1126 



STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. 



IV. 



2. State of Proper ti/. 



Ustaiet and tlieir maitagemeiii. Generally under the care of 

 attorneys, and badly manatjed. 



Tenures. Much freehold, considerable extent of copyhold, 

 tome church, college, and corporation land. 



3. Buildings. 



Houses of proprietors. Numerous, splendid, commodious. 



t'iirm-houses, itffices, repairs. Oldest built wiUi timber lathed 

 and plastered, roofs thatchetl ; erected pieceirteal ; situated in 

 villages, sides of lanes, and nesir large ponds. Those built 

 within the j)resent century, of brick, and covered with tiles. 

 Farmery of^ Sutton Court, Chiswick, Wickgreen, and Isle- 

 worth, models of their kind. Very few builmngs required on 

 hay farms. 



Cottages, brick and tiled, and generally in villages ; formerly 

 with right of common, now done away by enclosures. 



4. Mode of Occupation. 



Size of farms. Generally small compared with other coun- 

 ties ; three cow-farms near town, from MtJ to GOO acres each, 

 rentetl at from 2000*. to 5000^ each. Many of 200/. ; average 

 of county 100/. 



Ciiaracter qf the farmers. Four classes. 1 . Cow-keepers, 

 Rardeners, and nurserymen. 2. Amateur farmers of fortune. 

 ."5. Amateur farmers, who have left other pursuits. 4. Com- 

 mercial or professional farmers, equal in number to half tlie 

 others. 



Rural artificers. Bad ; impossible to get any agricultural 

 implement or machine made on a good principle by the country 

 artificers ; but able mechanics in London ; Cottam and Hallen, 

 Wykes and Phillips, Snowden, and especially AVeir, a Noi tli- 

 lunberland man, and practically acquainted with agriculture. 



Ant/ paid in money, sometimes a small part in but' er and 

 cream at tixed prices. Varies from 10*. to 10/. per acre, or 

 higher for nurseries. 



Tithes in many places taken in kind, in some compounded 

 for annually, or lor a fixed period. 



Poor, and the rates for their relief, average 3*. M. per acre. 



Leases, general. Often for fourteen and twenty-one yeajrs, 

 drawn up by lawyers " a composition of obsolete unintelli- 

 gible covenants." 



Expense and profit. Expenses on entering a farm, greater 

 than in distant plaices : profits seldom more than a mere sub- 

 sistence to the farmer. I'lie increase of canals, and the i>ro- 

 spect of steam carriages and locomotive steam-engines on rail- 

 Toads, is rapidly rendering distant and near farms and farmers' 

 profits on a level. 



5. Implements. 



All bad ; plough barbarous ; threshing mills rare. 



6. Enclosing. 



Now mostly enclosed. Nineteen commons enclosed from 

 1800 to 1806, containing 20,000 acres and upwards. Old 

 fences of a mixture of white and black thorn, maple, hazel, 

 briar, crab, damson-plum, &c.; new of white thorn with ditch 

 and bank ; gates most'y five-barred, and of oak; enclostires too 

 numerous. 



7. Arabic Land. 



About 14,000 acres; wretchedly managed, ploughed with 

 teams of three or four horses ; rotation generally fallow, wheat, 

 beans. 



8. Grass Lands. 



Meadows better managed ; bay-making good. 



9. Gardens and Orchards. 



From Kensington tlirough Hammersmith, Cliiswick, Brent- 

 ford, Islew^orth, and Twickenham, seven miles of garden 

 ground ; may be denominated the great London firuit garden, 

 north of the Thames. An upi>er and under crop taken at the 

 same time; the uiiuer the fruits on trees; the under straw- 

 lorries and various herbaceous crops. To increase shelter and 

 warmth in autumn, they raise banks of soil 3 feet high, facing 

 the south, and sIo)>ed to an angle of 45* ; on these they plant 

 endive in September, and near the bottom, from October to 

 Christmas, thry drill a row of pens ; the endive is preseiTcd 

 from rotting, and the peas come to maturity nearly as early as 

 if under a wall. The springs here lie eight or tea feet under 



the surfkce, and the water Is raised from the wells by a bucket 

 and lever, Ialanced by a stone. (./'V,'- 152.1 Three thousand 

 acres of garden grounfl here, employing hve ])crsons, a man, 

 his wife, and three children, per acre, during the winter half- 

 year, and during gammer, five persons more, chielly Welsh 

 women. Estimated produce 100/. per acre. 



