THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



21 



of some of the old faiin-liouscs of the Weald, made 

 from a single slab. 



Still the aspect of the low traet of the Weald, as 

 viewed from an emiucuce, is that of a forest, from 

 its numerous woods and coppices, and the wild 

 hedge-rows of its small fields. In this wooded re- 

 gion many old customs and primitive manners have 

 lingered longer than eould have been expected, in a 

 district so near the metropolis, although great inno- 

 vations have been made on them of late. In the 

 Weald of Surrey, not more than thirty years liaek, 

 and not more than as many miles from London, the 

 Mummers went their rounds at Christmas, with 

 their quaint vases and the wassail bowl. A corpse 

 was received at the church with a peal of bells. In 

 some of the churchyards the graves were planted 

 with roses. There were no metalled roads except the 

 turnpike road to Brighton ; and the wife of the 

 Churchwarden, tiie principal farmer iu the parish, 

 had never been farther from home than the neigh- 

 bouring market town, distant some five miles. 



Remote, however, as the Weald or central region 

 has lain from tlie main tide of affairs, it is not 

 without interesting historical remeniscences. On 

 its northern skirts lies Maidstone, which has had its 

 battles and sieges, though not of any cousiderable 

 importance. It was taken by Cromwell; but the 

 battle had no great influence, like some of his other 

 battles, on the residt of the war. He mentions 

 some prisoners having been taken in a hop garden. 

 There is a hop ground there, which has been long 

 under hops, and supposed to have remained a hop 

 ground from that date. AUington castle, in part a 

 ruin, in part a farmhouse, most beautifully situated 

 on the Medway a little higher up the stream, with 

 all the charms that wood and water and hill can 

 afford, was the property of Sir Thomas Wyatt, one 

 of our early poets, and of his son, whose protestant 

 rebellion against Mary precipitated the execution of 

 the Lady Jane Grey. Iligher up the Medway, near 

 its source, is Peushurst, with its venerable oaks and 

 ancient hall, for centuries the property of the Sid- 

 neys — of the gallant Sir Philip, the flower of chi- 

 valry, the poet, the warrior, and the courtier ; and 

 for a time the abode of the other Sidney, the stern 

 republican martyr, in the last great struggle for 

 English liberty. Hever Castle, hard by, must not be 

 forgotten, the birth-place of Anne Boleyn, which 

 became the property of Henry by his marriage. 

 They occasionally resided there, and he granted it to 

 another of his queens, Anne of Cleves. This castle 

 remains in tiie same state as when it was a royal 

 residence, and bears witness to the fact that what- 

 ever may have been the splendour of the dresses, 

 and the retinues, and the sumptuousness of the 

 banquets of the kings and nobles of those days, their 

 abodes were destitute of those comforts and conve- 

 niences which are to be found now even in the 

 cottages of our peasantry. This thought forcibly 

 struck us, when, soon after visiting Hever, we saw 

 a tramping family making their breakfast and their 

 toilette at the same time on a Kentish heath. Tor 

 the breakfast there was a tablecloth spread on the 

 grass, there were tea, white sugar, white wheaten 

 bread, Staffordshire pottery, and Shcfiield cutlery. 

 Eor the toilette table there were a looking-glass, 

 soap, and articles of wearing apparel which Queen 



Elizabeth would have pronounced to be marvi Uous 

 delicate wear, and James the First would not have 

 disdained to borrow from one of iiis courtiers, to say 

 nothing of large drop-earings of quasi-gold for the 

 lady, and a watch for the gentleman tramp, which 

 Charles the First might have envied, if we may 

 judge from the clumsy, warming-pan, catgut-wound 

 affair of a watch, which was exhibited at the Crystal 

 Palace in Hyde Park, as that which he gave to 

 Juxton on tlie scaffold, and which was placed side 

 by side in that exhibition with some of the most 

 delicate and highly-finished specimens of the modern 

 watchmaking art. 



Tjct us now take a rapid glance at the geological 

 structure of Kent, so interesting to the scientific 

 farmer, to which it owes its varied and beautiful 

 scenery, and the rich variety of its agricultural pro- 

 duce. 



In tracing its geological history, we shall discover 

 that of a long series of events of which it was the 

 scene, when, as the proverb says, it was neither Kent 

 nor Christendom. We shall sec the rise and fall of 

 a succession of dynasties long before the days of Boa- 

 dicea and Caractacus. Let us first take the Ord- 

 nance-sheet which contains the county, and exhibits 

 only its physical features. We shall see, a few miles 

 north of the Thames, a steep ridge, curving at its 

 eastern extremity towards the south, and broken by 

 two transverse gorges. To the south of it lies a nar- 

 row and level tract, then a line of hills of some eleva- 

 vation, but less strongly defined than the northern 

 ridge , then, again, a level tract, and, to the south of 

 it, another hilly region, terminating on the coast in 

 the cliffs of Folkestone, and losing itself in a range 

 of low hills near Hythe, now so celebrated as a school 

 for rifle practice, which have evidently once been 

 sea-cliffs. Between this range and the sea is the 

 rich and level traet of llomney Marsh, lying below 

 the level of high water, and defended from the sea 

 by the celebrated embankment known as Dim- 

 ehurch Wall. 



If we now refer to a geological map, these valleys 

 and ranges of hills will be found to coincide with 

 geological areas ; and if, again, we compare the geo- 

 logical map with the agricultural maps of the county 

 — published long before the construction of the first 

 geological map by the celebrated William Smith — 

 it will be found that the geological and the agricul- 

 tural areas coincide in a most remarkable manner. 

 We must not, however, push this generalization too 

 far ; for while the strata — which by a necessary con- 

 vention our geological maps represent as the surface 

 — define the general agricultural characters of a dis- 

 trict, there are upon every rock a great variety of 

 soils of all values, from the highest to the lowest : 

 those variations are dependent upon the depth, com- 

 position, and distribution of the superficial deposits. 

 These, by a necessary convention, are supposed to 

 be removed, in order that the rock nearest the sur- 

 face may be represented as the actual surface. Kent 

 is oj^e of those districts in which the influence of the 

 regular strata on the soil is the greatest, and that of 

 the superficial deposits the smallest ; but, even there, 

 it is very considerable. 



The tract which, on the Ordnance-map, we re- 

 marked as having an abrupt face towards the south, 

 and a slope towards the valley of the Thames, is the 



