GRAVESEND. 399 



the hawthorn of which the hedge had been made. There 

 were no acre-reins out on the ploughed fields, but only very 

 narrow ones at the sides of the fields, close to the hedges. 

 These were so narrow that one could with difficulty walk 

 upon them still less mow any hay there. In most places 

 these ploughed fields lay full of small Pebblestones. The 

 land was ploughed quite even and flat, that which was 

 sown with wheat as well as that with other kinds of 

 crops, but there were some riggs or stitches. There were 

 very many weeds on a great part of their fallow fields. 

 Some were thus full of quickens, which had been sown 

 there ; others full of wild poppies, Vallmoge, various 

 kinds of Thistles, tistlar, and other weeds, Ogras. But 

 it was not to be wondered at, because the ploughed fields 

 in such places at this time of the year were left untilled. 



With such agriculture, akerbruk, it is not difficult 

 to understand why their Wheat, Barley, Oats, Pease and 

 Bean-fields, stand so full of wild Poppies and other weeds, 

 viz. : partly because they manage the ploughed-fields so 

 badly, and leave the weeds all freedom to run to seed and 

 sow themselves. I remarked that they used frequently 

 to drive horses, sheep, and cows, to bait on the same, but 

 [T. II. p. 44] while they meant to reap a profit, they 

 caused themselves double loss ; for while, it is true, they 

 commonly ate up the wild poppies, yet several of the 

 other rank weeds were left (such as thistles, &c), mostly 

 to stand untouched by the cattle. Such a fallow-field 

 was often left to lie two or three years uncultivated and 

 as a pasture. 



Though it happened, truly enough, that when the 

 earth got as it were a coating of grass-sward, grasvall, 

 over it, the number of thistles and other weeds diminished ; 

 yet as soon as such a pasture was again ploughed up, the 

 earth loosened, and cultivated as a ploughed field, and 

 sown with seed, the manifold seeds of weeds lying in the 



