sand in a flock, and
several private farmers hereabouts have two or three such flocks.

But it is more remarkable still how a great part of these Downs comes, by
a new method of husbandry, to be not only made arable (which they never
were in former days), but to bear excellent wheat, and great crops, too,
though otherwise poor barren land, and never known to our ancestors to be
capable of any such thing--nay, they would perhaps have laughed at any
one that would have gone about to plough up the wild downs and hills
where the sheep were wont to go. But experience has made the present age
wiser and more skilful in husbandry; for by only folding the sheep upon
the ploughed lands--those lands which otherwise are barren, and where the
plough goes within three or four inches of the solid rock of chalk, are
made fruitful and bear very good wheat, as well as rye and barley. I
shall say more of this when I come to speak of the same practice farther
in the country.

This plain country continues in length from Winchester to Salisbury
(twenty-five miles), from thence to Dorchester (twenty-two miles), thence
to Weymouth (six miles); so that they lie near fifty miles in length and
breadth; they reach also in some places thirty-five to forty miles. They
who would make any practicable guess at the number of sheep usually fed
on these Downs may take it from a calculation made, as I was told, at
Dorchester, that there were six hundred thousand sheep fed within six
miles of that town, measuring every way round and the town in the centre.

As we passed this plain country, we saw a great many old camps, as well
Roman as British, and several remains of the ancient inhabitants of this
kingdom, and of their wars, battles, entrenchments, encampments,
buildings, and other fortifications, which are indeed very agreeable to a
traveller that has read anything of the history of the country. Old
Sarum is as remarkable as any of these, where there is a double
entrenchment, with a deep graff or ditch to either of them; the area
about one hundred yards in diameter, taking in the whole crown of the
hill, and thereby rendering the ascent very difficult. Near this there
is one farm-house, which is all the remains I could see of any town in or
near the place (for the encampment has no resemblance of a town), and yet
this is called the borough of Old Sarum, and sends two members to
Parliament. Whom those members can justly say they represent would be