398
"TRULY DERELICT."
are at this moment some miles of this unfortunate county that do directly
illustrate the meaning of the adjective 'derelict,' and, concurrently, in the
very opposite sense, illustrate also the meaning of the same term used as a
substantive. In other words, there is within forty miles of London a large
tract of country which is deserted and abandoned; but, instead of being left
dry by the retirement of the water, it is land put out of use by an abnormal
inundation, which has, up to the present moment, completely mastered the
unfortunate farmers. I have just returned from an inspection of this
extraordinary spectacle of farms under water, and of farmers who can look for
no harvest-home in this year of plenty and promise. Who can imagine a
more dismal position than that of an agriculturist smelling the fragrant hay
which his neighbour, close by on the rising ground, is carrying to build up
the great rick; surveying from the top of his stile the glorious fields of poppy-
bordered wheat and barley taking warm colour every day in the July
sunshine ; yet knowing that never a crop can this summer be his? This is,,
alas, the hard situation of the occupiers who have the misfortune to possess
homesteads along the banks of the river Crouch, from Creeksea westwards
to beyond North Fambridge.
"The original cause of this miserable interruption of all agricultural
operations was a phenomenally high tide, unhappily occurring during
the memorable gale of the 28th and 29th November last.
Fragmentary accounts of the damage done appeared in the newspapers
at the time, but there intervened a wonderful run of sensational
subjects, and public attention was soon diverted from flooded Essex. The
bright half-crown quarterly journal of the Essex Field Club (' Essex
Naturalist ) in its May issue placed the corrected facts on careful record, and
they tell of the widespread destruction wrought on the coast and borderlands
of the Thames, Blackwater, Colne and Crouch estuaries—mostly low-lying
country that at high tide in the creeks is below the level of the water. The
pastures have, therefore, to be protected by league upon league of solid earth
embankments from eight to ten feet high, and these have in an ordinary way-
been sufficient, though small breaches have been always occurring from
temporary causes."
The writer then gives the details of the flood, which have
already been described in the E.N., and proceeds:—
"In two days there were 50,000 acres of land thus flooded. As will
presently be seen, little time was lost in turning out the invader and
repairing and strengthening the walls, where there were organizations to
take the task in hand. It is the corner lacking such privileges that is, even
till to-day, truly derelict, because no funds have been found available for
remedy.
"This neglected corner begins, to the view of the railway traveller, soon
after Wickford Station is passed, and is worst perhaps at North Fambridge.
Towards the pretty yachting haunt of Burnham-on-Crouch there are local
authorities who exercise control, and the country side is here and henceforth
green and smiling as of yore. To see the worst of the flooded district
I visited Westwick Farm, owned and occupied by Mr. Armour, an intelligent
and thrifty North Briton, who here bought himself a freehold of 174 acres,
built himself a house, and settled down with his family to the cultivation of
wheat, mangold, oats, peas, and pastures. Last year it was almost entirely