1144 



STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part IV. 



7794. HEREFORDSHIRE. A surface of 600,000 acres, studded with hilla, hiUoeks, nnd minor swells 

 of various heights and dimensions ; almost every where of a rich soil, devoted exclusively to agriculture, 

 and highly productive in corn, cattle, fruit, cider, hops, and timber. The most distinguished cultivator 

 in the county is 1'. A. Kniglit, Esq., known in agriculture by his 'Ireatise on the Apple and Fear, 

 many valuable papers in the Transactions of the Royal Society, and communications to the Board of Agri. 

 culture; and in gardening by numerous essays and improvements, and his honourable office of President 

 of the Horticultural Society. {Cla7-k's Herefordshire, 179*. Buncombe's Report, 1808. Marshal's lie. 

 view, 1818.) 



1. Geographical folate and Circumstances. 



Climafe, remarkably healthy ; west winds the coldest; warm- 

 est and earliest part about Ross. 



Soil. A marly clay of great fertility extends over most of the 

 county. The heaviest crops of wheat produced on a clayey 

 tract between Hereford and Ledbury ; the lightest lands in the 

 south-east about Wormelow, and known as the " Rye Izmds/" 

 from the prevailing i>raduce there in former times. 



Mineratt. Iron ore in the sandy district, but none manufac- 

 ture d at present. Red and yellow ochres, pipe-clay, and fullers' 

 earth, but only the latter worked for. 



Water abounds ; salmon caught in the Wye, but, owing to 

 ths weirs and illegal practices, not so abunda'nlly as formerly. 



2. Property. 



(iuy's Hospital, Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Oxford, Earl of 

 Essex, Sir G. Cornwall, &c, the largest proprietors. Their 

 estates divided into farms of from 200 to 400 acres. A number 

 of estates from 4001. to 1000/. per annum constantly resided 

 on by their owners, and cultivated and manned in good style, 

 with a view to the introduction of the best agr'cidtural prac- 

 tices. The tenures of gavelkind and borough-cngli&li exist in 

 a few places, but are generally nulUtied by will. 



3. Buildings. 



Some fine seats of proprietors, as Horn Lacy, Hampton 

 Court, Downton Castle, &c. Old farm-houses of wood, ill de- 

 signed, and placed : some good new ones on the Guy's Hospital 

 and other estates. Cottages vtry humble, and of an inferior 

 construction. Strawberries lately cultivated by some cottagers, 

 for the Hereford market, with success and proiit. 



4. Occupation. 



Small farms on the decline ; few opportunities now by which 

 an industrious couple can devote 50/. or 100/., actjuired by 

 personal labour, to stock a few acres, and bring up their family, 

 and pass their latter years in comparative independence. Hence 

 matrimony on the decline, and licentiousness on the increase. 

 Hence Duncombe humanelv recommends proprietors to forego 

 the temporary advantages of throwing the whole of their estates 

 into large f^rms, and advises some of all sizes, from 5 to 500 

 acres, as ultimately best for the country. " The old-fashion:d 

 farmer of Herefordshire receives any new experiment in agri- 

 culture with great hesitation, if not reluctance. When its 

 utility is confirmed by repeated trials, he slowly and gradually 

 falls into the practice; but he wisely leaves the experiment and 

 the risk to those who recommend or suggest it ; and happily 

 the county is at this moment well provided with agricultur- 

 ists, who jKjssess the means and the spirit to undertake the 

 patriotic task." Leases of twenty-one years most commonly in 

 three periods of seven years, determinable at the end of each 

 period by either landlord or tenant. 



5. Implements. 



Plough called the light lammas, without a wheel, and drawn 

 bv three or four oxen generally in a line, abreast ; but often the 

 yoke is the usual mode of harnessing. Various improved im- 

 plements by the amateurs, but none in general use. 



