Charles Dmvson — Ancient and Modern "Dene Holes." 301 



on the surface near the Essex dene holes that no fragments of chalk 

 have been discovered by them, and this has been looked upon 

 by some as evidence that the excavators of these pits, desiring 

 secrecy, distributed the spoil over a wide area. The following 

 passages from the Complete Farmer, 1807, describing this class 

 of chalk-jDit, may have a direct bearing on the above subject : — 



" In making use of it (the chalk) it should be broken as small 

 as possible. It should be dug near the end of autumn and laid 

 on immediately. At that season the air is generally moist ; the 

 moisture will be absorbed by the chalk ; this will occasion it to 

 swell and break into pieces, and if frost comes on it will accelerate 

 the business. It should in no case be ploughed in till its parts are 

 properly separated and ' reduced to crumbs,' and then it should be 

 completely harrowed in and mixed with the soil" 



Mr. Bannister also says, when land is dressed with chalk, pulveri- 

 zation is the chief aim to secure the full virtue of this manure. 



It may seem an extraordinary thing that the practice of chalking 

 from deep wells, like those in Essex, should have ceased entirely 

 and their origin forgotten in that county. At all events, although 

 it seems that these chalk wells were dug in the adjoining counties, 

 we find that in Essex, at the end of the last century, chalk was 

 brought from Maldon, where it was landed in barges loaded from 

 the chalk cliffs of Kent. It cost 10s. a load at Maldon, and was 

 then carted several miles into the country to manure the land. 



Mr. John Bannister, of Horton Kirby,^ Kent, writing in 1799 of 

 the practice of chalking, observes that " there are two methods 

 of obtaining chalk ; the first is, by uncallowing a piece of ground 

 and making it convenient for a pit, where carts may be drawn into 

 it and there filled. This (open working) is on a presumption that 

 the chalk lies near the surface and that the pit is within a small 

 distance of the field on which the manure is to be laid." 



The other method is to sink pits in the field where chalk is 

 intended to be laid as manure, and wliich, Tie says, in Ms opinion, 

 " is far preferable to that of drawing it in carts as before mentioned." 

 " In this case a number of pits are to be sunk according to the 

 extent of the field. These pits are to be made in the form and 

 circumference of a well with an apparatus at the top and a bucket 

 to draw up the chalk. The people who undertake the business, 

 having been brought up to it from the cradle, perform it with great 

 facility, and without timidity, though attended with much danger. 

 A person is employed at the top to draw up the contents of the pit, 

 shoot the chalk into the cart, and wheel the same on to the land. 



" When the labourer has arrived at the chalk, which takes up 

 a longer or less distance of time, according to the depth at which it 

 lies, and has dug some little time therein, in perpendicular form 

 wherein he began the pit, he proceeds to form apertures in different 

 horizontal directions ; so that where the chalk is good, and the pit 

 stands firm, large tracts of ground are undermined for this purpose." 



1 See his " Notes on Agriculture," chap, xviii, title ' Chalk Maniu-e.' 



