Agriculture of Durliarn, 93 



and that the thickness of soil covering the clay is of an endless 

 variety of thickness and quality. Of gravelly or sandy subsoil 

 there is only a small proportion, and it is scattered in various 

 parts with much irregularity. I cannot form any correct idea 

 of the respective quantities of each of those two kinds of subsoil ; 

 in fact, the distinction between them is not so completely marked 

 as to cause farms to be managed (as in other counties) upon an 

 entirely different system, according as each may be situate on the 

 one or the other. The average values per acre in various dis- 

 tricts over the whole countv have been calculated from tlie best 

 information it was possible to obtain — namely, from actual 

 valuations ; of which not less than 2415 have been carefully gone 

 through. 



Common Lands divided. — We shall do injustice to both land- 

 lord and tenant, if we form an opinion of the present state of the 

 agriculture of any county or district, without bearing in mind 

 what that county or district was in some former period, so as to 

 ascertain the progress or improvement which has been made. I 

 must therefore refer to the fact that, within a comparatively 

 recent period, a large portion of thi? county was unenclosed and 

 uncultivated, and lay either in wide tracts of desolate moor, or in 

 more sheltered, though equally neglected, " stinted pastures." 

 j\Ir. Bailey, in his Report on this county, gives a list of commons 

 divided between the years 175G and 1809, amounting to 

 114,071 acres. Since the last-named period the following addi- 

 tional commons have been divided and enclosed : — 



A. K. p. 



Gilligatfe Moor and To\^-n Fields 300 



Beamish South Moor 478 



Blackburn Fell 2,(;00 



Egglcstoue Moor 5,987 1 3 



Gatesliead Fell 631 21 



Gateshead Town Fields 158 1 



AVoodland, parish of Cockfiold 2,2G0 



Whickhain Fell 451 2 IG 



Barlow Fell, Bcda Hills, and wastes of the Manor of 



Winlaton 521 



Middlehope Fell, Weardaie 2,343 



Middleton in Teesdale, in and out Fells 0,224 2 21 



Boldon Common 03 2 14 



Total 25,017 1 35 



Thus we have an aggregate of 139,0(S8 acres of ((unmon land 

 divided Ijetwecn the years ITal't and 1853. 1 have (xamined the 

 papers connected with a number of those divisions, now in my 

 possession, and find tiiat the average value per acre placed on 

 those commons which were situated in the cc;ntral and more im- 



