GRAVESEND. 41 5 



and vice versd. The reason seems to be that for either 

 butter or cheese the best and fattest milk is required. 

 Where they make butter they also make cheese, but they 

 use first to churn the butter from the milk, and after- 

 wards they make cheese from the same, which cannot be 

 good, because most of the quality, masta kraften, of 

 the milk is already taken away. 



Rag. Rye is also sown here in Kent by some who 

 partly sell it, partly use to mix it with wheat, to grind 

 and make bread of it. The straw, Halmen, is sold to 

 Watermen, Roddare, and those who go backwards and 

 forwards with boats and yachts to and from London, who 

 use to lay [T. II. p. 60] the straw on the bottom of the 

 boat, and on the seat, so that passengers may sit so 

 much better, and not soil or dirty their clothes. 



The fg- July, 1748. 



To-day I went with the Tilt-boat to London to hear 

 whether the Captain and the ship I was to cross to 

 America in at once might not be ready for the voyage ; 

 and in the afternoon returned with one of the Tilt-boats 

 down to Gravesend. 



Kritans nytta. The use of the Chalk. 



On the fields which lie in the neighbourhood around 

 Gravesend they use very seldom or next to never to 

 manure their ploughed fields with chalk ; because the 

 soil which is there mostly a mould is already so loose 

 and dry that it ought not to be any looser : but farther 

 away from thence where the)' have wet, low-lying arable 

 fields, consisting of clay, they manure them from time to 

 time with chalk. All the agricultural labourers, akerman, 

 and Farmers hereabout, agree unanimously in this, that 

 the principal use of chalk as a manure on a ploughed 

 field, is on such land as consists of stiff clay and cold soil, 



