IX 

 ESSEX SEED CORN 



As we approached Gravesend along the Watling Street, 

 we left behind the fruit and hop country, and ran 

 once more into the cornland, large open fields lying on 

 the lower slopes of the chalk and the Tertiary formations 

 which cover it in North Kent. To our right lay the 

 Hundred of Hoo, with some light land at its extremity 

 which is intensively cultivated for early potatoes and 

 vegetables ; but the greater part of the peninsula is 

 farmed in a more ordinary fashion and derives its 

 chief agricultural value from the rich pastures which 

 border the Thames estuary. These " marshes " form 

 a continuous belt of low-lying alluvium, protected 

 from the inroads of the sea by high banks, which 

 stretches from Deal and Sandwich along the Stour and 

 the old line of the Wantsum to the Roman fortress 

 at Reculvers, and then, after a little interruption east 

 of Whitstable, borders the Swale Channel between 

 Sheppey and the mainland and extends along the 

 Thames as far as Plumstead. The great liners 

 overlook the sea wall as they drop down the river 

 at half speed, otherwise these marshes are among the 

 most remote and solitary of pastures, where rare duck 

 breed in the ditches and the Kent sheep lie in 

 summer almost as thickly as on Romney Marsh. 

 The soil is of the heaviest, built up, no doubt, from 



