422 
Farminc) of Dorsetshire. 
in six or seven years the land sjets sick. Formerly the flax- 
growers habitually "dew-ripened " it, an operation which some- 
times lasted six weeks ; but all the flax around this district fin 
other terms, all the flax in the county, for it is grown nowhere 
else to any extent) is now taken from tlie field in the straw with- 
out tlie seed by Mr. Baruch Fox, who works it up by Schunk's 
and Pownall's processes in fifty or sixty hours. Several fields 
are still known as "hemp fields," but there are not 5 acres of 
hemp in the county : at the end of the last century there seems 
to have been on the average nearly 250 acres. 
Tlie heatii district, comprehends a considerable portion of the 
country between Dorchester, VVimborne, and Corfe Castle. 
Upon the lower Bagshot formation are Bere Heath, Wool Heath, 
Moreton, Woodsford, Moreton Heath, Winfrith Heath, Knighton 
Common, Gallon Heath, Woodsford Heath, Knighton Heath, 
Warm well Heath, Owre Heath, Mount Skippett. On the lower 
London tertiaries are Yellowham Hill, Piddletown Heath, New 
Bockhampton, Ilsington Heatli and Wood, Tinclefon Hang, 
Southover Heath, Cliffe, AfFpuddle Heath, Culpepper's Ditch, 
Brockhill, Briantspriddle, Pallington, Lewel Lodge, Warmwell, 
Owre Moigne, the Fossils, Portway, a steep on the north of West 
Lulworth, and outlying patches on Warren Hill, Roger's Hill, 
near Milborne St. Andrews, the Blackdown Hills near Dor- 
chester, Wood, East Lulworth, part of West Lulworth Park, 
Lytchett Forest. Tiie round pebbly gravel and the red mottled 
clay of which bricks are made at Redpool, near Bere, and at 
Broadmayne, are in the plastic clay. Near Cranborne it is con- 
verted into coarse brown ware. Between VVareham and Corfe 
the potter's clay is dug in extensive quantities. Tliere is a 
great variety of soils on this series. Plots of 20 and 30 acres 
have been taken at nominal rents by small farmers for reclama- 
tion. The land is broken up with large mattocks at a cost of 
21. an acre ; the surface is either burnt or worked about until the 
turf decomposes. The next process, chalking, is an exj)ensive 
one. " I go," said a farmer, who has lately broken up some of 
this land, " from three to five miles for my chalk, and though it 
costs me at the pit only 6^^. a ton, its cost on the land is 3/. an 
acre. If they had further than I have to fetch it, I think it 
would hardly pay them to reclaim the heath. I have often 
thought it miglit pay to sink a shaft, as they do in Hampshire." 
Tlie general dressing is 20 tons an acre, but on sandy soils this 
is thought too much. It is worked down with Crosskill's clod- 
crusher and scarified, and put to turnips or rape. It is then 
well dunged, and two or three good crops are taken from it, but 
at a heavy cost. The green crop is eaten off, and very large 
