AGRICULTURE 



THE cultivation of the soil appears from early times to have been in a more advanced 

 state in Kent than in other parts of Britain, and Caesar himself describes the people as 

 having plenty of cattle and as being more civilised than those elsewhere in the countr)'. 

 This relatively advanced condition was probably due to the proximity of the county to the 

 Continent, and to this fact may also be attributed much of the spirit of enterprise and innova- 

 tion which has in a special degree been characteristic of the husbandry of Kent. It is to 

 Flemish refugees in the sixteenth century that Kent owes the introduction of technical methods 

 of hop-cultivation, although the plant had been grown to some extent in England for a hundred 

 years or more. These peaceful invaders from the Low Countries also brought with them new 

 or improved varieties of fruit and vegetables and introduced the system of ' petite culture ' 

 which is still so marked a feature of the region from which they came. To this day hop- 

 plantations, however large, are spoken of as ' gardens,' a reminder of the conditions under 

 which their cultivation was originally carried on. The Continental features in Kent farm- 

 ing long survived as an integral part of the system more particularly of the eastern part 

 of the county, and it is only in comparatively recent years that they have languished, and in 

 some instances almost disappeared. 



Towards the end of the eighteenth century Boys wrote his report on the Agriculture of 

 Kent for the old Board of Agriculture, and Marshall, about the same time, included in his 

 Rural Economy of the Southern Counties some observations on particular parts of the 

 county. Canary-seed, radish-seed, turnips and colewort, as well as hops, were found on almost 

 every farm having a soil adapted for them. Of ordinary crops on arable land the principal 

 were wheat, beans, barley, oats and peas. Wheat was estimated to yield about twenty-two 

 bushels per acre, and was one of the chief agricultural exports of the county, being despatched 

 to London from Maidstone and the coast-towns in hoys carrying from three to five hundred 

 quarters, which returned with groceries for the supply of the county. Hops were sent away 

 by the same means, the streets and quays of Maidstone presenting an extraordinary scene 

 during the height of the season. Cultivation was mainly arable, and both butter and cheese 

 had to be imported. The fertile alluvial soils round Faversham, Sandwich and Deal produced 

 good crops of wheat, beans and canary-seed, and were under excellent management. The 

 western part of the county was much more inclosed than the eastern, and produced more 

 timber and underwood, the best cultivated land being on the north from Rainham to Dart- 

 ford. The Chalk belt running through the middle of the county from east to west was esteemed 

 of little value owing to the great expense of cultivation. The Greensand and Gault or 

 ' Ragstone ' soils bordering the chalk on the south produced great quantities of hops 

 and fruit in the centre of the county, with poorer soils and much waste land in the west. 

 The Weald was more thinly inhabited and less cultivated than other parts of the county, 

 though its ancient forests, formerly the haunts of deer and hogs, were for the most part 

 cleared. 



The Kentish turn-wrest plough was in use all over the county. Marshall speaks of it as 

 an enormous implement, to describe which verbally were impossible, and he goes on to con- 

 demn its use on the level free-working lands of East Kent as a species of idolatry which nothing 

 but blind bigotry would tolerate. It was an exceedingly heavy wooden implement with two 

 large wheels ' more like a cart than a plough,' and all the furrows were turned one way 

 by means of a shifting mould-board. In East Kent four horses could plough an acre and a 

 half in a day ; in the west, owing to the greater tenacity of the soil, seldom more than an 

 acre was ploughed in a day, even with six horses. Boys, however, claimed for this plough that, 

 for all sorts of soil and all required depths, it was the best he had ever tried, and it is a remark- 

 able fact that, although lighter ploughs have been introduced, the old implement, with but 

 I 457 58 



