Southern Disfrict. 
269 
down, which accordingly lias degenerated into a mere pleasure 
fair. A lew horses are brought there, but not much business is 
done. 
Of the agricultural societies in the county, one — the South- 
East Hants — holds its meetings at Farcham in September, and is 
designed for the encouragement of agricultural lal)ourers residing 
in thirty-five of the adjoining parishes ; but ploughmen can come 
from any district. There is a rivalry between Hants and Sussex 
ploughmen, and the former, though they do " live in the shires," 
show they are not afraid, by inviting the competition of their 
eastern neighbours. The prizes are for ploughmen, shepherds, 
rickmakers, and thatchers ; for cottage gardens and for vegetables 
grown by agricultural labourers. 
The wages of the labourer are or 12s. a week, of the 
carter a shilling more. He is lodged much as elsewhere in the 
county. The manual labour per acre is "05. 
The tithe varies extremely, fi'om 2s. to 10s. ; the parochial 
rates are 3s. in the pound ; 15s. per acre is the average rent. 
There are few leases, and generally it is found that tenants hold 
on longer under an annual tenancy. A short lease unsettles a 
man. 
There is one distinction between this country and the north. 
There has been no Duke of Wellington here, however much 
Avanted. Much draining remains yet to be done, and much 
chalking. Portsdown chalk, some of the very best, soft and 
friable, is close by, but the neighbours resort to it less than 
strangers, who carry it across the water, loading and unload- 
ing it three times. Improvers everywhere are new men, and 
here the prospect is not attractive. It is the land of coppice, of 
game, of small farms, of high enclosures, and of the London 
clay, — not a locality to be deliberately selected by a stranger. In 
its present condition it will be left to tliose who are " native here, 
and to the manner born." 
I must again give the caution that I speak not of the farming 
south of Portsdown, where, in the narrow tract previously de- 
scribed, a more liberal course is followed, as it ought to be, 
with a kindly soil and a genial climate. 
\ 2. The broad band of the Bracldesham coiintni, stretching 
from Portsmouth westward to Romsey, is bounded by the South- 
ampton Water on the south-west, and by the chalk and its clay- 
bordering on the north-cast. This is, with a few unprofitable 
exceptions, not bad working land. Woods and wastes cover 
probably a tithe of it, but they are not such woods as have been 
previously described. • The timber-trees do not stand in the 
"hedgerows, spreading their roots and throwing their shade far 
across the field, appropriating the powers of the cultivated soil, 
u 2 
