AGRICULTURE 



any one driving from the Weald to the Downs would have constantly met 

 the Sussex wagon with its four horses drawing lime from the kilns in the 

 chalk pits, the lime being ploughed in on the fallows as a preparation 

 for the wheat crop ; now one may go from year's end to year's end with- 

 out seeing lime carting, except for building purposes, and the familiar sight 

 of the heaps of lime on the land is absent. Though possibly liming was 

 over done, yet it is certain that the abandonment of the practice has been a 

 change for the worse and the land has suffered in consequence. 



The growing of hops, once a considerable industry in East Sussex, has 

 gradually declined. Probably this is due in great measure to the fall in price, 

 but it is also due to the fact that practically all the most suitable land has been 

 planted, and much of the old plantation is worn out. Like other crops, hops 

 want a change of soil. Again, few landlords encourage their cultivation, 

 except in specially favoured places, as they think farmers are apt to neglect 

 the rest of the farm for the sake of the hop garden. The cultivation of hops 

 is a very expensive business, running up as high as 50 an acre. Washing 

 is now an essential part of the cultivation, and any one who does not under- 

 stand this should not go in for hop-farming. This process is also expensive, 

 the cost being from 30^. up to perhaps 5 an acre, which naturally adds 

 largely to the cost of production. Picking and drying costs 2os. to 2$s. per 

 pocket of ij cwt., and it will therefore be seen that unless a good yield be 

 secured hops mean a loss to the farm. The average in Sussex is said to be 

 10 cwt. per acre. Sussex is handicapped in hop growing by the fact that 

 its hops fetch in the market less than Kentish hops, though probably the 

 buyers would find it difficult to distinguish the difference if it were not 

 for the marking of the pockets. 



The acreage of hops in Sussex has decreased from 9,989 acres in 1867 

 to 4,647 acres in 1905, and many parishes in which once practically every 

 farm had a hop garden, have now not an acre of land planted with hops 

 in the whole parish, although the oast houses remain to give evidence of 

 a former industry, and give a quaint beauty and character to Sussex rural 

 scenery. 



A great change, however, has come over agriculture in the Weald : bad 

 prices for corn have led to land being laid down; low prices for store stock in 

 many years, and the enormous increase of population in the towns, such as 

 Brighton, Eastbourne, Hastings, with better railway facilities, have encouraged 

 the production of milk at the expense of butter-making and the rearing of 

 young stock, and whilst in the year 1867 the figures (for the whole of 

 Sussex) for arable were 388,304 acres, and pasture 239,611 acres, in 1905 

 they were 249,944 acres arable and 416,753 acres pasture. 



Arthur Young foreshadowed this when he wrote : 



The want of a proper mode of managing pasture is the more reprehensible because it is obvious 

 that the Weald in general, from its natural quality for grass, as well as from the uncertainty 

 of ensuring the production of full crops of grain, is far better adapted to the raising of Cattle 

 than Corn. 



This change, we fear, is not altogether for the better ; much of the so- 

 called pasture really gives but little return, many of the fields have either been 

 badly laid down or else allowed to ' tumble down ' owing to want of capital, 

 nor have the live stock, as a whole, increased to the extent that they should 



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