SITUATION, SOIL, CHAP. 



plants. Chalk, if it be too near to the top, is not good ; 

 but it is better than clay or gravel ; and by the means of 

 trenching, of which I shall presently speak, chalky soil 

 may make a very good garden j for chalk never burns in 

 summer, and is never wet in winter ; that is to say, it 

 never causes stagnant water. It absorbs it, and retains it, 

 until drawn upwards by the summer sun. And hence it is 

 that the chalky downs are fresh and green, while even the 

 meadows in the valleys are burned up so as to be perfectly 

 brown. No tree rejects chalk -, chalk is not apt to pro- 

 duce canker in trees ; and, upon the whole, it is not a 

 bad soil even for a garden, while, if it have a tolerable 

 depth of earth on the top of it, it is, taking all things 

 together, the pasturage, the sound roads, the easy culti- 

 vation in all weathers, the healthiness which it invariably 

 gives to cattle of all sorts, the very best land in the 

 world for a farm j and I, who have, perhaps, seen as 

 many farms and horne-steds as any man in England, and 

 in as many different situations, never saw such fine, such 

 beautiful, such generally productive, such neat and really 

 rich farms, as in countries consisting entirely of chalk, 

 excepting the mere bottoms of the valleys along which 

 run the brooks and the rivers, and here, too, are the 

 finest of all the watered meadows that I ever saw. 



21. I am by no means, therefore, afraid of chalk, 

 especially as houses are seldom built, and kitchen-gar- 

 dens seldom wanted on chalk hUls. In chalky countries, 

 kitchen-gardens are generally wanted on the sides of such 

 hills, where there is generally considerable depth of soil 

 above the chalk j in which case there can seldom be 

 better soil for a kitchen-garden, if the proper preparations 



