AGRICULTURE 



AGRICULTURE in Sussex has probably maae as great strides in the 

 last century as it has done in most of the English counties, and 

 though the bad times since 1878 have doubtless had their effect 

 and thrown things back, yet when we come to consider her 

 sheep, her cattle, her poultry, and fruit industries, it must be confessed that 

 as a county Sussex holds her own with most of her neighbours. 



Roughly speaking the county is divided into two sections, the South 

 Downs, forming a barrier against the sea on the south, and the Weald, lying 

 to the north of the downs ; the first, a range of chalk hills with only a 

 sparse covering of soil, the second, chiefly clay or a sandstone formation. 



The major part of the county, the Weald, must have been formerly 

 practically one great forest. Gervase Markham writing in 1660 does not 

 give a very happy picture of the Weald of Sussex from a farming point of 

 view. He writes : 



The Weald was for many yeares held to be a wild desart, or most unfruitful wilder- 

 nesse, and indeed such is the nature and disposition of the soyl thereof to this very day ; for 

 it will grow to frith or wood if it be not continually manured and laboured with the plough 

 and kept under tillage. It is throughout (except in very few places adjoining to brooks or 

 rivers) of a very barren nature and unapt either for pasture or tillage, untill that it be holpen 

 by some manner of comfort, as dung, marie, fresh earth, fodder, ashes, or such other refresh- 

 ments ; and that seemeth to have been the cause for which in old time it was used as a 

 wilderness, and kept for the most part with herds of deer and droves of hogs as specified in 

 divers historical relations. 



He goes on to say, 



there be yet remaining in Sussex divers great forest and sundry commons or wastes, having 

 five or six miles in length, which for the most part are not fit to be manured for corn, 

 and yeeldeth but little profit in pasture. 



Markham seems to have been a great believer in marling land in the 

 Weald, and gives minute directions as to the different kinds of marl to be 

 found, the quantity to be applied, as well as the rotation of crops, quantity 

 of seed to be sown, and cultivation for the crops. Marling, according to 

 Markham, with a rotation of arable and pasture, seems to have been the only 

 way in which it was possible to farm the Weald. 



Arthur Young, writing in the early part of the last century, says : 



So predominant is the timber and wood of one sort or another in the Weald, that 

 when viewed from the Sussex Downs, or any eminence in the neighbourhood, it presents to 

 the eye hardly any other prospect but a mass of wood. 



This is to be ascribed to the great extent and quantity of wood, preserved by a 

 custom so extraordinary that it is not a little surprising no steps have been taken to put 

 an end to it. 



When this country was first improved by clearing, it was a common practice to leave a 

 show of wood several yards in width, to encompass each distinct enclosure as a nursery for 

 the timber, &c. 



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