The spatial pattern of draining in England has been examined for the period 1845–99 as a whole. Yet the sequence of maps of parishes with draining loans (Figs. 3.4–3.6) indicates that the improvement was not adopted uniformly over those years, there being considerable temporal variation in its occurrence. To understand the timing and rate of spread of the improvement, a chronology of draining activity over the nineteenth century is an essential starting point. Such a time series allows not only the identification throughout the country of those periods of the century when draining was an important element in agricultural investment but also an assessment of the impact of changing physical, economic and technical factors on the adoption of the improvement. A guide to this temporal pattern may be obtained for the whole country in the second half of the nineteenth century from the provision of draining-loan capital, while trends in landlord expenditure on draining in the three groups of sample estates permit a more detailed analysis of the sequence over a longer time period.

The chronology of draining loans

The supply of loan capital for draining under the land improvement acts of the middle of the nineteenth century was not uniform from 1847 to 1899 and two peaks of activity may be recognized: in the 1850s and 1860s, and on a much smaller scale in the early 1880s (Table 4.1).