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CHAPTER XVII. 



THE MIDLAND COUNTIES. 



PURSUING our tour of agricultural inspection through 

 England, we arrive at the central districts. The first 

 counties west of London are Buckingham, Berks, and 

 Oxford, none of which present any remarkable feature, 

 nor is their agricultural condition either above or below 

 the average. 



Buckinghamshire has an area of four hundred and 

 seventy thousand acres, with a population of only one 

 hundred and sixty thousand, which, in England, indicates 

 a country exclusively agricultural. The division of the 

 land among the various crops is about equal, and this is 

 the case also in respect to the farms, which are of all sizes 

 large, small, and middling : the extent of hill and level 

 country is about the same, and strong arid light soils 

 divide the county between them. The valley of Ayles- 

 bury is reckoned one of the most fertile in the kingdom. 

 The farms there are larger, and rents double what they 

 are in the rest of the county. Its pastures are devoted 

 to the fattening of sheep and of oxen, and the feeding of 

 milch cows, in the proportion of about one-third to each 

 of these kinds of stock. A particularly fine kind of 

 white duck is bred by the small farmers about Aylesbury ; 

 these, and John Hampden's name, are the pride of Buck- 

 inghamshire. 



