186 Wealden Clay of Sussex. 



to be seen. Peas are grown, but to no great extent, and, as in 

 other places, they are a very uncertain crop. 



Excellent crops of clover are grown in the Weald, but, as 

 in other parts of England, the land has in many instances 

 become sick of clover, though no man has yet been able either 

 to account for this sickness or to cure it. No kind or quantity 

 of manure has afforded any remedy : after an interval of eight 

 or more years, however, the land will have regained its clover- 

 bearing qualities, and a crop will be certain. Clover is, of 

 course, followed by wheat ; and, as the clover too often fails, 

 rye and other grasses mixed, under the name of bents, are sown, 

 though it is one of the worst preparatory crops for wheat, espe- 

 cially when the grass is allowed to form its seed and thus rob 

 the land as much as a crop of corn would do. 



Very good crops of winter tares are grown on the clay, which, 

 if they be fed off or the land be manured, may be advantageously 

 followed by wheat. Sometimes the tares stand for seed, and 

 then wheat is taken, which is very bad management, and I have 

 known a heavy crop of tares ploughed in when in blossom to 

 serve as manure for the succeeding wheat-crop. 



Oats are frequently grown on a wheat-stubble; they are light 

 in quality, and not very productive as to quantity. The Tartarian 

 or one-sided oat is the kind generally grown ; they are sown 

 late, commonly as late as the end of March. Barley is not 

 much grown, though in some cases it yields pretty well ; it 

 never makes a handsome sample. 



The Weald clay, when limed, manured, and sown with grass- 

 seeds adapted to the soil, makes pretty good pasture, and, if well 

 underdrained, is more fattening than might be supposed ; but 

 it ought to be fed as much and mown as seldom as possible, for 

 no land that I am acquainted with bears the scythe worse. 



Of the Wealden Clay. 



The thickness of the Wealden clay varies from 140 to 280 

 feet : it sometimes includes beds of sand and limestone; it is of 

 various colours, generally yellow, but sometimes blue and brown, 

 and is more or less stiff and tenacious in quality. William 

 Smith, the " father of geology," called it the Oak-tree clay. 

 Though it varies considerably in some particulars, it is all ex- 

 ceedingly sticky when wet, and, if ploughed in that state, turns 

 up in large masses, which as they dry become hard as rock. If 

 possible, land of this description should be ploughed only when 

 in a dry state, for no harrowing or rolling will reduce these 

 clay blocks to a fine mould, though every summer shower in 

 succession will in some degree pulverize them ; but if it be 



