248 
Fanninj of Hampshire. 
are so intimately blended, tliat each corrects tlie bad qualities and 
supplies the deficiencies of the other. The better sort may consist 
above of sandy clays, or loams, gradually passing downwards into 
sti'onger and stiffcr clay, till you come to the London and plastic 
clay at the bottom. Some of the strongest and best of this land 
occupies what is locally called the " Hampshire basin," an alluvial 
formation, once a small inland sea, situated chiefly in the parishes 
of Basing and Sherfield, and intersected by the 13erks and Hants 
Railway, in the cuttings of which many marine-shells were found. 
Oaks grow well everywhere in this soil ; elms may be seen in 
the more generous parts : all of it once was, and much of it still 
is, in wood, either in hedgerows or coppices, so that it well 
deserves the name of " the Hampshire Woodlands." Whether 
under cultivation or timbered, this No. 1 soil extends throughout 
the whole of the northern district as a sea, out of which rise 
islands of furze and heath on commons, and fir plantations. One 
group of these is to the north of Highclere ; another and larger 
block runs north of Monks' Sherborne, till you come to the conti- 
nent of Hartford Flats and Aldershot. These are the Nos. 2 
and 3 soils in the north, belonging geologically to the Bagshot 
and Bracklesham beds. Here you have the erratic gravel between 
the surface-soil and the clay ; there the sand ; there the two mixed ; 
there no vegetable surface-mould whatever. About Bramley 
is some of the best-tempered of these soils — a free working loam, 
good for all corn. About Pamber and Silchester there is much 
sharp and unprofitable gravel on the surface ; l)ut the better parts 
are good barley land. The same may be said of West Heath, 
Banghurst, and Tadley. At Silchester, the Blackwater valley, 
about Yately, Bramshill, Eversley, and indeed throughout the 
Bagshot sands, there occur in spots blocks of concrete, cemented 
gravel, clay, and iron, Hamptonice YevveWs" or " ferrells," on 
the derivation of which word 1 have in vain consulted one of the 
first Anglo-Saxon philologists of the day. Its perfectly intelligible 
synonyme is " plum -puddings." They were found, on its resto- 
ration a few years since, built into the foundations of old Sand- 
hurst church. 
In the Southern Eocene, if we start from the point where the 
Salisbury branch of the South- Western Railway enters the western 
boundary of the county, and proceed eastward, we have, north of 
Romsey, No. 1 soil skirting the chalk all the way, by Otterbourn 
and Bishop's Waltham, to the eastern boundary of the county, 
where the Portsmouth and Brighton Railway leaves it, at Havant 
and Emsworth ; this border being narrow towards the west, but 
gradually increasing in breadth towards the east, and nearly 
encircling the Portsdown chalk. Fareham is situated within it, 
Portsea and Hayling belong to it. Here are Spirewell Wood, 
