Note 3 — THE GATHERER

Footnote 3: (return) In the years 1800 and 1801, when wheat was at an unprecedented price, the occupiers of farms on the South Downs converted much of their downland into tillage, from which they acquired abundant crops of corn. The green sward when once ploughed, can never be restored to its former verdure, and although grass seeds have been yearly sown in succession for more than 80 years upon down formerly broken up and converted into arable land, the distinctions between these parts and the original down is still clearly perceptible.