584 = 515 
Practical Agriculture. 
pered by repeated dressings of London stable-manure. Con 
tiguous to the Thames lies the market-garden ground, resting oi 
a dry subsoil of gravel, sand, or chalk. It is cultivated parti 
by the plough, partly by the spade. It is no uncommon thin 
for the market-gardeners to lay on 100 to 120 tons per acre of th 
very best London dung, brought in two to three-ton loads at abou 
10s. or 12s. per load, or 7s. for a cartload. Farmers within te 
or fifteen miles of the metropolis sell the larger part of their whea< 
straw, and a considerable proportion of hay, purchasing froi 
carmen and cowkeepers stable-manure in return. 
Fruit and hops. It is more on the greensand formation of !Mid-Kent, " th 
garden of England," that hop-grounds extend, and filberts ai 
cultivated, and pear and cherry-orchards abound, and goost 
berries, raspberries, and currants are crops ; that quickset hedg* 
are trained amid hops and fruit to 12 or 16 feet in heigh 
with a close-cut breadth of 2 or 3 feet, and every availab' 
nook not cultivated is thickly -planted woodland, with ash, larcl 
chestnut, and red willow for hop-poles. In particular is tl 
slope of the rag-stone hills, looking over the Weald, astonishing! 
productive in hops, fruit, and grain. 
The farms range from 20 to 100 acres in extent, and tl 
management of the large holdings, apart from fruit and he 
culture, is chiefly on a five or six-course system, with tumij 
and swedes fed off by Down sheep. Mid-Kent is noted for i 
deep and cleanly tillage, the ploughing being carried 7 to 9 inch 
in depth. 
On the Weald clay, referred to under another section of th 
paper, and mostly upon the ironsand portion, hops abound. 
i;„mii. V East of the Weald, and bounded by the English Chann( 
^It " from which it is defended in some places by shingle beach ai 
sand, and in others by costly embankments or sea-walls, li 
Romney jNIarsh, with its neighbouring flats of Walland ai 
Denge Marshes. On the strong land, of which a minor propc 
tion is in arable, drainage has worked great improvemen 
wheat and peas or beans are alternated year after year, wi 
occasionally oats and turnips ; large breadths of turnip-seed <n 
grown, yielding from 2 to 6 qrs. per acre ; and mangold a: 
radish-seed also raised by contract for the wholesale seedsme 
But Romney Marsh is celebrated for its flocks of sheep, whi 
are bred and fattened on its spacious plain, 
•■^•leep It boasts of breeding and fattening pastures ; the forir 
managenif;nt. ^j^j^ keep two to three ewes per acre during the winter, a 
about double that number in summer ; while the feeding lands 
average quality carrv and fatten four or five sheep per "acre, a 
on some exceptional pieces much higher numbers are graz( 
The great disadvantage from which the Hockmastcrs of Komn 
iH 
