THE DAILY LIFE OF OTJE FARM. 137 



as you ask me the question, dash them, as the gar- 

 dener does his young pear-tree stocks, to keep the 

 sheep and rabbits off, with a coating of thick muck- 

 mud, and in that plaister-compound sow. It is in the 

 production of this prolific compost that our heavy Cots- 

 wold flocks pay to fold, so much more than the sweet 

 juicy Southdowns of which you are so fond." 



I have been much interested lately in the study of 

 an adjoining estate, which occupies, as it were, a penin- 

 sula of some miles in extent, all but surrounded by the 

 winding of our wayward river. Raised from the bank 

 on either side, it has for its highest part a ridge of 

 sandy gravel, pounded pudding-stone, and the like ; 

 while in the very next field there is a wide bed of blue 

 limestone marl, and just beyond, again, a red sandstone 

 layer. This present height has clearly once been the 

 bottom of an estuary, subsequently heaved up by 

 volcanic action ; and these so different soils are simply 

 deposits made by the tide at different points of the 

 shore. It is strange to think this now, as one stands, 

 gun in hand after game, amidst a grand grove of old 

 pines, like the wood of Ardennes, which stud the ridge 

 as spines upon the back of a monster lizard species, 

 and feel the cutting wind sweep off a landscape reach- 

 ing away in view of a good fox-chase. Fortunate, 

 however, is the proprietor, for he has there closely 

 accumulated the materials of a rich soil, which only 

 requires to be mixed by a master hand, as his is, to 

 ensure success in the growth of a cereal abundance. 

 By dint of carting the blue marl, during the slack 

 season of the dark months, on to the gravelly tract, 

 he has given it a fertile consistency that has this 

 year enabled it to throw 44J bushels of wheat to the 



