, a large number of the cases were furnished by the bacterial diseases, and by those which are occasioned by animal parasites. In the following pages a general survey will be taken of the incidence of some of the more important diseases of farm stock during the year 1898, and an account will be given of some fresh observations made regarding them from examination of the material forwarded to the Research Laboratory. GLANDERS. The published returns of the Board of Agriculture show that there was a substantial decline in the prevalence of this disease during 1898, the total outbreaks numbering 751, and the animals attacked 1,380, while the figures for the previous year were respectively 900 and 1,629. It is not improbable that this progress in the eradication of the disease is mainly due to the more frequent use which veterinary surgeons now make of mallein as an aid to diagnosis. In the Annual Report for 1893, it was mentioned that certain experiments had been carried out to test the value of this substance in the detection of glanders, and the statement was made that it was "likely to render most important service in any attempt to stamp out glanders." Since then mallein has been manufactured in the Research Laboratory and supplied gratis to veterinary surgeons on demand. The quantity thus supplied was, in 1895, 1,000 doses; in 1896, 1,464 doses; in 1897, 3,032 doses; and during the past year 3,763 doses. The great value of this agent in the diagnosis of glanders when the disease is not manifested by any outward |