282 
Farming of Hampshire. 
way connects them with the food I'actory, where everything 
relating to feeding is kept and prepared. 
I have no means, from what 1 saw, of forming an opinion on 
Mr. Dickinson's success. He shoukl be regarded as makins: 
an interesting agricultural experiment in an unpromising soil 
(though it be the best in the Forest), and should be allowed time 
to work it out. 
Although the New Forest itself consists, for the most part, 
either of dreary wastes, producing little but heath or turf, on 
which the efforts of nature to form a soil have, from time imme- 
morial, been frustrated by the perversity of man in cutting the 
turf for fuel every third year, — or else of timber and gorse, inter- 
spersed with pasturage, which occupies the better land and 
would be worth cultivation, — there are yet on its borders, or inter- 
secting it in various directions, private properties of various sizes, 
from 5 acres up to 500, all farmed by the help of the Forest. The 
smaller holdings are very generally occupied by the owners, 
though not always so, for there are no less than 105 tenants, 
each having less than 50 acres, on the Minstead Manor alone. 
These petty Forest farmers are, as is usual with the class, men 
of no capital and much industry ; they work and live harder than 
common labourers ; their subsistence is eked out by rearing a 
few cows and some Fon.'st colts ("heath croppers "), by personal 
labour, and by the hire of their small horses to haul timber, 
faggots, or chalk ; their house-fuel comes from the Forest ; 
their contrivances for lodging themselves, their families, their 
carts, cattle, and horses, may be seen, pitched like gipsies' tents, 
on the skirts of the Forest, — things of shreds and patches, monu- 
ments of economy, marvels of human ingenuity in shift-making. 
The larger farms, though in many instances not sufficiently 
cleared of hedgerow timber and inadequately drained, are also 
very generally in the hands of the owners, and present examples 
of fair farming. The best and also one of the earliest examples 
of agricultural improvement in draining and farm-buildings, on 
private lands in the Forest, is at Minstead Manor. The usual 
four-field system is followed, with trifolium sometimes as a 
catch-crop between wheat and turnips ; the clover-leys are 
heavily dunged for wheat, ploughed in September, and the seed 
got in before the end of October ; the wheat-stubbles receive 
a great deal of cultivation for turnips ; they are first cleaned 
with Bentall or Coleman, ploughed twice (if possible) before 
winter, and two or three times in the spring, besides draggings 
and harrowings. The estimated cost for cultivation and super- 
phosphate is nearly 8/. per acre. Some of the roots are fed off 
with sheep, some hauled home for the Scotch beasts. There are two 
ploughings for barley, and one for oats, both of which are drilled. 
