SOILS AND AGRICULTURE OF NORFOLK. 
357 
rocks in East Anglia are easily weathered down, and give 
rise to typical soils wherever the outcrop is large enough to 
allow a sedentary soil to form without admixture of particles 
from other formations. There is a considerable movement 
of soil fragments always going on, due to a variety of causes, 
and which tends to obliterate the characteristics of any 
particular type of soil. For instance, there is always a rain- 
wash carrying the smaller sized fragments down any slope, 
and this tends to fill up valleys and depressions with silty 
deposits f also the small clay particles are carried down 
into the subsoil and so on to the drains and ditches. Wind 
conveys a good deal of mineral matter as dust, and the 
violent n.e. winds so prevalent in the spring carry a 
considerable amount of material southward every year. 
This is well seen in the Breckland where sandstorms are of 
frequent occurrence, and where, in spite of the “ wind 
breaks ” made by rows of conifers and other trees, not only 
the earth surface but the crop as well are blown across 
country and deposited further south on soils of quite another 
type, where in course of years the appearance of the land is 
completely altered by this admixture of foreign particles 
with the original soil. 
Agriculture. 
The art and practice of agriculture is the oldest profession 
in the world. Mankind at first lived as hunters and then as 
stock farmers, despising the manual labour entailed in the 
cultivation of land. Later on the increasing population 
necessitated the production and regular supply of some kind 
of vegetable foodstuffs. At first the agriculture was of a very 
primitive type, and consisted of breaking up land, growing 
wheat or some cereal crop until the land was exhausted, and 
then discarding the old field, taking up a fresh one, and 
similarly exhausting that. Accident, and the restriction of 
land, would lead to the discovery that after a few years’ rest 
