BRADING HARBOUR 37 



the bay is now good pasture covered with cattle, and 

 letting at 30^. an acre there are one hundred and 

 fifty acres of this good ground. Nature has already 

 prepared it in part for it was mud-flat, washed from 

 the valley above and still preserves in contour, though 

 covered with grass, the creeks and " fleets " in which 

 the tide rose and fell. All round the fringes of the 

 flat, where it joins the old shore, the earthworms have 

 descended and made a border of fair soil. On one 

 side sewage has been run into the hungrier soil ; and 

 there, on a natural level, the true use and place of 

 such experiments is seen. Three crops of grass a year 

 are cut from ground which otherwise would not fetch 

 more than $s. an acre a hint, perhaps, for the dis- 

 posal of some of the London "effluent." There 

 remains a portion of dead, sour greensand on which 

 no herbage grows, though the advance of soil and 

 grass may be noted, like the gradual spread of lichen 

 on a tree. Each patch of rushes, each weed and 

 plantain, gathers a little soil round its roots or leaves, 

 and the oasis spreads until all is joined and made one 

 with the better ground. A cattle farm and nursery 

 garden occupy the centre of the sea-weed curve. The 

 farm is already surrounded by rich grasses, clover, and 

 sweet herbage, and the garden is a wonder of fertility. 

 Not only vegetables, but roses, chrysanthemums, car- 

 nations, lavender, and other garden flowers are there 

 reared in profusion ; and in the present month masses 

 of mauve veronica are in blossom. In walking over 

 what is now good pasture, the evidences of the recent 



