HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. [II 



some measure with linens ; so that all things considered, this seems, 

 to be a laud (terra suis contenta bonis) that can subsist of itself. 

 And yet a third part at least, if not half this county, must be oon- 

 fest, when all's done, to be barren heath and gorsy grounds, and 

 woodland : but these yield some of the chief profits as well as 

 pleasures of the country, for though the surface be barren, yet the 

 subterranean riches are usually found in such uncultivated places ; 

 and of this sort of land is the Chase oi Canck-wood, and most of 

 the warrens and parks of the nobility and gentry, whereof before 

 the late unhappy civil war there were near 50 in this county 

 etock't with deer, and about 33 or 34 yet remaining, so great plenty 

 is there of this kind of land, stored not only with mines, but 

 with all sorts of game, both for hound and hawk, so happily are 

 the profits of the gentry mixed with their pleasures, utile dulcL 



This heathy, broomy, gorsy, barren sort of soil, for the most 

 part too is a gravelly fast land, whence it is that in Canck-wood, 

 and most of their parks, they have so pleasant and secure pursuit 

 of their game. Hence 'tis too that their highways are so univer- 

 sally good, except in the most northerly part of the Moorlands, 

 where, between the three shireheads and Longnor, the hills and 

 bogs are such, that a horse can scarce pass between those two 

 places ; and indeed many of the mountains of that part of the 

 country which they call Roches, Clouds, Torrs, Edges, Cops, 

 Heads, &c. are hardly passable, some of them being of so vast a 

 height, that in rainy weather I have frequently seen the tops of 

 them above the clouds ; particularly those of Narrowdale are so 

 very lofty, that the iiJiabitants there, for that quarter of the year 

 wherein the sun is nearest the tropic of Capricorn, never see it at 

 all ; and at length, when it does begin to appear again, they never 

 see it till about one o'clock, which they call thereabout the Nar- 

 rowdale noon, using it proverbially to express a thing done late at 

 noon. 



In his account of tillage, Plot says of Clay ground, if it lye in 

 common fields, as generally it does in this county, they have it al- 

 ways in tillage, sowing it two years, and letting it lye fallow the 

 third ; they lay it in ridges, according to the temper of the laud, 

 and make their fallows in March or April ; after this, a little before 

 the second plowing, which is commonly about the middle of June, 

 they give it its manure, which is cow or horse-dung, unless when 

 folded with sheep, and then immediately spread it, and cast it un- 

 der furrow with the plow, lest the rain and sun should weaken it ; 



B 2 



