Book 1. 



AGRICULTURE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 



1131 



11. Jtnprovetnents. 



Underdraining clay by numerous parallel cuts filled inrith 

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

 tnucli brought from Ixmdon of every sort ; bones, so4;t, sheep 

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

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

 k'cc. Top dressings more frequent than in any other county, 

 t-halk a very common manure on clayey soils ; laid on un- 

 burned, and left on the surface to be pulverised by heat and 

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

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

 Kickmansworth and other places ; but the frequency of mills 

 is against the process, 

 li.'. Livestock. 



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

 manure brought out in return. Sir .1. Sebright prefers Suf- 

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

 many house lambs suckled about Kickmansworth, fid with 

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

 proved of. Soiling witli 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 fcrr finish- 

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

 pigs, which fatten to forty -eight stone ; feeds on lettuces, which 

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

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

 Lord Clarendon feeds deer (7373.) and sells them. Poultry at 

 the Grove ktpt in wheeled coops about twelve feet long and 

 two and a haif wide, boarded on one side and open on the 

 other ; these are wheeled up and down the paik, 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. 

 Vloughmen 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, Kedbum, &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- 

 l>ence a pound for it, and sort it themselves. Much malt made 

 about Waie and Hertford for the London market. 



7783. BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 478,720 square 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. Malcobri's Survey, 1791. 

 Marshal's Review, 1818. Smith's Geological Map, 1820. Edin. Gax. 1827.) 



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

 bridi,'e at Fawley Court, moveable upon two pivots at its ends, 

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

 perpendicularly, excepting when any one walks ujion 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 culti- 

 vated gardens ; also gives clothing and other rewards for good 

 conduct in servitude. 



4. Occupation. 

 Size of farms moderate : number in the county 2039 ; one 



of 1000 acres, one of 000, four or five between COO and 700 

 acres, ten between ."iOO and 600, twenty-four between 400 and 

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

 acres. Westcar, of Kreslow, a celebrated grazier, occupies 

 9(X) acres, of which only between sixty and seventy are arable. 

 Very few leases, and those given with very objectionable cove- 

 nants. Lord Carrington 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. 

 Ridges high, crooked, with waste spaces between, around, or 



at the ends {jig- 985 ). Fallow in general every third year. 



1. Geographical State and Circumstances. 

 Climate, cold and windy on the Chiltem Hills. 



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

 Chil terns wholly chalk ; vales generally clay. 



Minerals. Some ochre, usetl 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 terra), which entitle the holders 

 to certain rights of common. 



3. Buildings. 



Stowe, and Ashridge fthe latter partly in Herts), the first of 

 Grecian, the other of Gothic architecture, the two noblest 

 mansions 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 

 i>erformed by horse machinery ; the churns of the barrel kind, 

 -ord Carrington has built some go< d fa merles, and the 

 Duke of Buckingham some very complete cow-houses. Drake 

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

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



most common rotation fallow, wheat, beans : chief grains, 

 wheat and barley ; beans drilled and hand-hoed ; some turnips 

 on the light lands. 



8. Grass. 



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

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

 casionally mown. Removing ant-hills called banking, a piece 

 of management to which the renters of grass lands are gene- 

 rally bound in their leases. They are removed by skinning, 

 gelding, or gutting, and kept down by rolling; thistles are 

 spudded ; size of grass helds from 20 to 300 acres. 



9. Gardens and Orchards. 



Few of either worth notice : cherries are gK)wn at Hackwell 

 Heath, for the London and Aylesbury market. 



10. Woods and Plantations. 



Willow pollards planted round the margins of fields, on soils 

 suitable for hurdle wood. Birch, the most common timticr, very 

 abundant ; chiefly used for matmfacturing chairs : woods con- 

 stantly full of young plants from the mast, which grow up and 

 succeed those which are felled; thus the same timber on the 

 same soil and surface for ages. At Sbardeloes, a beech seventy- 

 five feet from the ground, to the first bough : oak and beech 

 trees in Ashridge Park, containing from three to six loads of 

 liiiiber; very fine beeches at Missentlcn ; mast given to pigs. 



11. Impi-ovcments. 



Draining much wanted ; well performed on some bogs on the 

 Duke of Buckingham's estates by digging a well and boring 

 in the bottom till the spring was taiiped, andthenleading it ofT 

 in an underdrain ; paring and burning in general use for 

 bringing grass land to tillage : chalk much used a!!>a manure, 

 sixty or seventy loads per acre, once in twenty -one" years, <x 

 forty once in twelve years ; allowed to lie on the surface for one 

 w inter at least before being pWughed in. Only one instance of 

 irrigation worth notice, which is at Chejnies, by a tenant of the 

 Duke of Bedford. 



10. Live Stock. 



Cattle kept chiefly for beef and butter, seldom for cheese Or 

 work ; Hereford oxen preferred, and next the Devon ; Holder- 

 ncss cows for the dairy ; some prefer the long horned Lan- 

 caster, and others the SuiTblk ; many of the Holdemess cows, 

 after being kept a few years, are sold to the London cow- 

 keipers ; men are generally the milkers ; only one instance 

 found of women performing that operation. Karl of Bridyp- 

 water keeps eight teams of Welsh, one of Sussex, and one of 

 Durham oxen, all yoked as horses; five used in the cart, and 

 four in a plough ; a few other gentlemen have ox teams ; cattle 

 gi ntrally fed oil' in summer ; cows kept during wijitfi iRxl on 

 straw, hay, and oU-caJce ; little herbage or roots in vec ; milk 



