A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 

 And he further adds : 



A system, however, or greater barbarity can hardly be imagined ; the country being gener- 

 ally so wet, the means to air and dry it here used are, to exclude the sun and wind by 

 tall screens of underwood and forest around each field, and these being so small, a great 

 number are so wood locked that it is a little surprising how the corn can ever be 

 ripened. 



And adds : 



In whatever light this subject is considered, whether in respect of the landlord or his 

 tenant, to individuals or the public, the woods are inferior to corn, and the first step to 

 an amelioration of the Weald would be the diminution of them. By properly lessening 

 them, the improvement of such heavy soils would already be more than half carried 

 through, and the consequent success great, rapid, and effective. Corn and cattle, mutton and 

 wool, would mark the progressive improvement of the county, and the Weald, in lieu of 

 being covered with woods, would smile with plenty and prosperity. 



Arthur Young, writing further of the Weald, states : ' In the northern 

 part of the Weald the soil is generally bad, a considerable part incorrigible at 

 any expense that will repay the cultivator, and would be most profitable for 

 the growth of birch.' But the country between the forest range and the 

 South Downs he says ' contains much good land, rich, sandy, warm, and 

 fertile clay, generally mixed with some sand, capable of producing every 

 kind of crop.' 



The Sussex Weald in the days of Markham was evidently not a 

 place where one would wish to settle as a farmer. And in the days of 

 Arthur Young, although he admits it contains ' much good land,' yet from 

 him and contemporary writers we learn that its agriculture was carried 

 out under very great difficulties. The badness of its roads was notori- 

 ous, the fields were generally small, undrained, and surrounded either by 

 woods or plantations, growing underwood and oak trees, locally known 

 as ' shaws.' 



Since then, however, a great change has taken place : hundreds of acres 

 of these shaws have been grubbed, land has been drained and limed, fences 

 planted and straightened, roads improved, and with the railways and towns 

 springing up on the coast and their demand for produce of all kinds, agricul- 

 ture has taken a decided turn for the better. In the twenty odd years from 

 1855 to 1877, probably farming in Sussex, as in other counties, had its best 

 times. The farmer in the Weald grew wheat, oats, beans, peas, clover, roots, 

 did some butter-making, or bred Sussex cattle, which he either fattened himself 

 or passed on to his more fortunate neighbour with better land, or to one who 

 held, with his farm, land in Pevensey Marsh. He kept a small flock of 

 wether lambs, which he bought from the breeder on the South Downs, and 

 which he sold out as tegs, again to be fattened off on the better land, or took 

 in Southdown or Kent sheep to keep during the winter. He probably kept 

 one or two sows of the old Sussex breed. 



The four-course system still obtains to a very large extent, and although 

 the system of clear fallows, a few years back universal in the Weald, is not 

 followed to the same extent as formerly, yet the best farmers now have clear 

 fallows at least once in eight years, and more often if through wet seasons 

 any portion of the farm gets very foul. One thing specially noticeable is the 

 absence of lime as applied to the land. Twenty- five or thirty years back 



274 



