16 VILLAGE OF SELBOBNE. 



white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor 

 for the plough, yet kindly for hops, which root deep into the 

 freestone, and have their poles and wood for charcoal growing 

 just at hand. This white soil produces the brightest hops. 



As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer Forest, 

 at the juncture of the clays and sand, the soil becomes a wet, 

 sandy loam, remarkable for timber, and infamous for roads. 

 The oaks of Temple and Blackmoor stand high in the esti- 

 mation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval timber ; 

 while the trees on the freestone grow large, but are what 

 workmen call shakey, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces 

 in sawing.* Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes a 

 hungry lean sand, till it mingles with the forest ; and will 

 produce little without the assistance of lime and turnips. 



LETTEE II. 



TO THE SAME. 



IN the court of Norton farm-house, a manor farm to the 

 north-west of the village, on the white malms, stood within 

 these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, or wych hazel, ulmus 

 folio latissimo scdbro^ of Hay, which, though it had lost a 

 considerable leading bough in the great storm in the year 



* The common larch is very soon lost when planted above a substratum of 

 red sandstone. In the Vale of the Annan, wherever the sloping banks have a 

 substratum of this rock, or one composed of a sort of red sandstone, shingle, or 

 gravel, the outward decay of the tree is visible at from fifteen to twenty-five 

 years of age. The internal decay commences sooner, according to the depth 

 of the upper soil, in the centre of the trunk, at the root, in the wood being of 

 a darker colour, extending by degrees in circumference and up the stem, until 

 the lower part of it becomes entirely deprived of vegetation, and assumes a 

 tough and corky appearance. This extends to the whole plant, which gradually 

 decays and dies. On the same soil the oak grows and thrives well. 



The "freestone" to which Mr. White refers, is the white or grey, and may 

 have a different effect on these trees. W. J. 



f The ulmus montana, Sir J. E. Smith, and the most common in Scotland. 

 There are four additional species admitted into the Flora of Great Britain, 

 which are now to be generally met with in the plantations made within the 

 last twelve or fifteen years. W. J. 



