Among the great variety of expedients employed to drain the marshes, where the regular and common means have failed, is the erection of windmills, or rather engines worked by the wind, which, from their number and situation in some parts of the fens, present a very singular and rather queer and grotesque appearance. These raise the water to a sufficient height to admit of its being conveyed into receptacles enough elevated to carry it into its proper channel. A great many thousand acres, within the extent of this low country, are still in the condition of waste unimproved fen, the average value of which is said to be little more than four shillings an acre. One writer states that upwards of 150,000 acres are in that condition in Cambridgeshire alone, {73a} which, however, has been thought by others somewhat inaccurate, and beyond the truth. Be that as it may, the quantity of such lands in the fens is certainly very great, and must sufficiently demonstrate that the immense labour bestowed, in draining the Level, has not been attended with the salutary effects which the promoters of the various plans too fondly imagined and promised; and it may still be questioned whether the remedies proposed, and partially executed, are adequate to effect the intended purpose. {73b} SECTION IX. _Miscellaneous Observations on the present appearance_, _produce_, _and state of the Fens_. The elevated spots on which the towns and villages are built in many parts of the fens, appear like islands rising in the midst of low and level marshes; and the churches being generally erected on the highest parts, may be distinguished at the distance of several miles. The cottages in many places are nothing more than mud-walls, covered with thatch or reed. The application of the land is various. The crops of oats are particularly exuberant, the produce being frequently from forty-five to sixty bushels an acre; great quantities of wheat and coleseed are also grown, and generally with a proportional increase. Many thousand acres are also appropriated to pasture.