Agriculture of Durham. 89 



Acres. £• 

 92,800 of moorlancl, let on an average of 4s. per acre .. .. 18,560 

 71,500 occupied by woods, wastes, roads, rivers, &c. Much of 

 this is included in the acreage of the farms ; there- 

 fore, say on an average 6s. per acre 21,450 



106,960 of old grass-land in the lowland districts, let on an 



average of 15s 80,220 



^11,140 of tilkge^lands, let on an average of 19s 295,583 



582,400 acres. Rental £415,813 



Soils and their Rent Value. — The orreat variety of soils to be 

 found in this county may be accounted for upon a little ac- 

 quaintance with the varied character of its stratification and the 

 irregularity of its surface. Hence, I have seen large tracts of 

 land in this county where there was very little depth of soil 

 covering the shale and hard shivery sandstone, which so often 

 accompanies the coal, and here thei'e was little to encourage the 

 agriculturist. No corn crops would grow, and the herbage, 

 Avhich barely covered the ground, was scarcely worth the pastur- 

 ing. We find it quite different on the elevated portions of some 

 of the limestone ; there we have a soil, not deep, but light and 

 dry, and capable of producing a good cover of grass. The 

 irregularity of the surface of tlie county has still more largely 

 promoted a variety of soils, for it has promoted an endless variety 

 both in the depth and quality of that alluvial deposit by which 

 the subjacent strata are covered. Accordingly, we find that in 

 all the valleys and hollows throughout the county the soil is 

 deeper and more productive than on the more elevated porti(ms ; 

 though even there its quality is very different, according as 

 the situation has tended to promote the deposit of silt and 

 vegetable matter brought down by the action of water during 

 the course of years. By the side of the three principal rivers 

 — the Tyne, the Weai", and the Tees — there is a good ex- 

 tent of flat or " haugh " land of a good loamy character. From 

 the mouth of the Tyne, Ijy Jarrow, Ilebburn, and Heworth, to 

 Gateshead, and from thence up the Ravensworth Vale, we have 

 strong soil on a stiff clay subsoil. I dug a tank in this district 

 not long ago, and after 2 feet of vegetable soil we went through 

 6 feet of stiff blue clay which cut like leather. Notwithstanding 

 this, the surface, where drained, is very friable ; it is generally a 

 good wheat-soil, and by pnqier management is, in many parts, 

 made to ])roduce excellent crops of turnips. A farmer in the 

 IIel)l)urn district tells me that the average produce of wheat there 

 will be'20 bolls an acre, but that with proper draining and good 

 management the district would produce more. Along the sea- 

 coast, from Whitburn to Hartlepool, the greater part of the soil 

 is ligliter, I)eing on tlie limestone, with a gravelly subsoil. In 

 parts of that district it has become richer by good management, 



