Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Rural conditions
hooping-cough which I used the day before on the South Downs; for
really, though I had a spell or two of coughing on Saturday morning when
I set out from Petworth, I have not had, up to this hour, any spell at
all since I got wet upon the South Downs. I got to Botley about nine
o'clock, having stopped two or three times to look about me as I went
along; for I had, in the first place, to ride, for about three miles of
my road, upon a turnpike road of which I was the projector, and, indeed,
the maker. In the next place I had to ride, for something better than
half a mile of my way, along between fields and coppices that were mine
until they came into the hands of the mortgagee, and by the side of
cottages of my own building. The only matter of much interest with me
was the state of the inhabitants of those cottages. I stopped at two or
three places, and made some little enquiries; I rode up to two or three
houses in the village of Botley, which I had to pass through, and just
before it was dark I got to a farmhouse close by the church, and what
was more, not a great many yards from the dwelling of that delectable
creature, the Botley parson, whom, however, I have not seen during my
stay at this place.
Botley lies in a valley, the soil of which is a deep and stiff clay. Oak
trees grow well; and this year the wheat grows well, as it does upon all
the clays that I have seen. I have never seen the wheat better in
general, in this part of the country, than it is now. I have, I think,
seen it heavier; but never clearer from blight. It is backward compared
to the wheat in many other parts; some of it is quite green; but none of
it has any appearance of blight. This is not much of a barley country.
The oats are good. The beans that I have seen, very indifferent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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