periob of tbc IRoman Occupation. 



B.C. 55 — A.D. 420. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE SYSTEM OF HUSBANDRY, 



How then did the ancient British agriculturalists farm in 

 order to pay the land taxes levied by their Roman masters and 

 at the same time eke out a pittance sufficient for their own 

 wants ? "What was the condition of the land and climate at 

 the commencement of the Roman occupation ? To what state 

 of perfection had the agricultural knowledge of the British 

 attained ? What, too, could the conquerors teach the subjected 

 on this head ? These are interesting and important problems 

 which we shall now set ourselves to elucidate. 



"We have already seen that a few light soils in the southern- 

 most parts of the Island were devoted to corn husbandry. 

 Possibly, as in the America of to-day, crops were grown in 

 succession on the virgin soil, until sterility drove the husband- 

 man further afield. The Kentish chalk lands and the Hamp- 

 shire downs would be cleared here and there of self-seeded pine ^ 

 and beech ; favoured plots sown with grain ; villages formed 

 on sheltered, dry uplands, and the flocks and herds pastured as 

 near to their surrounding ramparts as was feasible. If not 

 before, at any rate shortly after the occupation, herds of tame 

 swine would bo kept to feed on the mast and acorns that fell 

 each autumn in the woodlands. But wherever the soil was 

 damp and clayey, or access wanting, the husbandman was 

 frightened away ; so that, save where some straight line of 



' Caesar, Bel. Gal., lib. v. ch. i.-xxiii. 



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