4 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



and stubborn lands, which human industry alone has 

 subdued. 



The southern point of the island forming the county 

 of Cornwall, and more than the half of Devonshire is 

 composed of granitic soils, similar to those of our Brit- 

 tany. There, in the ancient forests of Exmoor and Dart- 

 moor, the mountains which terminate at Land's End, and 

 those verging on the Welsh peninsula, are nearly one 

 million hectares of little value. In the north, more 

 mountains those which separate England from Scot- 

 land cover with their ramifications the counties of Nor- 

 thumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and parts of 

 Lancashire, Durham, York, and Derbyshire. This region, 

 which contains upwards of two million hectares, is worth 

 scarcely more than the former. It is a country famous 

 for its picturesque scenery, studded with lakes and water- 

 falls ; but, like most picturesque countries, offering few 

 resources for cultivation. 



Wherever the ground is not hilly, it is in general natu- 

 rally marshy. The counties of Lincoln and Cambridge, 

 now reckoned, especially the first, among the most pro- 

 ductive, were formerly but one vast marsh partially 

 covered by the sea, Kke the polders of Holland opposite 

 to them on the other side of the Channel. Numerous 

 peat-mosses still show the primitive state of the country. 

 In other parts are extensive sands abandoned by the sea : 

 the county of Norfolk, where that system of agriculture 

 arose which has made the fortune of England, is nothing 

 else. 



There remain the undulating hills, which form about 

 half of the whole surface, and which are neither so dry 

 as the mountains, nor so wet as the undrained plains ; 

 but these lands are not all of the same geological forma- 

 tion. The Thames basin is composed of a stiff clay, 



