SOILS AND WEEDS 5 



possesses a little better pasture, and it is often the 

 custom to retain all the manure made by the cows 

 for the grass land and farm the arable with artificial 

 manures and the cake and corn fed to the sheep. 



The lowest arable land is distinctly heavy and is 

 farmed on the old English " three-field " course of 

 beans, wheat, and barley; it yields heavy crops in 

 ordinarily favourable seasons. In 1910 the thin soils 

 were carrying crops below average ; the barley was 

 only fair, the oats distinctly poor, and though good 

 roots were to be seen, weeds were often more promi- 

 nent. Chalk soils are always full of weeds, and in such 

 a dripping year following on the previous year's 

 inheritance they had almost beaten the farmer ; in 

 places the charlock had outgrown the corn and obliter- 

 ated the lines of the late-sown turnips. By general 

 confession the land is not nowadays so cleanly farmed 

 as of old. On some of the weak spots among the 

 corn yellow-rattle covered the ground, one of the most 

 puzzling of weeds as regards either its distribution or 

 eradication. 



Apart from the dairying, Wiltshire farming has in 

 the main depended upon the sheep ; for the bullock 

 fattening, which is also practised, is only a means of 

 trampling down the straw into manure. The sheep 

 are the big and rapidly maturing Hampshire Downs, 

 though the Wiltshire man is inclined to maintain that 

 the Hampshires both originated and may be seen at 

 their best in his own county. Other breeds are rarely 

 seen, though we did hear of one north-country immi- 

 grant who has introduced and still swears by the 

 Cheviots. The sheep are mostly sold as stores, though 

 some men fatten out their wether lambs ; as with all 

 the Down breeds, they live upon the arable land, travel- 

 ling daily from the down to the fold and back again. 



