108(5 



STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part IV. 



to fourteen acres each, ffew excoe<l 800 acre*, some 600 to 

 1500 acres. Tithes in many parts collected in kind. Leases 

 for fourteen years most common. Many church leases on 

 three lives, some on twenty-one years, renewable. 



5 Implements. 



Kentish tumwrest plough almost the only one known in the 

 county, drawn by four horses in heavy, and three in lifiht soils. 

 Corn rakes in use after mown corn. Stubble rakes to drag 

 stubble together ; first threshing machine erected at Betshan- 

 ger by the reporter. 



6. Enclosing. 



No common field lands but several commons ; fences old and 

 broad, belts of copse more frequent than thorn hedges. Wa- 

 ter fences eight to fourteen feet wide, and from three to five 

 feet deep in the marsh lands ; post and rail fences prevalent in 

 Romney Marsh. Neither fences, drains, or water furrows 

 wanted in Thanet, where com is grown, and often for years 

 in succession without manure. 



7. Arable Lands. 



Plough for all crops from five to seven inches deep. Fallows 

 always made on poor lands. Rotations good. Pease of various 

 kinds for podding are sown from the middle of February to the 

 end of March. Leadman's dwarf and the early grey thought 

 the most prolific. Canary seed and radish seed much cultivated 

 in Thanet and East Kent for the London seedsmen. Radish 

 seed sown in March, and crop seldom fit to reap before October, 

 and is sometimes out on the fields at Christmas without receiv- 

 ing any injury from wet weather ; requires inuch rain to rot 

 the pods thatit may thresh ; will' produce from eight to twenty- 

 four bushels per acre. Spinach sown in March in Thanet ; 

 when in blossom the male plants (it being a dioecious plant) 

 are pulled and given to pigs with advantage. Crop threshed 

 on the field ; produce, two to five quarters per acre. Kidney 

 beans much cultivated at Sandwich and in Thanet for the 

 I^ondon seedsmen : plant from five to ten gallons per acre be- 

 tween the 8th and 20th of May ; if earlier in danger of frosts ; 

 pulled up by roots from August to October, tied up in bunches 

 and hung on poles to ripen ; produce, ten to twenty bushels per 

 acre. Cress and white mustard sown at the rate of two or three 

 gallons per acre in March ; reaped in July and threshed in the 

 field ; produce eight to twenty bushels i>er acre. Weld sown 

 among beans at the last hoeing in the beginning of July : ten or 

 twelve lbs. of seed per acre ; pulled when in bloom, which 

 happens the second year, in .Tuly, and tied in single handfuls to 

 dry ; when dry bound in bundles, weighing thirty lbs. sixty of 

 these a load ; produce from one-half to one and a half load 

 per acre. Sometimes remains in stooks or bams for several 

 years for want of a market; at other times 21/. per load; 

 generally bought by speculating merchants, who supply the 

 dyers with it as opportunity offers. Madder formerly much cul- 

 tivated in the eastern part of the county, now given up ; first 

 cultivated on a large scale near Feveisham. 



8. Grass. 



Hay chiefly produced in the marshes and 'the weald ; pas- 

 tures for dairying on every farm ; but no dairy farms of any 

 extent in the county ; lands in Kent seldom changed from 

 grass to arable, or the contrary. Hay-making badly conducted 

 in most parts of the county, owing to the scarcity of hands. 

 In Thanet and East Kent lean sheep and cattle brought in and 

 put on the marshes and meadows till fit for the butcher. 



9. Gardens and Orchards. 



Near all the great towns a considerable portion of land devot- 

 ed to the cultivation of vegetables ; at Beptford and Graves- 

 end are whole fields of asparagus, onions, cauliflowers, &c. ; 

 at Maidstone many fields of from one to ten acres of fruit trees ; 

 apples, cherries, and filberts rjiised among hops, the culture 

 of which causes the former to grow with great luxuriance ; 

 common practice to plant 800 hop hills, 200 filberts and forty 

 apple and cherry trees per acre ; the hops stand twelve, filberts 

 thirty, and the apples and cherries an unknown length of 

 time. Sometimes apples and cherries in alternate rows with 

 two rows of filberts between ; filberts also raised among hops 

 without any other trees ; trees planted in holes two feet square 



and two ipits deep ; piece* of rock taken ul ; trees stalked and 

 their stems brushed over with lime and night soil, which is 

 said to make them grow exceedingly. The golden rennet ap- 

 ple and black heart cherries, when a few years planted, found to 

 gum and die; yet many old trees in full vigor; cherries do 

 best with land laid down to grass ; filberts answer on few 

 soils ; best cider-maker Stone of Jlaidstone, mixes all sorts of 

 apples ; golden pippin makes good cider alone ; no occasion to 

 watch the fermentation of cider in order to rack it off at any 

 particular time, as alleged in Herefordshire ; eating apples sent 

 to London by the hoys, and to the north of England by the 

 coal vessels. Fruit orchards considered the most valuable es- 

 tates. Tithe on fruit 2. per pound on sales. Cherries require 

 a deep soil, and bear well for thirty years ; filberts a stony, 

 shattery sandy loam, rather inferior ; they will not bear in 

 rich soil ; princiiial hop grounds about Canterbury and Maid- 

 stone, on deep rich loam with a subsoil of loamy brick earth ; 

 produce two to fourteen or fifteen cwt. per acre ; average 

 seven cwt. 



10. Woods and Plantations. 



Principal produce hop-poles, fuel, husbandry wood, and some 

 little for the dock yards ; few artificial plantations. 



