112 The soil and the cmmtryside 



Several of the camps still keep the name the ancient 

 Britons gave them — the Mai-dun, the encampment on 

 the hill, changed in the course of years to Maiden, as 

 in Maiden Hill, near Dorchester, in Dorset, Maiden 

 Bower, near Dunstable, and so on. Some of their roads 

 are still in use to this day, the Icknield Way (the wa}' 

 of the Iceni, a Belgic tribe), the Pilgrim's Way of the 

 southern counties and others. 



Even the present villages go back to very ancient 

 times, and the churches are often seven or eight hun- 

 dred years old. 



In places the land is too steep or too elevated to 

 be cultivated, and so it is left as pasture for the sheep 

 or " sheep walk " ; where cultivation is possible the 

 fields are large and without hedges, like those shown in 

 Fig. 61 ; during autumn, winter and spring there are 

 many sheep about, penned or *^ folded" on the arable 

 land, eating the crops of swedes, turnips, rape, vetches 

 or mustard grown for them, or grazing on the aftermath 

 of sainfoin or grass and clover. So important are sheep 

 in chalk districts that the whole scheme of farming is 

 often based on their requirements, but corn is also a 

 valuable crop, and, especially in dry districts, barley, 

 so that chalk soils are often spoken of as "sheep and 

 barley " soils. Although the pastures are very healthy 

 there is not generally much food or ^'keep" for the 

 animals during the summer because of the dryness. 



The black soil of the fen districts and elsewhere 

 is widely different from any of the preceding. It 

 contains, as its colour shows, a large quantity of com- 

 bustible material (Chap. V.), which has a great power of 

 holding water. These fens are therefore very wet; until 

 they were drained they were desolate wastes : you may 



