The Making of the Land in England. 
359 
trees and underwc^od left a few inches below the surface ; large patches of 
rough brown fern, stems that had afforded cover to the fawns ; — all these and 
many other impediments stood in the way of the 'forest farmers,' and made 
' speed the plough 'an earnest desire with the ploughmen, but seldom realised ; 
for it was with the greatest difficulty that four strong horses drawing a large 
iron plough could break up half an acre a-day, and many and long were the 
blacksmiths' bills for repairs to the tackle where the plough was used in 
breaking up the soil. Some of the tenants tried digging at a cost of 3Z. per 
acre ; some used stocking hoes and grubbed the ground 5 inches deep, care- 
fully picking out the large stones that were beneath the surface : this plan 
cost 50fi. per acre." 
These operations, however, laborious and costly as they proved 
to be, left the land but poorly prepared and wholly unfurnished 
for farming operations, unless the surface had been there and 
then sown down in one prairie to grass, for which it would have 
even then required some such previous operation as breast- 
ploughing, at the cost of about 23s. an acre. For the growth 
of grass and winter food, for local traffic, for the shelter of man 
and beast, the owner had further to provide roads fenced in 
with boundary-walls, or quick-fencing taking five years at 
the least of careful nursing and effectual protection to rear and 
establish. 
Farmhouses, cottages, wg^sh-pits, cattle-pens, waterings, plan- 
tations and gardens had further to be provided. The highways 
would come to 700/. per mile, the occupation roads to about 
half that sum. The two boundary-walls would come to 200Z. 
per mile, or, if the fencing was done with quick, to a little 
larger sum. At least that was the case in the reclamation of 
Wychwood Forest. There still remained the first thorough 
draining of the new fields to be executed, at a cost to the owner 
of from five to seven pounds an acre. 
There is no operation brought into this statement which it 
has not been incumbent on the owner to execute on the soils 
of England in general cultivation. The chalk downs stand in 
a category by themselves, to which these remarks would not 
apply. The sands and gravels would not require under- 
draining, but their texture would on the other hand require 
strengthening and cooling by the expensive process of marling 
or chalking. 
Wychwood Forest, as we have seen, furnishes an instance of 
the subjugation of wild land and its conversion to a condition 
fit for all the purposes of modern husbandry within the present 
generation. Processes which have been slowly worked out 
during centuries were here undertaken and completed in almost 
as many years. The English flora and fauna in all their 
natural fitness and beauty were violently and ruthlessly 
destroyed to make way for artificial grasses and cereals, the 
