1088 



STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part IV. 



11. Improvements. 

 Underdraining clay by numerotw paraitel cuts filled with 



straw, wood, or stones general : manuring well understood ; 

 much brought from London of every sort ; Iwnes, soot, sheeji 

 trotters, night soil, oil-cake dust, rags, leather clippings, fur- 

 riers' clippings, horn-shavings, malt-dust, hair, sticklebacks, 

 &c. Top dressings more frequent than in any other countv. 

 Chalk a very common manure on clayey soils; laid on un- 

 bumed, and left on the surface to be pulverized by heat and 

 rains, or frosts and thaws ; then harrowed with a biish harrow, 

 to spread it, and ploughed in. Some irrigated meadows at 

 Kickmansworth and other places'; but the frequency of mills 

 is against the process. 



12. Live Stock. 

 All the spare clover, hay and straw, carried to London, and 



manure brought out in return. Sir .7. Sebright prefers Suf- 

 folk cows and horses, and uses the Wiltshire sheep. A good 

 many house lambs suckled about Kickmansworth, fed with 

 grains and malt-dust in winter. Folding sheep generally ap- 

 proved of. Soiling with clover and tares common. Grey works 

 Suffolk oxen in harness, four to a team. Hon. G. Villiers 

 prefers the Glamorganshire oxen for work ; and thinks stall-fed 

 oxen can hardly be kept too warm ; prefers oil-cake for finish- 

 ing to every thing else ; Lady Salisbury has the wild breed of 

 pigs, which fatten to forty -eUht stone ; feeds on lettices, which 

 is found to answer well. Stevenson, the bailiff, bred a gar- 

 dener, which renders him a superior cultivator of green crops. 

 Lord Clarendon feeds deer (66'20.) and sells them. Poultry at 

 the Grove kept in wheeled coops about twelve feet long and 

 two and a half wide, Injarded on one side and open on the 

 other; these are wheeled up and down the park, and a boy at- 

 tends them to keep away hawks. In the poultry yard distinct 

 houses for all sorts of fowls ; the roosts so contrived that they 

 may not dung on one another. 



13. Rural Economy. 

 Ploughmen generally hired by the year. 



14. Political Economy. 



Good roads ; few manufactures excepting plaiting straw, 

 which is very general in the county, especially about Dun- 

 stable, St. Albans, Redburn, &c. Weak wheat straw from 

 chalky and white land, and such as grows under trees or near 

 hedges preferred. The plaiters give from two-pence to four- 

 pence a ixjund for it, and sort it themselves. Much malt 

 made about Ware and Hertford for the London market. 



6998. BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 393,600 acres of hilly surface, and chiefly of clayey or loamy soil ; a 

 considerable part chalky, and the agriculture nearly equally divided between tillage and grass. (Survey 

 by St. John Priest, Secretary to the Norfolk Agricultural Society, 1810. Malcolm's Survey, 1794. Mar- 

 shal's Review, 1818. Smith's Geological Map, 1820.) 



7. Arable Land. 

 By far the greater part of tha county in tillage : crops chiefly 



wheat, barley, and oats'; turnips and clover supposed to have 

 been introduced in the time of Oliver Cromwell : depth of plough- 

 ing generally four or five inches. Greg, who has written a tract 

 on managing clay lands without naked fallows, ploughs as deep 

 as the staple will admit. Rotations various, generally with a 

 naked fallow, once in three, five, or seven years, or oftensr. 

 Combing or ril)bing in use in some places instead of drilling. 

 Turnips cultivated broad cast, and very poor crops produced ; 

 cabbages grown to a large size by the Marchioness of Salisbury, 

 for cows ; large red sort prefened. Carrots, parsneps, beets, &c. 

 cultivated by the Marchioness on her experimental farm. 

 Good saintfoin on the chalks. Drilling com crops with Cooke's 

 drill practised in various places. Water cress for the London 

 market, cultivated in the streams at Rickmansworth. Sixty 

 acres of furze for faggots at Ashridge. 



8. Grass. 

 Quantity small, and ojiiefly a narrow margin near Barnet, 



on which hay is grown for the London market ; some good 

 meadows on the Stort. 



9. Orchards. 

 Apples and cherries abound in the S.W. comer of the 



county on farms of from twenty to fifty acres. In ten years 

 after planting, cherry trees begin to bear ; produce till the 

 twentieth year, six dozen pounds; when full grown, fifty 

 dozen pounds ; price, ten-pence to three shillings a dozen. 

 Caroon, and small black, the favorite sorts. Kentisii will not 

 thrive here. None of the apples for cider : orchards kept in 

 grass, but not mowed. 



