From Winchester is about twenty-five miles, and over the most
charming plains that can anywhere be seen (far, in my opinion,
excelling the plains of Mecca), we come to Salisbury. The vast
flocks of sheep which one everywhere sees upon these Downs, and the
great number of those flocks, is a sight truly worth observation;
it is ordinary for these flocks to contain from three thousand to
five thousand 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