Kitchen gardens. Much fresh littery dung rcfjuired for 

 growing mushrooms, early cucumbers, salads, potatoes, aspa- 

 ragus, &c. Consumption of the metropolis and its environs, 

 for fruits and vegetables, estimated at upwards of a million 

 sterling i)er annum. Several farming gardens pay 1000/. per 

 annum. 



nursery grounds. About 1500 acres, producing 75,000/. 

 a year. 



10. Woods and Plantations. 



Copses ami woods decreasing for ages : still a few acres near 

 Hampstead and Highgate. 



Hedge-row timlter much disfigured by being pollarded or 

 pruned to may-poles. 



fVillorvs or osiers. Many islets on the Thames, rented by 

 basket-makers, and planted with osiers ; also, wet borders of 

 the river so planted. Species i'alix vitelllna, umygdillina, or 

 almond-leavetl, and viminalis, or osier; willows when cut 

 made up in bundles, or boults, forty-two inches romid, at six- 

 teen inches al)ove the but-ends. 



11. Improvements. 



Draining, to carry off surface water. The mode of making 

 surface gutters on meadows, by means of an addition to cart- 

 wheels (3979.), invented by the reporter. 



Mannre produced in London by 30,000 horses, 8000 coh s, 

 and 700,000 human beings, equals 500,000 loads; of which, 

 half is carried into the Thames by the sewers, including ninety- 

 nine per cent of the night soil. 



12. Livestock. 



Less live stock on the farms of this county than in any other : 

 no breeding. Short homed cows of Holdemess chielly used by 

 milkmen: number kept 8500; average produce nine quarts 

 j>er day ; fed on hay, turnips, brewer's grains, linseed cike and 

 jelly, and grass : retail dealers adulterate the milk, preferring 

 dirty water to clean; and adulterate the cream by adding 

 molasses and a little salt. Very little butter made in the county. 

 Brewer's drays supplied with" horses from tlie Berksliire far- 

 mers, who buy them young from Northamptonshire, and work 

 them two or three years before they sell them. Not more than 

 one dove-hous* in the county ; but many pigeons kept in 

 empty wine jiipes set upon posts, fifteen or twenty fett high, 

 and many kept by journeymen tradesmen, pigeon 'fanciers in 

 the jioorer parts of London, and most other towns-and villages 

 of tlie county. 



13. Rural Economy. 



Half the manual labour done by the Job ; labourers ruined in 

 morals and constitution, by the public houses. Gentlemen's 

 servants a bad and contaminating set. 



14. Political Economy. 



Highways of the parishes good, turnpike roads generally 

 managed on Macadam's principle, and good ; several canals 

 terminate in or near London ; and New Kiver for supplying 

 water ; fairs on the decline. Uxbridge the greatest com msu-ket 

 next to IMark Lane. Great cattle markets, Hounslow and 

 Smithfield. Commerce great. Manufactures not many ; con- 

 sidering agriculture as a manufacture, and the soil as the raw 

 material, and worth \Gs. per acre, at an average of England ; 

 it is increased in value to 5/. or 525/. per cent. Distilleries and 

 breweries numerous. 



15. Obstacles to Improvement. 



Tithes, land-agents being attorneys, bad leases, bad rural 

 artificers, bad and thieving servants. 



16. Miscellaneous Observations. 



Society of Arts, Veterinary College, excellent instituti' ns. 

 Fines called heriots should be removed ; weights and measures 

 lately regulated ; much damage is done by game. 



17. Means of Improvement. 



Ample in the metropolis, and the progress rapid; in the 

 country, want of intelligence the grand drawback. 



7778. SURREY. A surface of 519,040 acres lieautifuUy varied: poor and heathy in the west, chalky 

 in the east, and clayey in the south. 'I'he field cultivation of clover and turnips appears to have first taken 



place in this country. {Stevenson's Survey, 1813. 

