1 90 Wealden Clay of Sussex. 



consent of those who know it best, this soil is most grateful for 

 good treatment, and has in a striking degree the valuable pro- 

 perty of retaining manure. The effects of manure may be seen 

 for seven or eight years, and there are many well -attested instances 

 of such effects being visible for a still longer time. 



I know of a little farm in the Weald of 25 acres, which had 

 for many years been sparingly manured and over-cropped till it 

 returned no more than the seed, or about 2 bushels an acre. A 

 tanner bought the place, and began by draining ; this he did 

 with horn piths, cutting the drains about 2 feet deep and 25 feet 

 apart. He then improved it year after year by high manuring, 

 which soon began to tell, and he grew more and more till at 

 length he reaped 52 bushels per acre. He has been dead more 

 than twenty years, and the farm has been occupied by several 

 tenants, yet it still shows plainly, when compared with the sur- 

 rounding land, that it has not forgotten the tanner's high- 

 farming. The increase from 2 to 52 bushels per acre is highly 

 instructive.* 



On old arable land, in several parts of the Weald, lime 1 as 

 been used too frequently as a substitute for manure, the place of 

 which it cannot supply. On new land, however, it is indispen- 

 sable, and in land which for centuries lias grown only oak-trees 

 there is a sourness which quicklime neutralizes, while it converts 

 what was noxious into food that is wholesome for plants ; 100 

 bushels of quicklime to the acre is a good dressing, and by the 

 time it is spread this may cost about 6rf. a bushel. 



Wheat of the first quality can only be grown on land that has 

 been limed at no very distant time ; indeed, it seems that all 

 soils are less fruitful which contain no calcareous matter, and to 

 pasture it is absolutely necessary. Chalk I have applied on this 

 clay without any perceptible effect, good or bad ; it was put on 

 grass, wheat, turnips, and beetroot, without any difference being 

 seen in any crop during four seasons. 



With plenty of manure anything reasonable may be done : 

 Avlthoat it, nothing. But the question is, how to get the manure ; 

 for though some may be bought, the main supply must be made 

 by keeping live stock and growing green and root crops for 

 them. These are fully as valuable here as they are on lighter 

 lands, and though not so easy to raise, nor in adverse seasons to 

 cart off the land, they are of excellent quality, and must, in the 

 course of a iew years, be grown all over the Weald, as they now 

 are in some parts of it. Cattle and sheep must be fattened, and 



* In his ' Notes on North America,' vol. i. p. 359, the late Professor Johnston 

 mentions some remarkable instances of the long-enduring fertility of some of the 

 old abbey and other church lands in England. 



