A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



This practical wiping out of barley as a Middlesex crop is wholly de- 

 plorable, for the area devoted to it was never excessive, and consisted of 

 the less heavy soils on which it did well. Of the moderate area in 1876, 

 2,405 acres, it may be said with fair safety that not a single acre was of 

 unfit land. That the cultivation of barley in Middlesex has been all but 

 wholly abandoned is therefore a very evil sign. The farmers who have 

 given it up were not incompetent; the prices ruling since 1876 have 

 made it unprofitable. 



Oats are thus returned : 



1876 .......... 5,293 acres 



I9 6 .......... 2,317 



Long-stricken wheat and all but eliminated barley cultivation will 

 have prepared readers for even worse figures for oats than those which 

 we are now printing. The decline is very serious, but it leaves oats in 

 the position of the leading cereal crop of the county. The large demand 

 for good heavy English oats for good horses kept in London is probably 

 the reason why the decline has not been greater than that actually 

 recorded. 



Rye has not been largely cultivated in Middlesex since the great 

 war with France, when the universal desire to grow wheat was born of a 

 belief that the whole country was likely to find itself on short commons 

 and that wheat ' went further ' than rye. There is no great difference 

 in point of fact, the ideas of 1794 being exaggerated. Still, there is 

 some difference, rye weighs a little less to the quarter as a rule and yields 

 a little less to the acre. Areas devoted to it in Middlesex are : 



1876 . . . . . . . . . .341 acres 







Seeing the extreme usefulness of rye as a crop which can be fed off in 

 the green state if food for stock runs short or allowed to ripen into grain 

 which is ' safe ' for say 24^. per quarter, seeing, too, that its straw is of 

 high quality and in constant demand the rye area ought to reverse the 

 figures of the thirty past years and revert to a good figure. 

 Areas under beans are : 



1876 .......... 1,383 acres 



1906 . . . . . . . . . 651 



The bean crop is a capricious one, but Middlesex is a county where it 

 should do well. Foreign production has declined so materially for the 

 past five years that prices are steadily advancing. Farmers to be 'in the 

 movement ' should grow more beans. 

 Peas are returned as follows : 



1876 .......... 1,833 acres 



1906 .......... 1,058 



The fall in peas may be due to a too exclusive cultivation of maple and 

 dun sorts which seldom fetch a very adequate sum at Mark Lane. High- 

 class peas pay well, but this branch of agriculture touches on market 



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