Excerpt from A History of Hampshire: Including the Isle of Wight The history of every county has been affected to some extent by its natural features, and this is especially the case in respect to that county whose history is sketched in this volume. The County of Southampton or Hampshire has been much favoured by nature, and its natural advantages must have commended it to its early inhabitants, whose connection with it are traced in these pages. The surface of the county consists largely of well-wooded plains or valleys, and dry chalk hills which stretch across it in a broad belt, having on the north and south of them two other broad areas of clays, and sandy loams. Hampshire is, and always has been, a woodland county, and its forests have been much concerned with its history. Its natural features have had a great influence on the growth of its forests, for oak grows on the clay lands in all parts of the county, while beech flourishes on the loamy soils lying upon the slopes of the chalk hills, and upon similar soils in the north and the south, and those areas which contain more sand than clay can be distinguished by a growth of pines and firs. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.