 Smith's Geological Map, 1821. Edin. Gaz., 1827.) 



1. Geographical State and Circumstances. 



Climate. Healthy winds S.W. and W. : seldom blows from 

 any point between N.W. and N-E. for any time. East winds 

 in spring, and then weather cold, raw, and drizzling. Most 

 rain falls when the wind is S.S.W. or S. 



Soils. Various and most irregularly distributed ; a broad 

 zone of tenacious clay bordering Sussex : patches of brick earth 

 at Walworth, Sutton, and Stoke. Considerable extent of clialk 

 hills from Croydon to Nuttfield, and thence narrowing to the 

 western extremity of the county. A good deal of black rich 

 land interspersed among all the soils. 



Surface. St. Anne's Hill, Cooper's Hill, and Richmond Hill 

 celebrated; I,eith Hill the highest, commands a prospect of 

 from thirty to forty miles on every side. 



Minerals. Iron ore, fuller's earth, firestone, limestone, and 

 chalk. Iron-works on the decline, on account of the deamess 

 of fuel. Abundance of fuller's earth in the southern part of the 

 county, which has been dug since the beginning of the eigh- 

 teenth century. Excellent firestone : when first quarried soft ; 

 kept under cover a few months becomes compact, and able to 

 endure the action of a common fire. Owing to this stone, 

 Dawson, proi)rietor of the Vauxhall plate-gleiss works, can 

 make plates of such a size as to surprise the French, from 

 whom lie discovered the art of plate-glass making in the dis- 

 guise of a common labourer. Excellent limestone at Dorkmg, 

 which hardens under water; contains a little flint. Chalk 

 used chiefly as a manure. I'he sand about Ryegate the finest 

 in the kingdom, and in considerable demand for egg and 

 hour glasses, writing-sand boxes. &c. At Nonsuch, there is a 

 l)ed of brick earth, from wliich fire bricks and crucibles are 

 made. 



Water. Scarce in many places, particularly on the chalk. 

 Several sup))lies prociurcd round London, by boring down from 

 one hundred to live huiidred feet to Uie chalk suatum, where 



Malcolm's Survey, 1809. Marshal's Bevietv, 1818. 



the water is excellent, soft, and abundant. Artesian (frcm the 

 county of Artois, where such wells were first brought into 

 notice,) wells are now ao numerous in the neighbourhood of 

 London, that in places where the water formerly rose in the 

 tore three or four feet above the surface, it will now scarcely 

 reach tlie surface. (Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. ii. and iii.) 



fish pomls common on the heaths, at the western side of 

 tlie county ; have been used for upwards of two centuries, 

 for breeding and rearing carp and other fish. One of the 

 largest, containing one hundred and fifty acies, is near 

 Hersham. 



Mineral tralcrs numerous. Epsom water is irrn>regnated 

 with sulphate of magnesia, and is purgative. E|>i>om salts 

 originally made there, now chiefly from common salt water at 

 Lymington in Warwickshire. The other springs are more or 

 less im]>regnated with sulphate of magnesia, carbonate of lime, 

 and iron. 



2. State of Properly. 



No large estates : largest 10,000/. a year. Veomanry not 

 numerous; hut some gentlemen round Guildford farm their 

 own estates of from 200/. to 40(J/. per annum. Estates mostly 

 managed by attorneys; so far proper as to law terms, but as 

 absurd as to agricultural restrictions, as it would be to emrfoy 

 a farmer to draw up the covenants in technical language. Till 

 the farmer becomes active, inquisitive, free from prejudice, 

 and intelligent, no covenants, or care of attorneys and stewards, 

 will prevent him from injuring himself and his landlord by 

 bad husbandry. M'hen he tfecomes active, &c. he will take 

 care of the landlord's interest for the iake of his own ; and the 

 first stei> to forcing the farmer to become active and intelligent 

 is to leave him to the exertions of liis own mind. Tenures 

 cliiefly freehold. 



3. Buildings. 



Few couiitics that can vie with Surrey in the number and 



