ANCIENT MEADOWS 239 



the worst men have always been reluctant to break 

 up old pasture. Ancient customs survive even in the 

 tenure of these sacred spots of earth. " Joint holdings " 

 exist in meadow-land long after they have disappeared 

 in connection with the cultivated portions. The Thames 

 valley is still full of such joint tenancies. In the Stour 

 valley, with Essex on one side and Suffolk on the other, 

 are numbers of " common meadows " in which several 

 men own portions, which they agree to feed or mow, as 

 they may decide, every year. At Bampton, in Oxford- 

 shire, the sections of the " common meadow " are 

 annually redistributed by lots among sixteen owners. 



The flat meadows by the sides of rivers, level as a 

 table, are so exactly alike in one particular, their 

 absolute conformity to the level line, that an explanation 

 of their history seems demanded by their shape. The 

 story is simple enough as geologists read it. All the 

 flat meadows have been made by floods, which, as they 

 retired, left a uniform deposit of mud. This went on 

 till the level rose even with the highest flood-mark, 

 and as rivers tend to wear their own channels deeper 

 the flat meadows were left. These, however, are in 

 many cases only in course of being made they are not 

 always the sweetest or most ancient pasture, like that 

 on the good warm marl and loam round the inland 

 farms. 



u St. Barnabas mow the grass " is an old country 

 saying. But although St. Barnabas' day falls when 

 the meadows are generally ripe for mowing, there is 

 no crop so " tickle," as the Yorkshire farmers say, as 



