Evening star., 1942-06-21
Britain Reclaims Fenland Acres
BY H. J. ]. Sargint,

North American Newspaper Alliance.
LONDON-An Allied offensive on the
land is going forward in Cambridgeshire,
where modern American farm machinery
has helped to reclaim more than 5000
acres of derelict Fenland along Britain's
eastern seaboard.
For hundreds Of years these acres have
produced nothing for their owners but
meager rentals for duck shooting. In
peacetime no farmer would have con-
templated bringing them into production
ard indeed machinery was not available
to tackle such a forbidding task.
Today the position is different. Britain
has become a vast Allied armed camp.
Every acre that is brought under the
plow releases shipping for more vital
purposes and offsets the acres that are
daily having to be surrendered for more
and yet more airfelds and army sites.
The position is different, too, in that
America, under her lend-lease agree
ment, has sent over to this island sup
plies of the modern farm machinery IN
the production OF which she leads the
world and which alone could tame these
wild areas.
Reclaiming Marshlands.
Most recent area to be reclaimed In
Cambridge is Adventures Fen at Bur-
wood-3O0 acres of duck ponds and
marshland where reeds grow more than
man-high. The whole Fen lies some
IS feet below river level. From october
to March each year 1t was inaccessible
because the cart tracks that led to 1t
were flooded and impossible.
The first job was to lay down cement
roadway. Forty miles Of such a road
now run through the Fen districts, at
cost of 5000 pounds mile. Every mile
Of roadway has brought another 800
acres of land into cultivation and the
cost is reckoned to be we'll justified.
Access to the Fen being assured, atten-
ton was directed to drainage. Four
miles of ditching is needed for every
100 acres of this land-l2 miles of
ditching for Adventures Fen alone.
When the land was dried out, reeds,
high and thick enough to have hidden a
couple of divisions of soldiers, had to be
burnt down-not once, but twice or three
times. The Fen was then ready for an
assault by an Allied brigade of machines
Americas orange-painted Internation-
al, Allis Chalmers, Case and caterpillar
track-layers, pulling Australian sun ver-
tical stump Jumpers and Massey Harris
grub of Canada. The ordinary
British wheeled tractor was useless on
this job, just burying itself in the soft,
peaty soil.
New Machinery.
1t is red letter day in the diary Of
the War Agricultural Committee of Cam
bridge when they get delivery of these
American tracklayers. Next week they
are chalked up to get consignment of
eight-the biggest single ALLEGATION the
British Ministry Of Agriculture has been
able to let them have. Their only prob
lem will be how to distribute them to
the best advantage.
Before this Fenland can make its con-
tribution to Britains food supply hun
dreds of tons of reed and rush roots
must be removed. Every few hundred
yards, too, the tracklayers will shudder
and halt as the deep-digger it is pulling
bites into the hard, black timber of a
bog oak, many of which went down as
much as 1000 years ago. The largest
of these oaks was found to measure %
yards in length and had a maximum
diameter of feet After the surround
ing soil has been loosened the oaks have
to be blasted from their tombs and
dragged away for disposal.
Reclaimed Fenland has proved capable
Of bearing good crop. The average
yield per acre last year was tons of
potatoes, IL tons of sugar beet and 5
quarters of wheat. The soil shows a