LEICESTER IN ITS REGIONAL SETTING 9 
stream valleys that of the Eye Brook is the largest. The rock layers are 
nearly horizontal. The weathering is typical of conditions in a relatively 
wet area on rocks of varying resistances. Although capable of growing 
corn, as is evidenced by the ridge and furrow in many of the fields, the 
elevation of the district, from 500 to 750 ft. above sea-level, together 
with the clay covering, make it unsuitable for cultivation with agricultural 
prices at their present levels. The district is thus for practical purposes 
an upland extension of the great grass vales of the Midlands. The 
poorer soils and the more severe climatic conditions make it less rich 
than the vales. As we have seen, it specialises in milk rather than beef, 
its holdings are smaller, its villages are poorer, and it contrasts sharply 
with the richer and more varied land, with its larger farms and more 
prosperous-looking villages, on the mixed soils and rock outcrops of 
Rutlandshire beyond Wardley Hill. 
At the other subdivisions of the grassland we can only briefly glance. 
In the Vale of Belvoir to north of the Melton Ridge the clay soil is derived 
from the lower Lias. Here again we have the grazing of cattle and sheep, 
but there is a distinct tendency to specialise in the production of milk and 
the Stilton cheese for which the district has become famous. As far back 
as 1790, William Marshall, who was probably the first ecologist in this 
country, studied soils and the cultivation of grasses in this county from the 
standpoint of cheese-making. At Long Clawson, north of the Melton 
Ridge, there is a co-operative factory engaged in cheese-making. The 
boulder clay-covered Wold country to north-west and to west of the Melton 
Ridge, around Six Hills on the Foss Way, is a western extension of the Vale 
of Belvoir grass country. The grassland here is only of moderate quality, 
particularly where the boulder clay tends to be of a sandy or gravelly type. 
It makes cheese, produces milk and raises young sheep and stock. In 
the Melton Mowbray district to south of the ridge there is excellent grazing 
land, partly in the river flood plain and partly on the clay-covered land 
sloping up on the one side to the Melton Ridge and on the other to the 
upland grasslands of eastern Leicestershire. In the area south of the 
Charnwood and west of the river Soar, although the majority of the farms 
are devoted to milk production, the farming, owing to the presence of the 
Keuper marl with patches of sands and gravels of glacial and Triassic age, 
tends to be of a more mixed type. Stock is raised, and the lighter soils 
are devoted to such crops as wheat, oats, barley, beans, sugar-beet and 
mangolds. 
The chief area of cultivation in the Leicester region lies north-east of 
Melton Mowbray. It is found in the district extending from Scalford to 
Knipton and Croxton on the soils derived from the marlstone, the 
Northampton sands and the Lincolnshire limestone. The relationship 
between human activities and soils is very clearly marked here. Running 
northward from Melton to Scalford we are on a sheet of chalky boulder 
clay, the heavier parts of which are under grass, while the lighter soils are 
tilled. Beyond Scalford we enter the marlstone rock bed. Here most 
of the surface is under the plough for wheat, beet, or oats. The marlstone 
soil is fertile, light and easily tilled. Between Knipton and Croxton a belt 
of the upper Lias clay crops out, forming a zone of pasture land lying 
