Old Hampshire Mapped
Cobbett's Hampshire
Transcription (36)Whiteflood
hills
Longwood Warren
rabbit warren
warren
Northesk, Lord
downs
improvement
wheat
enclosure
grass
From Whiteflood you come over a series of hills, part of which form a rabbit-warren, called Longwood warren, on the borders of which is the house and estate of Lord Northesk. These hills are amongst the most barren of the Downs of England; yet a part of them was broken up during the rage for improvement; during the rage for what empty men think was an augmenting of the capital of the country. On about twenty acres of this land, sown with wheat, I should not suppose that there would be twice twenty bushels of grain! A man must be mad, or nearly mad, to sow wheat upon such a spot. However, a large part of what was inclosed has been thrown out again already, and the rest will be thrown out in a very few years. The Down itself was poor; what then must it be as corn-land! Think of the destruction which has here taken place. The herbage was not good, but it was something; it was something for every year, and without trouble. Instead of grass it will now, for twenty years to come, bear nothing but that species of weeds which is hardy enough to grow where grass will not grow. ...
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