400 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of the red soils of Hereford afford the finest crops of wheat and hops, 

 and bear the most prolific apple and pear trees, while the whole region 

 (eminently in the heavier clayey tracts) is renowned for the production of 

 the sturdiest oaks, which so abound as to be styled ' the Weeds of 

 Herefordshire.' " Orchards are to be seen on this formation in 'almost all 

 parts of Herefordshire. A recent estimate gives the value of apples in 

 Herefordshire as £600,000 ; this is largely cider fruit, though recently 

 more dessert and cooking fruit has been planted. The apples of Hereford- 

 shire are in general well coloured, and when well sorted and properly 

 packed are valued in the market. Probably in no part of England are 

 there such large pear and apple trees. Liming is of great benefit to this 

 soil, especially to the strong clay loam near Hereford. Some of the best 

 recently planted orchards in Herefordshire may be seen at Ross, 

 Credenhill, and Withington. Devonshire has a large acreage of cider 

 apple orchards ; much is old and neglected, though picturesque, but pro- 

 ducing good fruit where well cared for ; nearly every farm has its own 

 orchard, but this is growing less usual than formerly, and many orchards 

 are gradually ceasing to exist. The orchards are fairly evenly distributed 

 throughout the county, but there are none on granite, and comparatively 

 few on the millstone grit. The apples thrive best on the sandstone. 

 The Staverton district, near Totnes, is especially noted for its cider. 

 There is but little small fruit grown except on Lord Mount Edgcumbe's 

 estate around Bere Alston and Callingtcn, on the banks of the River 

 Tamar, one side being Devon, the other Cornwall ; early strawberries are 

 grown on land sloping southwards, and raspberries and bush fruit are 

 grown by the tenants under a liberal system of compensation. The 

 famous potato land of Dunbar is over this formation. 



The Lower Carboniferous rocks include the slate grits, the carbon- 

 iferous limestone, and the millstone grits. In North Devon calcareous 

 sand from the seashore used to be carted on to the sandy soil for several 

 miles from the shore, as it was found to be so beneficial, the soil being- 

 deficient in lime. The slaty soils of Cornwall, especially in the mining- 

 districts, are mostly poor, and large portions of the county remain 

 unenclosed, with a scanty covering of heath and poor grass. At Penzance 

 the land is very fertile, probably due to admixture with basaltic rock, and 

 lets at as much as £8, £10, and even £12 per acre. 



Carboniferous or Mountain Limestone, with a thickness varying from 

 500 to 5,000 feet, extends over the greater part of Derby and Northumber- 

 land, stretching along the west of Durham and Yorkshire to Preston in 

 Lancashire, and forms the greater part of the Pennine Hills and of the 

 Mendip Hills in Somerset ; there are also small areas in Gloucestershire 

 and Wales. It is generally a hard blue limestone, more or less full of 

 fossils, separated here and there by layers of sandstone, sandy slates, or 

 bluish-black shales, like those of the coal measures. Owing to slowness 

 in decomposition and high elevation the soil is in many parts bare rock : 

 in Northumberland it is still chiefly moorland ; in other parts it produces 

 naturally a short, sweet herbage. Sheep's fescue is a prominent grass 

 in these pastures. At Alnwick (Northumberland) strawberries are suc- 

 cessfully and extensively grown ; there are large numbers of apple trees 

 in the market gardens. 



