46 EEV. J. C. CLUTTERBIJCK PRODUCTS OF HEETFOEBSHIEE. 



and newly cultivated plants. Mr. Greg, Sir John Sebright, 

 Mr. Rogers Parker, of Munden, Lady Salisbury, and, I may add, 

 my own father, were ready at all times to test the value of new 

 productions. There is a very remarkable record of the cultivation 

 of 17 acres of land under Lady Salisbury's direction, in which we 

 meet with a root not otherwise mentioned, namely mangel wurzel, 

 then, I believe, called the "root of scarcity," as distinguished from 

 ordinary beetroot. I first saw it cultivated by the late Mr. 

 Nicholson Calvert, who at one time represented the county ; he 

 showed it and spoke of it as a new introduction in the summer of 

 1817. We find it before that date, in 1795, cultivated by Lady 

 Salisbury, forming one of the 17 acres from which it is stated that 

 a profit of £462 10s. was realised, chiefly from the sale of 41,000 

 cabbages at l^d. each, grown on 7 acres. The gross produce 

 was £598. 



Here the experiments carried on by Mr. Lawes, of Rothamstead, 

 assisted by Dr. Gilbert, deserve especial notice. The details are 

 regularly given to, and are, therefore, before the public. As these 

 experiments are carried on iipon that which may be deemed an 

 average soil of a great part of the arable land of Hertfordshire, 

 over and above their great value to agriculture in general, they 

 show how and in what proportion the natural quality and condition 

 of the soil, and the application of various manures, or the absence 

 of all manure, stimulate the production or exhaust its fertility. 

 These experiments show in the plainest and most convincing 

 manner, which of the constituents of the cereals, roots, and other 

 products of the soil, especially of Hertfordshire, are supplied by 

 the atmosphere or are taken up from the soil ; and as connected 

 with these experiments, it may be mentioned that one of the 

 manures generally known as artificial is found at the northern 

 extremity of the county. It bears the name of coprolites, which 

 does not truly describe the substances or nodules, more or less con- 

 sisting of fossils charged with a considerable amount of phosphate 

 of lime, probably due to the breaking up of the beds of the Upper 

 Greensand above the Gault, on the surface of which they are 

 usually found in large quantities. They are ground and chemically 

 treated, and returned to the soil as a valuable mineral manure, 

 a product of the county. 



There is a natural production of Hertfordshire, which, within 

 the present century, has been turned to considerable commercial 

 account as a cultivated plant. In times gone by, those who sold 

 watercresses were content, like Goldsmith's 



" . . . . "Wretched matron, forced in age, for bread, 

 To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread." 



Those who cultivate the watercresses now are very different from 

 the "widowed solitary thing " of the poet, now that this trade has 

 assumed such extensive proportions. One word as to the "wretched 

 matron." The deserted village was no doubt suggested to Goldsmith 

 by a village in Ireland, his native land, but, fi-om the village of 



