4 
NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBORKE. 
Hedleigli, and the Alton and Farnham stream at Tilford-bridge, swells 
into a considerable river, navigable at Godalming; from whence it 
passes to Guilford, and so into the Thames at Wey bridge ; and thus at 
the Nore into the German Ocean. 
Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three feet, and when 
sunk to that depth seldom fail ; but produce a fine limpid water, soft to 
the taste, and much commended by those who drink the pure element, 
but which does not lather well with soap. 
To the north-west, north and east of the village, is a range of fair 
enclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten 
or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain, moulders 
to pieces, and becomes manure to itself.* 
Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of white land, 
neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet 
kindly for hops, which root deep in the freestone, and have their poles 
and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. The white soil produces 
the brightest hops. 
As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer-forest, at the 
juncture of the clays and sand the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, 
remarkable for timber, and infamous for roads. The oaks of Temple 
and Blackmoor stand high in the estimation of purveyors, and have 
furnished much naval timber ; while the trees on the freestone grow 
large, but are what workmen call shaky, and so brittle as often to fall 
to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes a hungry 
lean sand, till it mingles with the forest ; and will produce little without 
the assistance of lime and turnips. 
LETTER 11. 
TO THE SAME. 
In the court of Norton farm-house, a manor farm to the north-west 
of the village, on the white malms, stood within these twenty years a 
broad-leaved elm, or wych hazel, ulmus folio latissimo scahro of Ray, 
which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough in the great 
storm in the year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, 
contained eight loads of timber ; and, being too bulky for a carriage, 
was sawn ofi* at seven feet above the butt, where it measured near eight 
feet in the diameter. This elm I mention to show to what a bulk 
planted elms may attain ; as this tree must certainly have been such 
from its situation, f 
* This soil produces good wheat and clover, 
t Mr. White seems to have adopted no plan or rule in arranging the subjects 
of these letters. They are taken up as they occur or have been observed. This 
may have its advantages, as recording the observations when freshly made, or 
before the memory had failed, but a correspondence or journal kept in this way 
would almost require for the sake of convenience to have the subjects brought 
more together. Thus there are frequent observations afterwards upon the 
