398 
Farming of Dorsetshire. 
sides of the hills being bare or nearly so. In some stiff clays 
galls occur in the centre of a chalk-field, requiring the artificial 
aid of the drainer, Avhilst the soil around is drained by nature. 
In the vale of Blackmoor the clay in many places is bare of drift 
— as at Bagber — but in other places there is a deep deposit. At 
Marchfarm, west of Buckhorn Weston, the drift is derived from 
the coral-rag, whilst in the river flat, west of Hodhill, there are 
pits of flint-gravel. The diluvial gravel on the banks of the 
Yeo is derived from the inferior oolite. The mineral characters 
of the rocks themselves change as well as those of the drifts. 
The limestone of the coral-rag, which is so well developed at 
MarnhuU and Todbcr and the Stowers, dies out towards the 
south, and is replaced by marls and clays, and occasionally rubbly 
limestone. In the heath district the so.il is of the most variable 
character, and here and there amidst much that is barren little 
cultivated plots, like oases in a desert, indicate that varying con- 
dition of soils of a common order which is to be observed in 
this, as in every other county in the kingdom. 
By far the most extensive formation in the county is the chalk, 
which extends in an unbroken body from Woodyates to beyond 
Evershot; having a pretty uniform breadth of about 10 miles. 
On the south' this is bounded by a very large field of the ter- 
tiaries, the greatest portion of which consists of Bagshot sands, 
fringed with the plastic and London clays. Next the chalk, on 
the north, divided by a narrow strip of greensand, lie the Kim- 
meridge and Oxford days of the vale of Blackmoor, belted at 
Stalbridge and Folke with corn-brash, anc? at Sherborne with 
fuller's earth rock and inferior oolite. At the western end of 
the chalk the inferior oolite crosses the country, and the marl- 
stone, the lias clay, and the lias successively appear. A line 
drawn here between the oolite and the chalk would leave the 
larger portion of the county in three pretty equal and entire 
divisions of chalk, sand, and clay — the three great constituents 
of soils ; and these natural separations are the best that, avoiding 
unnecessary minuteness, we can follow when we come to consider 
the agricultural divisions of the county. 
The section from Golden Cap, mid-way between Bridport and 
Lyme, to Mosterton Hill, follows the line of the lias clay across 
the vale of Marsliwood, meeting, at Leweston Hill, the marl- 
stone, the outcropping of the inferior oolite above it, and a 
crown of greensand on the hill. Crossing again the inferior 
oolite, mucli broken by faults, and the fuller's earth, it at Mos- 
terton Hill terminates in the greensand. 
Tlie other and longer section passes from Portland to Sher- 
borne, commencing in the Purbeck limest(me, and crossing the 
Portland oolite and Kimmeridge clay. At Wyke and Wey- 
