UPON SOME PROPERTIES OF SOILS. 71 



been selected on account of the character of the soil ; at all events, 

 when draining was unknown and manure not used it might be 

 considered that a bed of clay upon chalk would be the most suitable 

 soil to select for the growth of corn. I think, therefore, that the land 

 in this district, only four miles from St. Albans and within one mile of 

 a great Eoman road, would very early be selected for this purpose. 

 Unfortunately we do not know what was the actual process of Roman 

 agriculture ; we may, however, assume that two or more corn crops 

 were grown, and that then the land was left to recover ' its fertility by 

 the growth of weeds At all events this was the process adopted 

 several centuries afterwards, for Broderick describes the agriculture of 

 the middle ages as consisting of a crop of barley, oats, or beans, 

 followed by a crop of wheat, and then rest ; the crop of wheat from 

 two bushels of seed giving eight bushels. Not very long after the 

 .Conquest the manor of Rothamsted was granted, although to whom I 

 do not know ; but that it was a very extensive one may be seen by the 

 large number of copy-holders upon the Court-rolls. Where there was 

 a manor there would be a manor house, and although there may have 

 been several before the present one was built, the oldest part of which 

 dates from the time of Edward IV., there is some evidence to show that 

 they stood upon, or not far from the present site ; the woods, the 

 hedges, the fields being very little changed from what they were nearly 

 three hundred years ago, when the property came into the possession 

 of my family. But the question I should like to be able to solve is, 

 What was the nature, the composition of the soil when the first crop 

 of wheat was grown upon it, perhaps fifteen or eighteen hundred years 

 ago ] Although we know something about the timber which was 

 indigenous to Great Britain as distinguished from the trees which were 

 brought over from other countries, I fear the same cannot be said of 

 the native vegetation which covered our fields. Was the deep-rooted 

 lotus or the creeping lathyrus a native 1 As far as I can form an 

 opinion, the land in this district was employed for corn growing at a 

 very early date ; that it went through periods of cultivation and rest ; 

 and that although the soil would be deprived of both phosphoric acid 

 and potash, I do not think that the nitrogen which it contained would 

 be more than that which we find in the present pasture, and probably 

 not so much. Whether the soils resting upon the chalk were or were 

 not in arable cultivation during the Roman occupation, it is quite 

 certain that they have been cultivated with corn crops for a great many 

 centuries ; and if exhaustion of the soil had been possible very little 

 fertility would be left in them. When therefore the term " exhaustion " 

 is used in agriculture it must be understood to refer not to the condition 

 of the land itself but to those ingredients which one farmer puts in the 

 soil and another removes. 



In conclusion, I may point out that however erroneous my views 

 may be with regard to the original fertility of my soil, the fact cannot 

 be ignored that the exhaustion under continued wheat crops without 

 manure has been very slow. Eighteen bushels per acre were grown in 



