of the Hampshire Tertiary District. 
139 
opinion. My observations lead to the conclusion that it only 
indicates that the soil and subsoil are dry to a considerable 
depth. Furze does not dislike a good deep soil, it dry, but 
flourishes with equal luxuriance on the poorest sands or gravels, 
provided they are free from stagnating Avater. On cold clayey 
wastes the long-spined and free-growing gorse is replaced by the 
stunted gorse with curved spines, which some botanists regard 
as a distinct species, and others only as a variety. 
The sandy banks and the most thin-soiled summits of the 
giavel-covcred tabular hills of the Upper and Lower Bagshots 
naturally produce the better description of gorse in abundance, 
and would pay well under its cultivation for cattle-food. It is 
only necessary to refer to the pages of this Journal for testimony 
to its value thus applied. We have there well-authenticated 
instances of land not worth 3s. an acre for other purposes pay- 
ing a rent of 3/., as gorse-grounds, for the rearing of young 
cattle. I have seen it extensively used as horse-food in Wales ; 
and have known a crop of gorse sell from the same ground, year 
after year, at the rate of 20/. an acre ; the purchasers, strange as 
it may appear, being the small farmers of the neighbourhood, 
who employed their horses in drawing slates and copper-ore 
from the quarries and mines. They had plenty of rough land, 
which would have paid them better as gorse-ground than as poor 
pasture ; but the cultivation of the gorse required some little 
trouble and outlay, as it is several years before it makes much 
return ; and therefore they contented themselves with the supply 
which their own farms yielded spontaneously, and, for what they 
required beyond that, preferred purchasing at the rate above 
mentioned to growing it themselves. The cultivation of gorse 
on the worst parts of these wastes would furnish abundant sup- 
plies of organic manure for the improvement of the better por- 
tions, in conjunction with mineral manures ; for the full benefit of 
the one is not to be obtained on such soils without the other. 
To the preceding notice of the agricultural capabilities of this 
district it may not be amiss to add a brief statement of the 
economic uses, not strictly agricultural, to which its strata have 
been applied. 
The Upper Bagshot sands yield at Alum Bay very pure and 
white sand, which is in much request for glass-making. They 
also yield in the New Forest a sand not quite so good, which is 
employed in the manufacture of inferior glass. At the junction 
of these beds with the Barton clay below them there is in part 
of the Forest a fine loamy sand, used in the iron-foundries. 
