which, when turned up to the frost and rain, moul- 

 ders to pieces and becomes manure to itself. 



Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a 

 kind of white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit 

 for pasture nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops, 

 which root deep into the freestone, and have their 

 poles and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. 

 This white soil produces the brightest hops. 



As the parish still inclines down towards Wol- 

 mer Forest, at the juncture of the clays and sand, 

 the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for 

 its timber and infamous for roads. The oaks of 

 Temple and Blackmoor stand high in the estimation 

 of purveyors, and have furnished much naval tim- 

 ber ; while the trees on the freestone grow large, 

 but are what workmen call shaky, and so brittle as 

 often to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy 

 loam the soil becomes a hungry lean sand, till it min- 

 gles with the forest; and will produce little without 

 the assistance of lime and turnips. 



LETTER II. 

 To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 



In the court of Norton farmhouse, a manor-farm 

 to the north-west of the village, on the white malm, 

 stood within these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, 



