HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. [47 



on their surface. Considerable tracts of such land, lying near the 

 rivers and brooks, are improved and kept in heart by the natural 

 overflow of the streams ; but this advantage is enjoyed at the risk 

 of having the crop occasionally swept away, or soiled over by un- 

 timely floods, which frequently occur. 



Very rich meadows are to be found on the Trent, near Burton ; 

 and the fertile meadows on the banks of the Dove are an interesting 

 object. This river, which separates the counties of Stafford and 

 Derby, arises from springs under the lime-stone hills of the Moor- 

 lands and the Peak, and at times receives an amazing addition from 

 torrents rushing down those hills after heavy rains or the melting 

 of snow. Its upper channel has a great declivity ; in many 

 places the river comes tumbling over the rocks in cascades, and in 

 its greatest swell pushes on with astonishing rapidity. The water 

 has a greyish cast from the calcareous earth it contains, to which 

 may undoubtedly be attributed the extraordinary fertility of its 

 banks, which is and always has been proverbial ; "As rich as Dove," 

 being an epithet applied to any spot highly fertile. The farmers 

 are accustomed to say, that it is scarcely possible to overstock a 

 few acres of Dove land. This land has an almost perpetual verdure, 

 and the spring-floods of the river are very gratifying to the land- 

 occupiers, who have this proverb : " In April Dove's flood is worth 

 a king's good/' It is also said of Dove banks in spring, that a stick 

 laid down there every night shall not be found the next morning for 

 grass. This river fertilizes its banks like another Nile, but some- 

 times rises so high in twelve hours as to carry off sheep and cattle, 

 to the great alarm of the owners ; and in as few hours abates, and 

 returns within its own channel. Below Rocester, where this river 

 receives the Churnet, the plain spreads wide, and continues so with 

 variations to below Uttoxeter, where it is near a mile in breadth, and 

 amounts to several thousand acres, almost entirely pastured with 

 cows, sheep, and some horses, very little of it being mown for hay, 

 the uncertainty and suddenness of the floods making the risk of hay 

 too great. The rent of Dove land was many years ago forty 

 shillings to three pounds per acre ; and it would be worth ten 

 shillings per acre more at least, were it not for the inconvenience of 

 floods, which sometimes occur when there has been little or no rain 

 on the spot, from sudden rain or melting of snow on the Moorland or 

 Peak hills. It must be remembered, however, that these floods are, 

 and have been, the cause of the extraordinary fertility of the land. 

 The following is a list of our principal spontaneous pasture and 



