30 The New Forest . its History and its Scenery. 



the whole of it is covered with sand, or capped with a thick 

 bed of drift, with a surface-soil only a few inches deep, capable 

 of naturally bearing little, except in a few places, besides heath 

 and furze. On a geological map we can pretty accurately trace 

 the limits of the Forest by the formation. Of course, in so 

 large a space^ there will be some spots, and some valleys, where 

 the streams have left a richer glebe and a deeper tilth.* 



But the Chroniclers, by their very exaggeration, have de- 

 feated their own purpose. There is in their narration an 

 inconsistency, which, as we dwell upon it^ becomes more appa- 

 rent. We would simply ask, where are the ruins of any of 



words are — " Antiquis enim temporibus, Edwardi scilicet Regis, et aliorum 

 Angliae Regum predecessorum ejus, hsec regio incolis Dei et ecclesiis 

 nitebat uberrime." (Thorpe's edition, as before quoted.) Were this, even 

 in a limited degree, true, the Forest would present the strange anomaly of 

 possessing more churches then than it does now, with a great increase 

 of population. The Domesday census, we may add, makes the inhabitants of 

 that portion which is called " In Nova Foresta et circa earn," a little over 

 two hundred. See Ellis's Introduction to Domesday, vol. ii. p. 450. 



* In support of these statements, I may quote from the Prize Essay on 

 the Farming of Hampshire, published in the Journal of the Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society of England (vol. xxii., part ii.. No. 48, 1861), and which 

 was certainly not written with any view to historical evidence, but simply 

 from an agricultural point. At pp. 242, 243, the author says : " The out- 

 lying New Forest block consists of more recent and unprofitable deposits. 

 This tract appears to the ordinary observer, at first sight, to be a mixed 

 ■mass of clays, marls, sands, and gravels. The apparent confusion arises 

 from the variety of the strata, from the confined space in which they are 

 deposited, and from the manner in which, on the numerous hills and knolls, 

 they overlie one another, or are concealed by drift gravel." And again, at 

 pp. 250, 251, he contmues : "Of the Burley Walk, the part to the west of 

 Burley Beacon, and round it, is nothing but sand or clay, growing rushes, 

 with here and there some ' bed furze.' .... The Upper Bagshots, 

 about Burley Beacon, round by Rhinefield and Denney Lodges, and so on 

 towards Fawley, are hungry sands devoid of staple : " and finally sums up 

 by saying, "half of the 63,000 acres are not worth \s. 6d. an acre," p. 330. 



30 



