52 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



self on the top of a Salisbury coach, some fine, hot, 

 midsummer's day, and take a trip across the Marl- 

 borough downs, and then you will see what it is to 

 have a thirsty chalk subsoil upon high land, " where 

 no water is " : and then you will see reason to con- 

 clude that there may be some problems even more 

 puzzling to deal with, amidst the infinite variety of 

 earth's surface, than a clay subsoil. 



As late as the middle of the fifteenth century, 

 we are told by an old writer* on husbandry matters, 

 " Lime, even close to the kiln, was dearer than Oats ;" 

 an odd comparison, yet forcible too; and as roads 

 were then not exactly what they are now, it is easy to 

 see that our forefathers had reason good for making 

 the Marl-pit do duty for the Lime-kiln. f The inor- 

 ganic matter that was jogged away from the Farm 

 with every bushel of wheat or pound of butter or 

 cheese that went to market, did not come back again 

 from the clouds. They soon found out that. Human 



* Whitaker, Hist, of Craven, p. 324. 



f It is worth remark that Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, Chief 

 Justice of the Common Pleas, whom by the bye I hardly de- 

 serve to quote, seeing he calls liimself " an cxperyenced farmer 

 of more than 40 yeares") in his 'Boke of Husbandrie,' pub- 

 lished in 1523, frequently mentions the employment of Mar], 

 but in his list of Manures, etc., omits Lime altogether. 