10. Woods. 

 The copse kind abound in the northern and in many parts of 



the county; produce faggot wood and hurdles ; cut at twelve 

 years ; black willow, ash, and hazel, best for hurdles ; alders 

 bought by turners and patten makers. Fine woods, natural 

 and artificial, at the Earl of Clarendon's, the Grove, near 

 Watford. A superb oak at Panshanger, E. Cowper's ; seven- 

 teen feet round at five feet from the ground ; called the great 

 oak in 1709: on a soil gravelly above, but, doubtless, clay be- 

 low. The timber in Moor Park of great antiquity, and in a 

 state of decay ; many immense pollards ; and, on the whole, 

 one of the most forest-like parks near London. Vast oaks and 

 beeches at Ashridge and Beechwood. Beech excels there ; also 

 cedars and the oak, ash, larch, spruce, and common pine excel- 

 lent. Beech sold to turners, chair-makers, and for barrel staves. 



1. Geographical State and Circumstances. 

 Climate, cold and windy on the Chiltern Hills. 



Soil, chiefly clay and chalk, with some gravelly loam; 

 Chiltems wholly chalk ; vales generally clay. 



Minerals. Some ochre, used in painting'; a quarry of good 

 marble at Newport, but too deep to be profitably worked; 

 a freestone quarry near Olney. 



Water. Numerous rivers and canals for sending produce to 

 market ; but often filled with weeds, bushes, and other ob- 

 structions, which, after heavy rains, occasion frequent floods : 

 a " commission of waters" proposed by the reporter as a re- 

 medy. 



2. Property. 



Some large estates, as those of the Dukes of Bedford, Buck- 

 ingham, &c. : tenures very various : a description of lands 

 here called yard lands (virgata terrce), which entitle the holders 

 to certain rights of common. 



3. Buildings. 



Stowe, and Ashridg-e (the latter partly in Herts), the first of 

 Grecian,the other of Gothic architecture, the two noblest man- 

 sions in the county. Tyringham, Wycombe Abbey, &c. also very 

 good houses, and many others : some good farm-houses, and 

 the dairies very clean and neat ; churning often performed by 

 horse machinery ; the churns of the barrel kind. Lord Car- 

 rington has built some good farmeries, and the Marquis of 

 Buckingham some very complete cow-liouses. Drake has 

 a good circular pigeon-house, with brick cells or lockers in 

 rows, with shelves before for the pigeons to light upon; fre- 



quently white-washed, to keep them free from bugs. A foot- 

 bridge at Fawley Court, moveable upon two pivots at its ends, 

 and being heavier on one side than the other, alwavs hangs 

 perpendicularly, excepting when any one walks upon" its light 

 side, when the weight of the person keeps it flat ; hence it 

 admits the passage of men, but not stock : cottages good 

 and mostly with gardens attached : some at Brickhill worse 

 than piggeries. Sir J. D. King gives premiums for the best 

 cultivated gardens ; also gives clothing and other rewards for 

 good conduct in servitude. 



4. Occupation. 



f ^1 nnn ^ ^"""^^ ""^?^^}^X number in the county 2059 ; one 

 of 1000 acres, one of 900, four or five between 600 and 700 

 acres, ten between 500 and COO, twenty -four between 400 and 

 oOO, and the rest from 400 down to ten acres; average 179 

 aCTes. ^Vestcar, of Kr^low, a celebrated grazier, ^cupies 

 900 acres, of which only between sixty and seventv are arable. 

 Very few leases, and those given with very Objectionable 

 covenants. Lord Camngton and other more enlightened pro- 

 prietors grant leases. " * 



5. Implements. 



Swing ploughs and four horses in a line common. 



6. Enclosing. 



Has gone on rapidly; old hedges mixed, and with many ash 

 and oak pollards. ^ 



7. Arable Land. 



,,^^^^ J'S^/''^ll^' ^5th waste spaces between, around, or 

 at the ends. (Jig-. /71.) Fallow in general every thiid year. 



most common rotation fallow, wheat, beans : chief grains 

 o'^ihelStlanS;" '^-^ <l-il'-i and hand hoed ; some^^ps' 

 8. Grass. 

 Pastures a prominent feature ; those in the vale of Aylesbury, 



especially thence to Bicester, very rich; generally fed, but oc- 

 casionally mown. Removing ant hills called banking, apiece 

 of management to which the renters of grass lands are generally 

 bound in their leases. They are removed by skinning, geld- 

 ing, or gutting, and kept down by rolling ; thistles are spud- 

 ded ; size of grass fields from twenty to 300 acres. 



