ADVERTISEMENT. IN the INTRODUCTION to the Work which I have now concluded, I traced the origin and progress of the Board of Agriculture;-showed its illegitimacy and deformity-yet augured the benefits that it might, eventually, afford the parent stock, from which it was surreptitiously, and unskilfully, taken. In developing those public benefits, and adapting them to the permanent uses of the Rural Science, I have, I find, expended ten years of unremitted and pretty close attention. The labors of seventy or eighty public Writers, (many of whose Works have never been published) and the sentiments of some hundreds of Annotators, Correspondents, and parole Contributors,-concerning an important and, with me, a favorite branch of human knowledge, were not to be allowed to sink, unprofitably, into oblivion; even though the task might cost some years of time; and no inconsiderable sum, to boot. The agents of the Board I have ever considered as MY ASSISTANTS,-as laborers in MY OWN FIELD. Notwithstanding, however, this interruption to my original design,-which, during the last forty years, I have held constantly in view, as my leading object in life-(see as above)-I despair not to accomplish it. The most important, and by far the most difficult part of it,-the registry of the existing practices of England, at the commencement of the nineteenth century,-IS NOW FINISHED. WILLIAM MARSHALL. APRIL 1817. THE SOUTHERN DEPARTMENT OF ENGLAND. THE NATURAL DISTINGUISHMENTS of this Department are strong. Its prevailing SUBSTRUCTURE is CHALK,-of which peculiar fossil it comprizes, I apprehend, nine tenths, or a larger portion, of the whole quantity which this island discloses at its surface. The Wolds of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire are the only specimens of Chalk hill that I have observed, in England, Scotland, or Wales, which are not included within the boundary lines of the SOUTHERN DEPARTMENT of ENGLAND. Another peculiarity of the SOUTHERN DEPARTMENT, in regard to its substrata, is also observable. There is not, I believe, a mass of noncalcareous rock (unless loosely cemented sand may be deemed such); nor even a stone! (other than flints), unless in a confined district of Kent,-to be found within its limits.* The AGRICULTURAL DISTINCTIONS, observable in the SOUTHERN DEPARTMERT, are numerous. The CHALK-HILL HUSBANDRY is peculiar. The *THE GREY WEDDERS of MARBOROUGH DOWNS.-These may be mentioned as another exception to the foregoing position.--The stones which bear that name I have seen and strolled among as a botanist: but without any other view.-They are scattered over an extent of surface, or partially bedded beneath it Their sizes (to convey a general idea) may be said to vary fron, the size of a wedder to that of an ox. But on the theory which I recently suggested (in the Midland Department, p. 14.) those stones might be considered as atmospherical; or, more appropriately, of cometic origin; and not as a native production of the SOUTHERN DEPARTMENT. The "STONAGE" of SALISBURY PLAIN has been supposed to have been brought to that place, from a distance (of course from a very great distance) by human exertions. But it appears to me more rational to consider the materials of that striking work of art, as a DEPOSIT of SPACE; their present arrangement being the result of DRUIDICAL INGENUITY; the fragments and minor masses having been removed, the more to astonish (as Stonehenge seldom fails to do) the posterity of those extraordinary times. B The HOP CULTURE,-tho not wholely confined to this quarter of the island,-is principally carried on within it. The Hop grounds of Worcestershire and Nottinghamshire are of inconsiderable extent, compared with those of Kent and Surrey. IRRIGATION. The practice of watering low-lying meadow grounds, with calcareous water, belongs, almost exclusively, to this Department. HAY FARMS;-Farms consisting solely of mowing grounds, may be said to be peculiar to the Southern Department. Ewe flocks kept for the purpose of producing HOUSE LAMB; and herds of cows solely for that of furnishing the London markets with VEAL;-occupy no inconsiderable part of the lands, within fifteen or twenty miles of the metropolis;-whose markets draw various other articles of FARM PRODUCE, in a summary way, to that attractive center:-thus giving, to a still greater extent, a peculiarity of character to the rural profession. MY OWN KNOWLEDGE of this Department of the island may be said to be universal. There is scarcely a square mile of its surface which I have not seen; nor a district of it that I have not examined.* The REPORTS to the BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, from this Department, that require to be appreciated, and the useful information they may contain to be extracted and brought together, in this CONCENTRATION of PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE, are these: Counties. Hertfordshire Claridge Drivers Hampshire Warner Secretary Surrey James &c. Kent Sussex Published. Secretary. Davis, Billingsley. It may be proper to mention, in this place, that, in re viewing * See my Register of the RURAL ECONOMY of the SOUTHERN COUNTIES. Also MINUTES of AGRICULTURE, in Surrey. viewing those several works, the requisite labor will be less than that which has been bestowed on the former volumes of this undertaking. There are few writers of high consideration, in agriculture, whose sentiments and dictations will, I conceive, be liable to warp the minds of practical men, or to lead the novitial amateur, or the unpractised student, into the labyrinths of error:-saving those, I mean, whose erroneous opinions, and dangerous maxims of management, have already been brought out, and held up to public view; and some of them, I trust, placed in a light sufficiently clear, to render them inoffensive. The line of proceeding, in the present case, will be to examine, with unremitted attention and perseverance, the several Works, as they pass in Review; and to arrest every idea, whether practical or theoretical, which shall strike me as being capable of adding to the accumulation of valuable materials that I have already drawn together. But while performing this task, it is my intention to avoid noticing the errors and incongruities which they may contain; excepting in such flagrant cases as I may judge to be altogether unfriendly to the progressive rise of Rural Science. B2 HERTFORDSHIRE. |