FLORA OF OXFORDSHIRE. 
INTRODUCTION, 
TOPOGRAPHY. 
Oxfordshire or Oxon lies between 51° 28’ and 52° 13” 
N. lat., 0°50’ and 1°43’ W. long., in the centre of England, being 
entirely inland. It is bounded on the north by Warwickshire 
and Northamptonshire, on the east by Buckinghamshire, on the 
west by Gloucestershire and on the south by Berkshire. Its 
length is about 50 miles and its breadth varies from 7 to 
28 miles. It is very irregular in outline, being in the centre 
only about 7 miles across and in the southern part nowhere 
more.than 12 miles wide. It contains 14 hundreds, a city, 
12 market-towns and about 280 parishes. Its area is about 
470,000 acres, the northern portion containing about 320,000, 
and the southern 150,000 acres. The county consists roughly 
of three distinctions of soil, so well marked by nature as to allow 
of little doubt respecting them. 
(1) The fed Land of the Northern district, which amounts 
to about 80,000 acres, and reaches from Banbury to within 
3 miles of Chipping Norton. It includes also the parishes of 
Hook Norton, Little Rollright, Tadmarton, Hanwell, Bloxham, 
and Mileomb. This is a rich and fertile district, and from an 
agricultural point of view may be considered the glory of the 
county. The soil is rich, deep, sound, and friable, and is 
adapted to a most varied cultivation. 
(2) The Stonebrash, of about 164,000 acres, begins on the 
border of Gloucestershire at Broughton Poggs and Black 
Bourton, extends thence to Brize Norton, Witney, Woodstock; 
