T. RiGG 395 



to decide. It is, however, a matter of considerable importance in soil 

 survey work, for if samples from the same geological formation show 

 such regular variation in areas not remotely separated, additional care 

 must be taken in interpreting the results of soil analyses as typical 

 of the whole formation. 



The Oxford clay series has been divided into two soil formations. 



(a) The pure day formation. 



This formation stretches out as a low-lying plain to the north of 

 the greensand escarpment which runs through Everton and terminates 

 at Sandy. An area of similar soil has been mapped to the east of 

 Northill and Southill. The formation is a dark brown clay of the 

 heaviest description. Batchelor^ describes this soil as "a dark poor 

 soil, coming too loose after frosts, infected by the worst of grasses, 

 and of such general properties as to keep the cultivators poor." 

 Owing to the shght fall to the river Ivel, the land is difEcult to drain 

 and is very wet in winter. This is particularly so of the great area to 

 the north of Sandy and Everton. Here the poorness of the land and 

 the low price of corn has resulted in hundreds of acres being allowed 

 to run wild, so that now rank scrub, hawthorn, and wild rose stretch 

 almost continuously from Everton to Tempsford. Much of this land 

 thirty or forty years ago was in cultivation, and old inhabitants state 

 that fair crops with plenty of straw could always be obtained. When 

 the fall in price of wheat occurred, evidently the labour of cultivation 

 was too high to bring a profitable return. 



A few cattle are run on the pasture where it is reasonably free from 

 scrub, but the pasture is of the very poorest, and moss seems to pre- 

 dominate. The land where it is cidtivated grows wheat, mangel seed, 

 horse beans, oats, clover and tares. Ploughing must always be done 

 before Christmas or insuperable difficulties will prevent its cultivation 

 in the Spring. The land is so wet that late Spring has arrived before 

 it is fit to be touched, and even then the cidtivator runs a good deal 

 of risk of his newly ploughed land baking into hard intractable lumps. 



The best farmers in the district all emphasize the importance of 

 leaving one-quarter of the acreage of the farm fallow every year. The 

 land is so infested with couch and other noxious grasses that fallowing 

 once in four years becomes a necessity. A four-course rotation of 

 wheat, beans, oats, fallow is usually adopted. The average yield of 

 wheat is 28 bushels and of oats 40 bushels. 



' Batchelor, Survey of Beilfordshire, p. 12. 



