410 



Farming of Surrey. 



broadcast. One half of the crop is carted to the sheep yards,, 

 and the other half is folded with sheep in the fields. 



Superphosphate is considered useless for wheat, but will 

 answer for barley and oats : corn crops and roots are dressed 

 entirely with artificials, the phosphate and ammoniate, in its 

 most convenient form, being found sufficient for them ; while the 

 hops, which require carbonaceous manures, receive the whole of 

 the farm-yard dung. 



It will be unnecessary to enter here into the details of the 

 management of hops, as that subject has been ably treated of in 

 the pages of this journal by Mr. Rutley in vol. ix. It may be 

 mentioned, that the chief supply of poles is from the plantations 

 in the neighbourhood of Hindhead. The application of liquid 

 manure to the hills in summer has been found to produce a good 

 effect. It need scarcely be said that thorough drainage has been 

 effected in all the hop plantations which needed it. The rents 

 vary from 3/. to 20/. per acre, while 600/. per acre has in some 

 instances been paid for land. The extent of hops cultivated in 

 this district amounts to about 2000 acres, 500 of which are 

 grovv^n in the adjacent county of Hampshire. The hop planta- 

 tions on the farm that has been just noticed contain about 200 

 acres. 



The Greensand District. — The extent of land lying between 

 the North Downs and the Weald consists of farms possessing 

 every variety of soil, from the stiff clay of the gait and the rich 

 loams of Godalming to the sand of the heaths. 



The size of the farms and of the fields also varies greatly ; in 

 many instances on the borders of the Aveald, for example, they 

 are poor and small, while at the foot of the downs they become 

 larger and more valuable. A serious evil in this district is the 

 quantity of game : it has before been noticed that good loams, 

 capable of growing from 8 to 10 sacks of wheat per acre, with 

 roots, &c., in proportion, are frequently surrounded by land 

 growing nothing but gorse, underwood, or fir : upon these warm 

 sands rabbits, the most destructive of vermin, increase to an 

 astonishing extent : and even where the right of killing them is 

 possessed by the tenant, the quantity of waste land where they 

 are bred is so great that considerable injury is sometim.es done 

 by them. Fortunately, the right of killing rabbits is much more 

 common than of old, and ought to»be universal ; since the depre- 

 dations committed by them upon the crops at every period of 

 their growth are even greater than the injury arising from hedge- 

 rows and timber. 



The size of farms varies from 100 to 500 acres; generally 

 they are small, and perhaps 250 acres is quite an average. Thej 

 are occasionally held by lease, but yearly holdings are most 



