8 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF LEICESTER AND DISTRICT 
mutton of the very best quality are sent to market. ‘The numerous dairy 
herds to be seen in the fields also indicate that milk, while a secondary 
product in this district, is none the less produced on a fairly large scale. 
Market Harborough is one of the chief hunting centres of the Midland 
clay vales, and therefore one of the chief hunting centres of England. In 
the grassland, except for dairy work, there is little to be done during the 
winter. Where finishing beef cattle is the main activity the cattle are 
usually bought in the spring, fattened on the grassland during the summer, 
and sold in the autumn. During the winter the grassland rests, and the 
beef farmer is largely free for hunting. ‘The undulating grassland, with 
its stiff fences, lying between the river flood plains and the uplands, and 
the sharply dissected plateau country of the upland grassland, both form 
ideal hunting country which makes stern demands on men and horses. 
Its value for hunting is enhanced by the absence of tillage and the relative 
absence of live stock in the fields during the winter. In addition to the 
Market Harborough country, that around Melton Mowbray, and the Vale 
of Catmose in the eastern part of the area, are famous hunting centres, and 
it is here that we find the Quorn, the Cottesmore hunt, the Belvoir, and 
the Pytchley—all names famous in the annals of the chase. 
North of Market Harborough and east of Leicester the country rises 
in a series of long grass-covered slopes to the clay-topped marlstone 
plateaux forming the upland grassland. In this grassland we have clearly 
marked that grouping and repetition of phenomena which we have assumed 
above to be the hallmark of a district. Its eastward boundary is Wardley 
Hill, near Uppingham. Within the district, with the exception of a few 
small and poor-looking villages, the distribution of buildings is of the 
dispersed type. Numerous hedges divide the area into grass fields with 
small farms and their associated buildings dotted about in the grassland. 
A few arable fields are to be seen, but they merely serve to emphasise the 
widespread dominance of grass. With the exception of one or two main 
roads, the roads up to a few years ago were poor and narrow. ‘To-day 
many of these side-roads are surfaced with tarmac. By the roadside on 
small platforms we see milk-cans. Cattle and some sheep are in the fields. 
Should we pass in the winter we may see fox-hunting in full swing. We 
are in the country of the Quorn and the Fernie. Over a distance of 
eight or ten miles from Houghton-on-the-Hill to Wardley Hill we observe 
a repetition of the same elements of human occupancy—small farms, small 
houses for the herdsmen, grassfields, well-cut hedges, poor narrow side- 
roads—mostly gated,—one great main road, the milk-cans and their plat- 
forms, the milk lorries on the road, the small villages, the live stock in the 
fields, and the scattered population. It is clear that the people are mainly 
concerned with the tending of live stock, chiefly cattle, partly for beef, 
but mainly for milk, with sheep herding as a lesser activity. 
The above forms of the cultural landscape concretely express man’s 
relationship to the physical setting of these uplands. ‘This physical 
setting is clear-cut and definite. It consists in the main of a repetition of 
simple topographical and structural elements. A series of gently undulat- 
ing clay-covered marlstone plateau tops are deeply dissected by sharply 
cut little stream valleys with clay floors and marlstone slopes. Of these 
