s of Sussex the
strong slow oxen still draw the waggons laden with warm hay or golden
wheat sheaves, or drag the wooden plough along the slopes of the Downs,
just as they did a thousand years ago.

I love the open Down most, but without hedges England would not be
England. Hedges are everywhere full of beauty and interest, and nowhere
more so than at the foot of the Downs, when they are in great part
composed of wild Guelder Roses and rich dark Yews, decked with festoons
of Traveller's Joy, the wild Bryonies, and garlands of Wild Roses
covered with thousands of white or delicate pink flowers, each with a
centre of gold.

At the foot of the Downs spring clear sparkling streams; rain from
heaven purified still further by being filtered through a thousand feet
of chalk; fringed with purple Loosestrife and Willowherb, starred with
white Water Ranunculuses, or rich Watercress, while every now and then a
brown water rat rustles in the grasses at the edge, and splashes into
the water, or a pink speckled trout glides out of sight.

In many of our midland and northern counties most of the meadows lie in
parallel undulations or "rigs." These are generally about a furlong (220
yards) in length, and either one or two poles (5-1/2 or 11 yards) in
breadth. They seldom run straight, but tend to curve towards the left.
At each end of the field a high bank, locally called a balk, often 3 or
4 feet high, runs at right angles to the rigs. In small fields there are
generally eight, but sometimes ten, of these rigs, which make in the one
case 4, in the other 5 acres. These curious characters carry us back to
the old tenures, and archaic cultivation of land, and to a period when
the fields were not in pasture, but were arable.

They also explain our curious system of land measurement. The "acre" is
the amount which a team of oxen were supposed to plough in a day. It
corresponds to the German "morgen" and the French "journee." The furlong
or long "furrow" is the distance which a team of oxen can plough
conveniently without stopping to rest. Oxen, as we know, were driven
not with a whip, but with a goad or pole, the most convenient length for
which was 16-1/2 feet, and the ancient ploughman used his "pole" or
"perch" by placing it at right angles to his first furrow, thus
measuring the amount he had to plough. Hence our "pole" or "perch" of
16-1/2 feet, which at first sight seems a very singular unit to have
selected. This width is also co