20 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
arable farming that was comparable with that of the Boulder
Clay parishes.
It therefore appears that, in spite of local differences, well
over eighty or ninety per cent, of the land of South-East Essex
was devoted to arable farming during the earlier decades of
the. nineteenth century. The effect of the high wheat prices
of the time had obliterated any regional differentiation due to
varying soil characters. A hundred years later, with normal
or sub-normal conditions, the effect of the three soil-types is
clearly reflected in the Land Utilisation map for the year 1933
(fig. 6).
Important regional differences, however, also existed in
Essex in the early nineteenth century. An assessment of the
value of the real estate drawn up in 1815 shows that the dif-
ferences between the north-west and south-east, that have been
observed in earlier periods, still existed. In view of the wide-
spread nature of the arable farming of the County we may
assume that the. crops of the south-east were either poorer in
quality, or of a different type, from those of the north-west.
Some support is given to both these suggestions by Norden
in earlier years and Arthur Young22 at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. The former writer mentioned the north-
west as a land of rich corn and hop crops; the south-east as a
country of oat crops. Young noticed the difference in the
rotation of crops, since wheat predominated in the former
district, whilst oats and fallows figured principally in the south-
east. It is not unlikely that the north-western area grew corn
crops for milling, whilst the corn of the south-eastern districts
served not only for milling, but also for cattle fattening. Much
of the corn of the latter area is used for this purpose today.
An interesting point is raised by the economy of a former
(1838) detached area of Asheldam which is situated upon the
coastal marshland of the Dengie Hundred. This land seems to
have provided the main pasture land of the Parish, although
about one third was arable land. In 1933 the same district
showed a further third in cultivation. During the intervening
period the extensive area of marshland arable farming, that is
noticeable in the Land Utilisation map, must have made its
appearance. This may possibly have occurred during the sixties,
22 Young, A. General View of the Agriculture of the County of Essex