The Woodlands. 
259 
winter variety failino: from the frost ; they are dibbled by 
women, across the lands, often on the stale furrow, sometimes 
after a second ploughing^ ; and are twice hand-hoed. The 
bean-stubble is ploughed, the weeds dragged up and burnt. The 
wheat is sown broadcast, two bushels to an acre, on a single earth 
generally, and before November, if possible. Trump and Essex 
rough chaff, both white wheats, are the favourites. The produce 
under this system is 24 bushels of wheat, and 28 of beans, per 
acre. The great difficulty in growing wheat on these heavy 
lands, is to get the crop to stand. If the manuring be generous, 
or if the spring and summer be Avet, the straw becomes long, and 
the wheat is laid : if, on the other hand, the farmer be sparing 
of his dung, his harvest is not remunerative. The straw of the 
red wheats is stiffer than that of the white, but the grain is 
coarser, and the millers will not buy it so readily. 
For live stock, the " woodland farmer " buys in a few tegs, half 
starves them, and sells them out again the following year, to be 
fatted elsewhere. He has a cow or two of no particular breed. 
There are also a few pigs, a cross between the Berkshire and the 
Sussex. These animals, with his horses, make all the manure he 
wants. The horses are not well bred, but short and punchy ; 
useful, though small. This is not a grazing country. Fatting 
beasts must have cake and other food purchased for them at the cost 
of a labourer's wages per head per week. Any that are made out 
well on the higher-class farms, such as the Duke of Wellington's, 
generally go to Aldershot, the butchers buying them at home. 
The ploughing is deep, and the lands a half-rod wide. The 
team is heavy — seldom less than four horses ; but then it must 
be remembered that the farmer makes a profit of his team. He 
breeds his horses, takes them up at two years old, uses them for 
a couple of years, and then sends them to the London market, if 
at all promising : so that he has always a young and unseasoned 
team, with here and there an old horse that was not thought 
good enough to sell. If you see, therefore, four horses at plough, 
you will probably find, on inquir}-, that the third in the line is a 
colt just put to school, and that there is only one aged horse among 
them. The farmer aims at taking one colt into his team each 
year. As a rule, the horses draw in a line, while in the southern 
or middle districts they work in couples. There are 'O? horses 
per acre. The plough used is the old Berkshire, with a high 
carriage and two wheels, when the land is hard and close ; a 
swing-plough, when the land works more freely. 
The buildings are of the type generally found in Hants, though, 
from the greater dampness, rather worse here than elsewhere. 
There is a yard, dished in the middle, where the stock tread the 
straw into dung, enclosed by a boarded barn, raised on a few 
