254 
Farmiiu/ of Hampshire. 
formed. The distinction is important. It bears directly on 
" the character of the farming " in those valleys, as will be seen 
when this topic occurs. The commencement of the peat is the 
termination of the more profitable water-meadows. 
The appropriation of these three soils to different purposes of 
rural economy is distinct. Where the clay is deep, there are 
often large woods on the tops of the hills, and often numerous 
corn-fields ; where the upper soil is so thin as to let the plough 
down to the chalk, there used to be nothing but down, though 
much of it is now broken up. Where the long watered valleys 
run, there are the ancient churches, the villages, the farm-houses, 
sheltered by the tall elms and ashes, which in their turn slielter 
the rooks, and that which has attracted them all hither — the 
water and the water-meadows, 
A district which lies to the eastward still remains to be 
described. Geologically it is assigned to the cretaceous group, 
as having a zoological connection with the chalk above it ; its 
mineral constitution, however, is distinct, for it has no more 
than 2 per cent, of lime in its composition, whereas chalk has 
50 per cent. In an agricultural point of view, it more nearly 
resembles the Wealden clay beneath. The gault and greensand 
extend from Petersfield in the south, by Selborne, Worldham, 
Alton, Binstead, Bentley, to Farnham in Surrey. This is the 
hop country : excellent, also, when drained, for wheat, beans, 
oats, and root-crops, growing, in its natural und rained state, 
large oaks. 
These soils present many varieties. There are — belonging 
respectively to the lower and middle gault — clays, compact and 
stiff, sometimes shale-like, of a blackish or grey colour, requiring 
draining, extensively used as an alterative manure to light sandy 
and gravelly soils if near, which they benefit, partly by com- 
municating mineral ingredients deficient in those soils, partly 
by mechanically consolidating them, and so rendering them more 
retentive of atmospheric influences and of manure. Distin- 
guished from these, there are marls, from 20 to 100 feet thick, 
green, yellowish, grey, dirty white, valuable in themselves, valu- 
able as manures, and excavated for this purpose from very early 
times. 
This is the country of the " malm," suitable for hops, or 
indeed for any crop requiring a strong soil ; not so stiff and 
tenacious as the preceding gault clays, falling to a fine powder 
on exposure to the air, running frequently into the fissures of 
the firestone rock, filling them with a rich unctuous mould, into 
which the roots of the hop penetrate 20 feet deep. The malm 
farmers say that the application of lime once in ten years, 160 
bushels to an acre, is of great service, not only in increasing the 