6 Arable Land. 



Wheat principal grain cultivated, and generally sown on a 

 fallow. Change of seed procure<l from the chalk hills of Ox- 

 fordshire; steeped in brine and lime, to guard against vermin 

 and smut. Knight, late of Eaton, now of Downton Castle, 

 stee|>s in water aiid then envelopes in lime, and his wheat was 



?s freo from smut and other diseases as that of bis neighbours 

 rom changed seed. Hops a good deal cultivated, and chiefly 

 disposed of to Bristol dealers, 



7. Gras$. 



Fertile meadows on the Wye, Frome, and Lug ; mown and 

 frd. Not a dairy county for liome consumption, seldom for 

 exterior markets, or Smithtield. Butter supplied from Wales, 

 and cheese from Shropshire and Gloucestershire. " The 

 general soil of Herefordshire appears to be unfivourable to the 

 making of cheese. T. A . Knight, with that accuracy and skill 

 which he is known to possess on all subjects connected with 

 agriculture and natural history, has proved by experiment, 

 that equal quantities of milk in Htrefordshire and Cheshire will 

 produce unequal quantities of cuid, highly to the advantage of 

 Cheshire : and farther, that better cheese has been produced 

 in that county, from milk, half of which has been previously 

 skimmed, than is produced in this from milk altogether un- 

 skimmed. The want, therefore, of comi>lete success in tliis 

 Taluable branch of rural economy is not solely to be attributed 

 to the want of skill in our dairy -maids ; and the cause of failure 

 is rendered more difficidt of discovery, and consequently more 

 tlifficult to he remedied, from an observation that the plants 

 were nearly the same in the Herefordshire and Cheshire pas- 

 tures, OQ which the above experiments were made: white 

 clover abounded in each, with the crested dog-tail grass and 

 rye-grass mixed with others in small quantities. Of such plants 

 the pastures of Htrefordshire are generally compased 



A mode <tf managing tottnd meadonii and pastures has lately 

 been tried, and attended with a great increase of produce. 

 The grass is mown as soon as it is in blossom, and consequently 

 previously to the formation of seed. The after-grass is not 

 grazed until it begins to contract a yellow appearance, in the 

 latter end of October or beginning of November. In this case 

 the ground remains covered during the winter with a portion 

 of dead herbage, through which the young grass springs with 

 the greatest yigour at an early period of the succeeding 

 Eprii)g 



8. Gardens and Orchards. 



Fruit trees Hrst extensively planted in Herefordshire in the 

 time of Charles I., by Lord Hcudamore, of Home I^cy. Or- 

 chards and hedge-row trees of the apple and pear kind are 

 fnimil on every asjiect, soil, and under every culture. The soil 

 Ik St adapted to most kinds of apples. Is a dee|) rich loam when 

 (ipdcr the cultitre of the plough; the Stvre and golden pippin. 



in particular, form exceptions, and flourish most in a hot and 

 shallow soil, on a lime or sandstone. The best sorts of pear 



trees also prefer the rich loam, but Inferior kinds will even 

 flourish where the soil will scarcely produce herbage, 

 apples are divided into old and new sorts; each class com- 



prises some called kernel fruits, namely, the fruit growing on 

 Its native roots, as a distinction from those pro<luced by the 

 operation of grafting. The old sorts of apples are those which 

 have been long introduced, sueh as the Styre, golden pippin, 

 hagloe-crab; several varieties of the Harvey; the brandy 

 apple, red-streak, woodcock, nioyle, gennet, red, white, and 

 yellow musks ; fox whelp, loan, and old pearmains ; dymock 

 red, ten commandments, and others. Some of these names 

 are descriptive of the fruit, and others are derived from the 

 places where they have lieen first found, or found in most 

 aliundance. The old pears held in most estimation are, the 

 squash, so called from the tenderness of its pulp ; the oldfield, 

 from having grown as a seedling in a field of that name ; the 

 hutfcap, from the quantity of fixed air contained in its liquor ; 

 the barland, from fields in the parish of Rosbury, called the 

 Barlands; the sack-pear, from its richness; and the red pear, 

 from its colour. Of more common sorts, the long-land is the 

 most valuable, and for the general use of the farmer perhaps 

 the best of any. 



9. Woods and Plantations. 



Oak very abundant, and more rapid in its growth in this 

 county and Monmouthshire than in most parts of England, 

 Lord Oxford's estates and Croft, Castle contain the finest old 

 trees in the couaty ;. fine wckxIs at Poxley, U. Price, Esq. ; most 

 liixuriant oak tionjjer and coppices at Moccas Court and Stoke 

 Park ; a curious weeping oak at Moccas- Most productive ash 

 coppices at Hampton Court and Ledbuiy ; cut every thirteen 

 years for crate ware, hurdles, &c. and bring from 18/. to 35/. 

 per wood acre, which is to the statute acre is 8 to 5. Elm trees 

 are interspersed in the hedge-raws with fruit trees. 



