1100 



STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part IV. 



Evesham, and sent to Birmingham ."market, thoufih thirty 

 miles distant; also, poppy-heads for the London druggists. 

 Clover for seed in various parts of the county. 



7. Grass. 

 The banlcs of the rivers chiefly under meadow of the very 



richest kind ; employed chiefly in fatting cattle and sheep ; 

 clovers and rye grass cultivated. 



8. Gardens and Orcha?ds. 



Market gardens near most of the principal towns ; produce, 

 besides local consumption, is sent to Bath, Bristol, and Bir- 

 mingham. Orchards, long and successfully cultivated in the 

 middle, south, and western parts of the county ; round 

 towns, villages, and farm-houses ; and all the hedge-rows of a 



farm often planted with fruit trees, and very productive. In 

 a plentiful year, or what is called a " hit of fruit", it will not 

 pay for carriage to market from remote places ; no casks can 

 be got for all the juice. In 1784, cisterns were formed in the 

 ground to receive the liquor, but they ran out; in Pershore, it 

 IS said currents of perry ran into the common sewers. Large 



quantities of aui)les rot, or are devoured by hogs ; cider in 

 such a year sola for 21. a hogshead, in Worcester market ; 

 two or three tons of cherries often sold in Worcester market 

 in the morning before five o'clock; six tons have been sold 

 there in one morning ; 2000/. has been paid for the tonnage of 

 fruit on the Trent and Severn canal in one year; canal forty - 

 8ix miles long, tonnage l^d. per ton per mile ; 7000 tons must 

 therefore have passed. The stocks are not grafted here till 

 three years after planting out, and saddle-grafting of a pccu- 

 ind. {fig. V82.) it p b y 



782 



liar kind, (J'g- 782.) is pre 

 ferred to the cleft manner 

 UsedinGloucestershire. Some- 

 times the boughs of the stock 

 are each grafted in the whip 

 manner. When cleft-grafiing 

 is performed, the cleft is made 

 with a saw, and afterwards 

 smoothed with a knife; little 

 care paid to the trees after- 

 wards ; they bear at five years, 

 are at perfection at thirty, 

 and continue in full bearing 

 for at least thirty years more. 

 Sheep should be excluded from 

 the orchards, and coarse grass 

 or straw burned in them "on 

 the first appearance of a blight ; 

 this fumigation destroys myri- 

 ads of insects. Fruit is ga- 

 thered as it falls from the tree ; 

 no force used till the leaves 

 are mostly fallen, and then 



only shaking or striking wiih a light pole. Cider made 

 as in Gloucestershire, but with no great attention to the mix- 

 ture of fruit, or its previous sweet and clean state. Pomeroy 

 proposes to separate the core and kernels from the pulp, by 

 forcing a cutting cylinder through each apple, and then grind- 

 ing the core and pulp apart, as much of the flavor of cider 

 depends on bruising the seeds. 



9. Woods and Plantations. 



Abundance of oak and elm. Croome, Hagley, &c. well- 

 wooded. Forest of Wire, near Bewdley, supplies oak poles, 

 rails, hurdles, laths, hoops, &c. 



10. Improvetnents. 



Earl of Coventry drains his park by open cuts wide, and their 

 sides turfed to the bottom ; all the attention they require is 

 preventing the establishment of large weeds, or coarse tufts of 

 grass, which would interrupt the water; some embankments 

 on the Severn, and some meadows irrigated, but mostly by 

 floods. 



11. Live Stock. 



No particular, breeds : land too good for breeding ; Iteeding 

 chiefly attended to, and some dairying ; some soiling, and a 

 good deal of oil-cake used for finishmg autumn-fed oxen. 

 Mules used in agriculture in some parts of the county, especi- 

 ally near Bewdley ; rise to fifteen hands or; more ; Skeys 

 carriage mules bred from grey or wliite mares and a wliite spot- 

 ted foreign ass. The great age to which they attain is one of 

 their chief advantages; at perfection at thirty, and work till 

 seventy or upwards. Asses employed by Carpenter, of Broms- 

 grove, farmer jmd author. 



12. Political Economy. 



Principal roads good ; cross-roads very had.. A road club, 

 established in the vale of Evesham in 1792, the members of 

 which bind themselves to become road surveyors, gratis, in 

 their turns, and strictly to enforce all laws, and to take all the 

 means in their power for procuring and keeping good roads : 

 several canals, fairs, and markets. Manufactures of gloves in 

 Worcester, and also of porcelain and cabinet furniture: of 

 woollen cloth and glass at Stourbridge ; of glass and pottery at 

 Dudley ; leather-making from sheep skins at the same place ; 

 nails, needles, linen, wool-combing and spinning at Broms- 

 grove and Redditch ; tanning in most places ; carpets at Kid- 

 derminster; various iron works on the Stour ; stocking frames 

 at Tewkesbury and Bredon. 



Droitwich salt works onxecordtrom 816. The strata over the 

 salt are, mould five feet, marl thirty -five feet, talc, a gypsum or 

 alabaster, forty feet, then a reservoir of brine twenty -two inches, 

 then talc seventy -five feet, then a rock of salt, into which the 

 workmen bored five feet. The brine is inexhaustible ; on bor- 

 ing through the talc, it immediately rises and fills tlie pit. 

