AGRICULTURE THE cultivation of the soil appears from early times to have been in a more advanced state in Kent than in other parts of Britain, and Caesar himself describes the people as having plenty of cattle and as being more civilised than those elsewhere in the countr)'. This relatively advanced condition was probably due to the proximity of the county to the Continent, and to this fact may also be attributed much of the spirit of enterprise and innova- tion which has in a special degree been characteristic of the husbandry of Kent. It is to Flemish refugees in the sixteenth century that Kent owes the introduction of technical methods of hop-cultivation, although the plant had been grown to some extent in England for a hundred years or more. These peaceful invaders from the Low Countries also brought with them new or improved varieties of fruit and vegetables and introduced the system of ' petite culture ' which is still so marked a feature of the region from which they came. To this day hop- plantations, however large, are spoken of as ' gardens,' a reminder of the conditions under which their cultivation was originally carried on. The Continental features in Kent farm- ing long survived as an integral part of the system more particularly of the eastern part of the county, and it is only in comparatively recent years that they have languished, and in some instances almost disappeared. Towards the end of the eighteenth century Boys wrote his report on the Agriculture of Kent for the old Board of Agriculture, and Marshall, about the same time, included in his Rural Economy of the Southern Counties some observations on particular parts of the county. Canary-seed, radish-seed, turnips and colewort, as well as hops, were found on almost every farm having a soil adapted for them. Of ordinary crops on arable land the principal were wheat, beans, barley, oats and peas. Wheat was estimated to yield about twenty-two bushels per acre, and was one of the chief agricultural exports of the county, being despatched to London from Maidstone and the coast-towns in hoys carrying from three to five hundred quarters, which returned with groceries for the supply of the county. Hops were sent away by the same means, the streets and quays of Maidstone presenting an extraordinary scene during the height of the season. Cultivation was mainly arable, and both butter and cheese had to be imported. The fertile alluvial soils round Faversham, Sandwich and Deal produced good crops of wheat, beans and canary-seed, and were under excellent management. The western part of the county was much more inclosed than the eastern, and produced more timber and underwood, the best cultivated land being on the north from Rainham to Dart- ford. The Chalk belt running through the middle of the county from east to west was esteemed of little value owing to the great expense of cultivation. The Greensand and Gault or ' Ragstone ' soils bordering the chalk on the south produced great quantities of hops and fruit in the centre of the county, with poorer soils and much waste land in the west. The Weald was more thinly inhabited and less cultivated than other parts of the county, though its ancient forests, formerly the haunts of deer and hogs, were for the most part cleared. The Kentish turn-wrest plough was in use all over the county. Marshall speaks of it as an enormous implement, to describe which verbally were impossible, and he goes on to con- demn its use on the level free-working lands of East Kent as a species of idolatry which nothing but blind bigotry would tolerate. It was an exceedingly heavy wooden implement with two large wheels ' more like a cart than a plough,' and all the furrows were turned one way by means of a shifting mould-board. In East Kent four horses could plough an acre and a half in a day ; in the west, owing to the greater tenacity of the soil, seldom more than an acre was ploughed in a day, even with six horses. Boys, however, claimed for this plough that, for all sorts of soil and all required depths, it was the best he had ever tried, and it is a remark- able fact that, although lighter ploughs have been introduced, the old implement, with but I 457 58
