DRAINS AND POPULATION.
Yet the population has not fallen here in anything approach- ing the proportion registered in some neighbouring villages. The biggest of them had over 800 forty years ago, and has now only 200 odd, though at the moment some steps are being taken to restore some of the cottages that have fallen into ruin. A year or two ago this village was especially visited by a trade-union organizer, who had the gift of getting on well with most classes, even the fanners. He
• found, of course, that the principal cause of the loss of population was the substitution of grass—if the weedy wastes can be so described—for arable crops ; but the farmers' united opinion on the subject took the analysis a stage further. They said that they could double the number of labourers if their land was drained. It is certainly true of clay soils and low-lying ground that the most urgent need- of rural England is a supply of mole-drainers and capital to use them.
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