52 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



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 not then exactly what they are now, 

 it is easy to see that our forefathers had reason good 

 for making the Marl-pit to do duty for the Lime- 

 kiln, f The inorganic 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 instinct and experience had dis- 

 covered the gradual loss of something, which neither 



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



fit 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 himself ' an experienced farmer 

 of more than 40 yeares,') in his ' Boke of Husbandrie,' published 

 in 1523, frequently mentions the employment of Marl, but in 

 his list of manures, etc., omits Lime altogether. 



