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EASTERN CHALK HILLS. 407

tillage and cleanness of the lands, on which these crops are sown.

TILLAGE. The same extraordinary method of using the turnwrest plow(name- ly, that of forcing open the plow-furrow unnecessarily wide) prevails on the hills, as on the vale lands of the District of Maid- stone(see Vol. I. page 74.) On the hills of Surrey, I think it is not left quite so wide. But on the Middle-Kent hills, and in the instance mentioned under the head IMPLEMENTS, the width was near two feet, that of the plit, or plow slice, being twelve inches, and its depth eight inches. It. is no wonder, then, that, in such work, in such a soil, six horses should find full em- ployment.

Remarks. What probably adds much to the stubbornness, and gluey texture, of these strong flinty lands, is their being laid flat, with the turnwrest plow; without ridges to shoot off, or furrows to carry away, the waters which fall on them; even where this retentive impermeable soil is two or three feet, in depth! If they were plowed equally deep, as they are at present, and laid up, in convex beds, of seven or eight feet in width, with deep interfurrows, and cross trenches, to take off superfluous rain water, they would not be so liable to run together, into a close compact mass, as they are, under their present treatment.