THE COUNTRY-SIDE: SUSSEX. or 
the charcoal was prepared for hop-drying, large quantities 
being used for that purpose. At onetime a considerable 
amount was rebaked for patent fuel, and the last use to 
which it had been put was in carrying out some process 
with Australian meat. It was still necessary in several 
trades. Goldsmiths used charcoal for soldering. They 
preferred the charcoal made from the thick bark of the 
butts of birch trees. At the foot or butt of the birch 
the bark grows very thick, in contrast to the rind higher, 
which is thinner than on other trees. Lord Sheffield’s 
mansion at Fletching was the last great house he knew 
that was entirely warmed with charcoal, nothing else 
being burnt. Charcoal was still used in houses for 
heating plates. But the principal demand seemed to be 
for hop-drying purposes—the charcoal burned in the 
kiln where I had been resting was made on the spot. 
This heap he was now burning was all of birch poles, 
and would be four days and four nights completing. 
On the fourth morning it was drawn, and about seventy 
sacks were filled, the charcoal being roughly sorted. 
The ancient forest land is still wild enough, there is 
no seeming end to the heath and fern on the ridges or 
to the woods in the valleys. These moor-like stretches 
bear a resemblance to parts of Exmoor. The oaks that 
‘once reached from here to the sea-shore were burned to 
smelt the iron in the days when Sussex was the great 
iron land. For charcoal the vast forests were cut down; 
it seems strange to think that cannon were once cast— 
the cannon that won India for us—where now the hops 
grow and the plough travels slowly, so opposite as they 
are to the roaring furnace and the ringing hammer. 
Burned and blasted by the heat, the ground where the 
furnaces were still retains the marks of the fire. But 
_ to-day there is silence ; the sunshine lights up the purple 
