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flooding and warping. A description of it here would thereforebe out of placeit will be found in Dr Rennie’s Essays.
Section VIII.
Cautions and Directions to It observed in Flooding Waste Lands.-
However obvious and great the advantages of flooding suchfends may be, yet there are cases in which it may be dangerousto attempt it; and in some instances, all these advantages maybe lost by injudicious cropping after that operation. On this ac-count, the following, cautions are submitted to the attention ofthe public.
First, Some mosses, when flooded, are apt to be gorged up tosuch a pitch, as to burst, and overflow the adjacent fields. In-stances of this are pointed out in Dr llennie’s Second Essay.Innumerable bogs in Ireland are, on this account, unfit for flood-ing in the first instance; and all such as contain' a considerablebody of water, or pulpy moss, below the more solid surface, andwhich, on this account, rise and sink alternately in wet' and dryweather, ought to be flooded with caution; especially if they lie,'like the Solway and other mosses which I have examined, abovethe level of adjacent fertile lands.
To prevent the possibility of any danger of this kind, all suchmosses ought to be drained and tapped for some years beforethey bfe dug or flooded. The draining will consolidate the sur-face ; and if the bottom of all these drains be bored down to thepulpy moss below, the under water, by this tapping, will be press-ed out and carried off. In a few years, the whole will collapse,and be consolidated to such a pitch, that it may be dug and flood-'ed with safety and success.
Secondly, When mosses ate flooded at first, the water shouldbe let off with rapidity.- lly this means, the juices and sterilequalities of such a soil, while rendered soluble, may be washedaway to a greater extent; but after alkaline solution, or 1 rich wa-ter containing sea-sand, sleich, or salts of any kind, have beenlet in upon the moss, the water in these cases should be let off asslowly as possible.
Thirdly , When any mossy soil'is reclaimed by flooding in thefirst instance, and can afterwards be flooded with ease and ad-'vantage, it should be laid down in grass after the first, or at leastthe second crop. By this means, it will be converted at onceinto 1 a fertile meadow; and if afterwards flooded from time to -time, it will still become more fertile and more consolidated. Iflevel free, it may then be drained to such a pitch, as to be cul-tivated and cropped as other land, in alternate white and greeacrops.
Fourthly, If moss, however, lies 400 or 500 feet above the le-tel of the sea, or upwards, it ought never to be cropped with-