'Furrows' are the tracks left in newly-ploughed soil, and the fact that they were evidently white implies that the land around Whitfurrows had chalky soil. This is consistent with various other references to the land around the Shire being heavy in chalk. For example, when the Town Hole at Michel Delving collapsed, Mayor Will Whitfoot was 'buried in chalk' (The Fellowship of the Ring I 9, At the Sign of the Prancing Pony). This is reinforced by the fact that Michel Delving stood on the White Downs, and indeed the name 'Whitfoot' itself, meaning 'white foot', gives us another potential connection to chalk. Michel Delving was the in the west of the Shire, but the chalk deposits clearly ran some way to the east, through Whitfurrows and beyond. When Frodo and his companions visited Tom Bombadil, whose house lay east of the Shire beyond the Old Forest, they found a 'white chalky path' leading to his door (The Fellowship of the Ring I 8, In the House of Tom Bombadil).
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