10. Improvements. 



Draining much wanted, but practised chiefly by proprie- 

 tors ; watering little practised, though introduced m 1610 by 

 R. Vaughan, Esq. of New Court, whose tract on the subject 

 has been already memione<l. (4376.) One of the greatest expe- 

 riments in this way which have been attempted of late years in 

 Herefordshire, has been attended with complete success on the 

 estate of T. A. Knight. By making a weir on the river Teme, 

 with proper courses for the water, that gentleman is now 

 enabled to irrigate two hundred acres of land, which were never 

 watered before, with the assistance of the least flood ; and one 

 hJilf of that quantity even in the driest season. 



1 1 . Live Stock. 



Hereford cattle esteemed supf^rior to most, if not to all, other 

 breeds ; those of Devon and Sussex nearest them in appearance. 

 Large size, an athletic form, and unusual neatness, character- 

 ise the true sort ; the prevailing colour is a reddish brown, 

 with white faces. The rearing of oxen for agricultural pur- 

 poses universally prevails ; nearly half the ploughing is per- 

 formed by them, and they take an equal share in the laliours 

 of the harvest. Thej are shod with iron in situations which 

 frequently require their exertions on hard roads. The show of 

 oxen in thriving condition at the Michaelmas fair in Hereford, 

 cannot be exceeded by any similar annual collection in England ; 

 on this occasion they are generally sold to the principal graziers 

 in the counties near the metropolis, and there perfected for the 

 London markets. 



Herefordshire not beltie a dairjiimg cimnty, breeders direct 

 their attention to producmg that form of aiiimal best adapted 

 for feeding rather than milking. " The whole attention of 

 the Leicestershire breeder has been directed to the improve- 

 ment of his cow ; and for the use of the grazier, he has made 

 her an excellent animal. The Herefordshire breeder, on the 

 contrary, has sacrificed the qualities of the cow to those of the 

 ox ; he does not value bis cow according to the price which the 

 grazier would give for it, but in proportion as it possesses that 

 form and character whi<;h experience has taught him to be 

 conducive to the excellence of the future ox. Hence the cow 

 of Herefordshire is comparatively small, extremely delicate, 

 and very f-minine in its characters. It is light-flesbed when 

 in common condition, but capable of extending itself vmiver- 

 sallv in a short space of time, when fattening. Experience 

 seems fully to have proved, that these qualities in the cow are 

 necessary "to perfection in the ox ; and that when the cow is 

 large and masculine in its character, and heavily loaded with 

 flesh, the ox will be coarse and brawny, and, consequently, 

 unkind and tedious in the process of fattening. It may here 

 be remarked, that there is an extraordinary difference betwei n 

 the weight of a Herefordshire cow and the ox bred from her ; 

 perhaps other sorts, eminent for producing fine oxtn, are 

 similarly distinsiuished; but it is a fact, that a Herefordshire 

 cow will not unfrequently be the mother of an ox of nearly 

 three tiiiies her own weight. T. A. Knight, who made this 

 observation, recollects no instance of this great disproportion 

 in the weight of the males and females of the long-homed 

 cattle. That gentleman farther observes, that he is unable to 

 discover what advantage the public have derived, or are likely 

 to derive, from a breed of cattle which are neither calculated 

 for the dairy nor for breeding oxen. The difference in the 

 dairy between a good and an indifferent milking cow, on the 

 pasture which is adequate to the keep of the latter, will 

 seldom exceed five pounds, and if the animal be good, a very 

 poor pasture will he sufficient; but the difference between a 

 good and bad ox will ofti n exceed twenty pounds, where both 

 have consumed in fattening Ptjual quantities of food : individuals 

 and the public are, therefore, equally and evidently interested 

 in the improvement of the labouring ox. Persons of little ex- 

 perience. Knight adds, in the breeding of cattle, may perhaps 

 think that a soit is obtainable wbich will unite the two objects ; 

 but experieooe wiH civince thtm, that \a es^eaywttajs % 



i!;u Jill - jLtui :.>iit: *ijrii ; 



