The Nature of the Soils. 
247 
Under this guidance, however, many anomalies will present 
themselves to our notice, because the distribution of the soil has 
ever boon dctonnined by tlie flow of the water, which has itself 
been regulated by the height and direction of the mountain 
ranges. Ihit the changes of the watersheds have been so com- 
plete, the physical geography has been so repeatedly disturbed, 
the drainage has been so often arranged and rearranged, that 
we find in this county, both on the mainland and in the island, 
the erratic tertiaries capping the chalk hills, where, according to 
any existing surface-configuration, they certainly never could have 
wandered. The county, therefore, can be but roughly mapped out. 
Minute distinctions, or much accuracy, are not to be expected. 
The boundaries assigned to each district are, from the necessity 
of the case, loosely delineated, and must be accepted with large 
allowances and some modification. Where two different geological 
series are near neighbours, as when the chalk and Eocene meet, 
or where the soil has been deposited on a flat or slight incline, 
the one formation runs up or down into the other, and the con- 
fusion of materials is infinite, even within the compass of a single 
field. 
Taking a geological basis as, on the whole, the most unex- 
ceptionable, we may say there are three natural districts : 1. The 
Northern Eocene, or " the Hampshire Woodlands," according to 
the local name. 2. The Middle Cretaceous. 3. The Southern 
Eocene. Of the soils in these districts a triple division must 
suffice, though in some cases it may be hard to determine to 
which of these three kinds a particular field should be assigned; 
because a larger subdivision would often create distinctions, where 
no real broad difference exists. 
The general classification in the Eocene districts, north and 
south, will be : 1. Retentive clay and clay-loams. 2. Sands, 
gravels, and loams mixed with them, on a retentive base. 3. 
The same on an absorbent base. The two first require for their 
improvement, close draining, and then subsoiling (but not bringing 
the clay to the surface). All three require, as a mineral manure, 
chalk, chalk, chalk. "The salvation of these soils is chalk," has 
often been said to me. The base of the whole is a plastic clay, 
like birdlime. The nearer this is to the surface, of course the 
wetter the soil. 
In the Northern Eocene, one may say of No. 1 that it is a strong 
soil, but requires to be well " tackled," and is utterly intractable 
without improvement by drainage and chalking ; and even then 
its cultivation is a work of difficulty, requiring much patience 
and perseverance. Where it is most fertile, its materials are 
better mixed, and its colour is darker. The clay, the loam, and 
the sand, instead of lying in separate beds, as they too often do, 
