188 Wealden Clay of Sussex. 



or 3 feet square to morsels not so thick as a nutshell. On some 

 farms, under the clay may be found sand ; on some, a brittle 

 limestone full of fossil shells, and called Sussex marble; and on 

 others a hard, heavy, blue limestone is found. 



The best land is that which has clay for its subsoil : it is 

 more retentive of moisture and of manure than the others, the 

 wheat grown on it is good in quality and quantity, and it is 

 observed to be much less liable to mildew than that which is 

 grown on lands of which the subsoil is shravy. 



Draining is the cheapest and most durable of all improve- 

 ments, and nothing can be done without it towards making clay 

 lands grow all that they are capable of growing ; but though 

 most of the Weald lands have a good fall for draining, and all 

 have abundance of clay for making pipes, and fuel enough to 

 burn them, yet draining goes on but slowly. The recent inven- 

 tion of making draining-pipes of all sizes by machinery is of 

 immense value here. Formerly, draining could only be done on 

 a small scale on account of the expense, but now the practice is 

 more frequent. 



In burning either bricks, tiles, or pipes, some very stiff clay 

 shrinks too much in the kiln ; bricks will come out too small 

 every way, and draining-pipes made with a 2-inch die will mea- 

 sure only 1^ inch after burning. But a great deal of very superior 

 brick earth, which hardly shrinks at all in the fire, is found in 

 various parts of the Weald. With a home-made machine, and a 

 kiln made merely of clay, as described by Mr. Hodges in the 

 Royal Agricultural Society's Journal, I made draining-pipes of 

 la- inch after burning. My drains are 30 inches deep and 1 rod 

 apart, and, without offering any opinion as to what might be 

 required on other soils, I am quite satisfied that here this depth 

 answers perfectly well ; for in the Wealden clay there are, pro- 

 perly speaking, no land-springs, so that all that has to be carried 

 off is the surface-water. Some 4 or 5 acres, which I drained at 

 the depth of 4 feet, have shown no superiority over the rest of the 

 land which was drained at 30 inches ; but tlie expense is almost 

 double, as the labour of digging deep drains in stiff clay is im- 

 mense. On what is called shravij land, perhaps, there may be 

 some necessity for making deeper drains, but in all cases wide 

 intervals hettceen them should be avoided. The drains should 

 slope as the land slopes, and the ploughing should be across the 

 slope, so that the rain may not be carried off immediately by 

 the lurrows, but be detained till it finds its way to the drains, 

 which it will do through the closest subsoil. But rain falling on 

 undrained lands, and carried off by surface-drains only, takes 

 with it much fine mould and soluble matter into low grounds 

 where they are not wanted; and where no surface-drains are 



