CHAPTER X 



THE SOIL AND THE COUNTRYSIDE 



In this chapter we want to put together much of 

 what we have learned about the different kinds of soil, 

 so that as we go about the country we may know what 

 to look for on a clay soil, a sandy soil, and so on. 



We have seen that clay holds water and is very wet 

 and sticky in winter, while in summer it becomes hard 

 and dry, and is liable to crack badly. "It greets a' 

 winter and girns a' summer," as one of Dr John Brown's 

 characters said of his soil. Clay soils are therefore hard 

 to dig and expensive to cultivate : the farmer calls them 

 heavy and usually prefers to put them into grass 

 because once the grass is up it lasts as long as it is 

 wanted and never needs to be resown. But in the days 

 when we grew our own wheat, before we imported it 

 from the United States and other countries, this clay 

 land was widely cultivated for wheat and beans. So 

 long as wheat was 60/- to 100/- a quarter it was a very 

 profitable crop, but, when some forty years ago it fell to 

 40/- and then lower still, the land either went out of 

 cultivation like the "derelict" farms of Essex, or it was 

 changed to grass land and used for cattle grazing. 

 Great was the distress that followed; some districts 

 indeed were years in recovering. But new methods 

 came in: the land near London was used for dairy 