 Salt made here and sold in one year, from April 5, 1771, to 

 April 5, 1772, 001,579 bushels; of which exported abroad, 

 110,120 bushels. Duty paid into the salt-office, London, 

 61,457/. which was then nearly one-third of the whole revenue 

 from salt in England. The process of making salt at Droit- 

 wich is as follows : A little common water is first put into 

 the pan, to keep the brine from burning to the bottom ; the 

 pan is then filled with brine, and a small piece of resin thrown 

 in to make it granulate fine ; when the brine is boiling, the 

 salt first incrusts at the top, and then subsides to the bottom ; 

 when subsided, the persons employed ladle it out with an 

 iron skimmer, and put it into wicker barrows, each containing 

 about half a bushel, in the shape of a sugar loaf, and let them 

 stand at the side of the jpan for some minutes to drain ; they 

 then drop the salt out of the banow, and place it in the stove 

 to harden. In 1775, Baker, a druggist, from London, spent 

 12,000/. in a project for conveying the Droitwich brine in pipes 

 to the Severn, without success. Dr. Nash, from experiment, 

 believes Droitwich salt to be neither manure in itself, nor capa- 

 ble of exciting any vegetative principle on the earth, as animal 

 or vegetable salts, or lime may do ; it produces bad effects on 

 ploughed lauids, by increasing their dryness in hot weather, and 

 by making them greasy,' and what the farmers call raw, in 

 damp weather. He has found it serviceable to scatter foul salt 

 upon large heaps of manure, to kill weeds and destroy their 

 seeds, but not to enrich ; care must be taken that it be not 

 laid near the roots of the trees, as it will certainly destroy them. 

 If laid at the bottom of pools, it enables them to hold water ; 

 it is wholesome to granivorous and graminivorous animals, but 

 pr^udlcial to carnivorous ones. 

 13. Means of Improvejjient. 



The establishment of village and parish libraries recom- 

 mended ; and a paper on the subject copied, which appeared 

 in the Worcester newspaper. From the books recommended, 

 as well as other evidence, the writer of this paper is Sir 

 Richard Phillips. The plan is excellent, and would probably, 

 in the course ot a generation,,.effect a complete change in the 

 lower classes of society. Le Couteur's.treatise on apple trees and 

 cider, as applicable to the Isle of Jersey, appended to the survey. 



7008. MONMOUTHSHIRE. A surface of 316,800 acres varied by hills, some of which are of consider- 

 able height; more distinguished by its woods and its mineral products than its agriculture. A part of 

 the coal basin of SouthWales a fund of wealth of immense consequence to Britain, extends into Mon- 

 mouthshire, and, with the iron works, forms an important source of industry and wealth. (HassaVs 

 Report, 1811.) ' 



1. Geographical State and Circumstances. 

 Climale. Mild m the vales and cold on the confines of 



Breconshire, where the snows sometimes remain on the ground 

 till. a late period in spring; atmosphere humid, as m most 

 western counties ; highly fevorable to the growth of grass. 



Soil. Clay, loam, and grey soil on rock or marble, and beds 

 of limestone. Caldicot and Wentlog levels on the Severn; 

 under the court of sewers is a rich silty loam. SoU of the hills 

 a reddish loam . No poor soil in the county. 



Minerals. Coal, iron, and lime. Upwards of twenty iron 

 works in the coal district ; coal not brought into general use till 

 1792, when the canals and railroads 

 were completed. Principal proprietors 

 of the mineral district. Sir Chas. Mor- 

 gan, C. Leigh, Esq., B. Hall, Esq., and 

 the Earl of Abergavenny. A particular 

 description of the mineral basin of South 

 Wales given by Martin {Phil. Tran. 

 1806). 



2. Property. 

 Duke of Beaufort and Sir Chas. Mor- 



5. Implements. 



The proprietors of iron works have introduced many im- 

 proved forms from the north ; very neat iron gates and posts. 

 Ifie. 783.) 



0. Arable Land. 



Less than the pasture ; tillage chiefly by oxen. " Many 

 farmers are so circumstanced, as to be ever on the watch, lest 

 the avarice of their landlords should interfere with their in- 

 dustry, by taking advantage of any . improvement they make 

 id unexpectedly raise the rent. That such 



in the soil, and 



imfair dealing is become too frequent. 



be lamented. 



gan the chief proprietors; next class, 

 J 000/. to .3000/. .a year; a third 



300/ to 1000/. a year. Many proprietors 

 occupy a part of their estates, and cul- 

 tivate them well ; some very small pro- 

 prietors of orchards and grasslands. 



3. Buildings. 



Some fine old seats ; farm-houses of the 

 oldest date, timber thatched ; new ones 

 covered with tile-stone ; seldom any farm 

 yards ; but cattle-houses, and bams scattered about at random 

 cottages on the most frugal plan, generally with a garden. 



4 Occupation. 



Sire of farms, sixty to .WO acres ; 140 acres about the aver 

 ige; leases not very general. 



and can only be guarded against by leases." 



7. Grass Land. 



" Some farmers insist on it that rushes shelter and protect 

 grass, and will not allow them to be removed by draining or 

 otherwise." 