11. Improvements. 



Open drains" made between flat ridges by deepening the fur- 

 rows ; turf and brushwood drains in use ; chalk will answer when 

 below the reach of frost ; sea beach and refuse bricks also used. 

 Several windmills which drive pumps to drain the water from 

 inarshlands. Some bogs.drained under the direction of El- 

 kington, and now good meadows. Sea-weed used as manure; 

 several thousand loads are sometimes thrown ashore by one 

 tide and washed away by the next; generally mixed with some 

 yard-dung, which it heli)s to rot; sand spread on stiff soils 

 without being of any use ; powdered kelp sown at the rate ol 

 twenty cwt. per acre on pasture, saintfoin, and clover, with- 

 out any perceptible benefit ; weeding.a general practice ; coun- 

 ty long noted for its clean crops of corn. Thistles in grass 

 lands mown while in bloom never come up again. Some 

 land in Thanet recently embanked from the sea : bank thir- 

 ty-six feet at base, nine feet high, and three wide at top; base 

 of outside angle twenty-two, of inner eleven feet. Borders of 

 the Medway below Ptochester offer great scope for embanking 

 and perhaps warping. 



12. Livestock. 



Neither a dairying nor grazing county : little attention paid 

 to the breed of cattle. Romney Marsh breed of sheep remark- 

 able for fatting early. Fine teams of heavy horses kept at a 

 great expense. A few rabbit warrens ; the rabbits within these 

 few years affected with the rot. Formerly many pigeons, 

 now few ; few poultry but for home consumption ; few bees. 



13. Rural Economy. 



Labor generally done by job-servants, scarce, dear, and saucy. 



14. Political Economy. 



Roads generally good, formed of chalk and flints ; or lime- 

 stone and gravel ; roads in the weald very bad for want of ma- 

 terials. As clay is there abundant, if duty taken off bricks they 

 might be burned on the spot and the roads jiaved ; 340,000 will 

 pave a road one mile long and nine feet wide. No'canals, but 

 one near Gravesend : fairs and weekly markets very numerous. 

 Agricultural commerce of county consists chiefly in export- 

 ing com to London markets. Manufactures trifling. At 

 Down and Maidstone paper mills : at the Isle of Grain salt- 

 works, in the Weald iron works, and at Whitstable and Dept- 

 ford copper works. Gunpowder made at Deptford and Fevers- 

 ham, calicoes printed, and linens whitened, at Crayford. Poor 

 well taken care of, earn from forty to sixty pounds per annum 

 by hop picking and other rural employments for their wives 

 and children. 



15. Miscellaneous Observations.' 



Kent Agricultural Society, established at Canterbury in 

 1793 by Sir E. KnatchbuU and F. Honey man, Esq. Some 

 potatoes dried on an oat kiln were found to retain their pro- 

 perties during long voyages, as attested by letters from the via- 

 tualling office. 



6996. ESSEX, 1 ,240,000 acres of marshy grass-lands near the Thames, and the rest arable lands of a 

 mixed culture, chiefly of corn and herbage. It is an old cultivated county ; contains many small 

 gardens and seed-farms near the towns, and is one of the few districts in the south-east of England where 

 the plough is drawn by only two horses. {Young's Survey, 1810. Marshal's Review, 1818. Smith's 

 Geological Map, 1820.) 



1. Geographical State and Circumstances. 

 Climate mild; north andteast the prevailing winds, which 

 bring blights to plants, and cold and hoarseness to animals ; 

 general both in the high and low lands. 



Soil almost everywhere a loam, and 



generally heavy 



Surfhce beautiful about Havering (Have a ring) from Rom- 

 ford to Lord St. Vincent's and Lord Petre's, both fine seats on 

 the Stour; also very fine from Sharbury to Harwich. 



Water abundant, in rivers, creeks, and springs. 



2. State of Property. 



Estates vary much in size from .'il. to 20,000/. a year : in no 

 county a greater population of small and moderate sized farms 

 occupied by their owners. Managers of large estates sometimes 

 attomies, capital farmers, or private gentlemen. Farmers of 

 all sorts ; land held by farmers on short leases, often at will, 

 sometimes on eight, ten, or twenty-one years' leases. Some 

 of the seed or garden farms neatly laid out {Jig. 766.) 



766 



3. Buildings. 



Waxiiteaii vne of Oie largi-st bouses in the kingdojn 



767 



pulled down, Audlyend well known. Mistey Hall a most 

 striking place. Goss- 

 field, Thorndon, the 

 latter finely wooded by 

 the scientific Lord Pe- 

 tre. Many others ; but 

 some districts of the 

 county with very few 

 seats. Farm houses 

 good, out buildings 

 numerous and conve- 

 nient ; expensive rick 

 covers and barns. Cot- 

 tages not very good ; 

 some built on a better 

 plan, (.f?^. 7G7.) by the 

 Marquis of Bucking- 

 ham, with a garden of 

 one-fourth of an aero 

 to each. Joseph French 

 at East Horndon, find, 

 ing labor dear and 

 servants difficult to be 

 got, took the plan of 

 fixing them by ;baild- 

 ing them cottages and 

 attaching gardens. 



4. Occupation. 

 Some of the largest 

 farms in the kingdom ; 

 so early as I767Arthur 

 Younjg found some at 

 1 500f and 200/. a year. 

 Loxd Braybrook farms 1100 acres, I/ord Petre 1468. Many 

 farmers men of information, ingenuity, and exertion 



