Farming of Derby sJiire. 



51 



Staffordshire. Its hills on the south and west form lofty moors, 

 fit for sheep-walks, but in many places forming good pastures. 

 The mountain-lime gives the Brassington pastures, Tissington 

 pastures, Taddington pastures, Haddon pastures, and the rich 

 grazing and dairy farms on the banks of the Dove, from Tissing- 

 ton to Alsop, Hartington, and forwards up the stream to the 

 summery meads of Pilsbury Grange. On the tops of many of 

 the hills are level plains, and there is great difficulty in procur- 

 ing water for the stock. The open limestone rocks will not 

 hold water without some artificial means of catching and pre- 

 serving it. Meers are constructed, a circular basin, puddled 

 with concrete, clayed and paved to retain the rain-water fre- 

 quently thrown in by sluices or offsets from the public roads. 

 The limestone which occupies the centre of the High and Low 

 Peak, consists of an immense series of beds. In the upper series, 

 for about 60 feet thick, they are of various colours, chiefly grey, 

 interstratified with thin silicious beds of chert or flint, analogous 

 to the flints in the chalk, and below these lie the grey marble 

 b^ds, quarried and used for ornamental purposes. After these 

 comes a very thick bed or beds of crystalline grey lime- 

 stone, burnt for lime, and used extensively for fluxing iron-ores 

 in Staffordshire and Derbyshire. Below this that extraordinary 

 measure called toadstone or basalt is found, resting on its bed of 

 plastic clay. These measures are seldom covered with a deep 

 soil. But where the toadstones occur, and where, after perishing, 

 it is washed down into the slopes and hollows of the lime, a 

 deeper, better, and more tenacious soil is found. On the 

 limestone basin about Newhaven, Newbiggin, Pike Hall, &c., 

 which is free from rocky precipices, the soil is good, with an in- 

 ferior clay subsoil beneath it, where farming is carried on with some 

 success. But the best lands are found alono; the maro;ins of the 

 limestone, the grit, and the shale, where the detritus of each 

 by river action has been blended together, producing a fruitful 

 soil. This soil is always dry, and requires no draining ; but the 

 limestone shale, which generally forms its own soil and subsoil, 

 is wet and retentive. 



To describe its husbandry will be no difficult task, as its soil 

 is chiefly employed in grazing, and very little corn is grown. Its 

 pastures are very rich in all the elements of vegetable and animal 

 life, and produce beef, mutton, and cheese in abundance, and of 

 the best quality.'^ The mountain limestone soil analyzed is taken 



* It is estimated the quantity of cheese produced in Derbyshire is 10,000 tons 

 per annum, of which the greater part is made on the mountain lime. If it requires 

 one cow to produce on the average 3 cwt. of cheese, it follows that 50,000 cows 

 are employed for dairy purposes. The average price of cheese bought at Derby 

 in the fairs and markets (taken from the books of a factor) for 14 years last past 

 is 55s. Zd, per cwt. 



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