ALLUVIAL SOILS 35 



seen cut already stood in sheaves. Attractive as this 

 country was, we did not stay, but pushed on into 

 Chichester, as our object was to see the farming in the 

 maritime district of Sussex, a country little known 

 but containing some of the richest arable land in 

 England. 



South of a line from Chichester to Lancing the 

 land is but a few feet above sea-level, and is covered 

 with a deep deposit of brick earth forming a uniform, 

 stoneless, even-tempered soil, easy to work yet 

 sufficiently strong and retentive of moisture to keep 

 crops growing throughout the driest of summers. Just 

 along the line itself, and inland a little until the slopes 

 of the South Downs begin, the soil is lighter and full 

 of stones valley gravel, or " shrave," as it is locally 

 called ; both it and the brick earth are alluvial deposits 

 belonging to the geological or climatic epoch immedi- 

 ately preceding our own. Fertile as is the country, 

 it is flat and unattractive, thinly peopled, though the 

 small parishes and the numerous churches one meets 

 when driving along its winding deep-cut lanes bear 

 evidence that it has always been a rich and productive 

 country ; but the greater economy of labour with 

 which the land is nowadays worked and the decay of 

 the village crafts have led to the reduced population. 

 Unlike many of these areas of old or recent alluvial 

 origin, maritime Sussex is mostly under the plough. 

 Along the watercourses there are a certain number of 

 old pastures, but only a few of them possess any 

 reputation for fattening stock ; here and there also 

 men have laid down land to grass in order to have 

 some firm land on which to put their sheep during the 

 winter, when the arable often gets too wet for 

 folding. 



Our host had long farmed in the district, and had 



