10] A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



spring, it enriches them as the river Nile does Egypt, and makes 

 them so fruitful, that the inhabitants thereabout upon such oc- 

 casions usually chante this joyful ditte : 



" In April Dove's flood is worth a king's good.' r 

 Whereof Michael Drayton renders this very good reason, 



" Because the dainty grass 

 " That grows upon its banks, all other doth surpass." 



As he says of Needwood : 



" Needwood doth surmount 

 In excellency of soil by being richly plac't 

 'Tuixt Trent and hut truing Dove, and equally embrac't 

 By their abounding banks, participates their store; 

 Of Britain's forests all (from th' less unto the more,) 

 For fineness of her turf surpassing." 



From which lime-stone hills, and rich pastures and meadows, the 

 great dairys are maintained in this part of Staffordshire that sup- 

 ply Uttoxeter mercat with such vast quantities of good butter 

 and cheese, that the cheesemongers of London have thought it 

 worfeh while to set up a factorage here for these commodities, 

 which are brought in in so great plenty, that the factors many 

 njercat-days (in the season) lay out no less than five hundred 

 pounds a-day in these two commodities only. 



Nor comes this northern part of Staffordshire much behind the 

 south in breeding of sheep, which indeed are but small, have gene- 

 rally black noses, and their wool but coarse ; nor in the production 

 of corn ; for though the land imployed for tillage be naturally but 

 mean, yet where the industry of the husbandman has any thing 

 showed itself, in marling, liming, or mixing lime with ess, and so 

 laying them together on their heathy grounds, it produces corn of 

 all sorts plentifully enough ; the black moorish and gouty grounds 

 of the Moorlands with the best helps are fit indeed only for oates : 

 but the arable lands about Marchington, Draycot-in-the-Clay, 

 Rolleston, Horninglow, and some other townes about Needwood, 

 are of so rich a clay, that they produce as good hard-come (i. e. 

 wheat and rye, pease, beans, &c.) as any in the south, though no.t 

 so much ; the sheep too of the south bear somewhat a finer fleece, 

 and it produces more and better coal and ironstone. 



Besides wool, for the supply of the cloathing trade, and felting, 

 which are chiefly exercised about Tamwortli, Burton, and New- 

 custle-under-Lymc, they sow both hemp and flax all over the 

 county, in small proportions, whereby they are furnish't too in 



