14 
On the Farmintj of Middlesex. 
boundary, part of it flooded at certain seasons bj the waters of 
the Thames and Coin. To the east there is the same condition 
on the banks of the Lea, such as Hackney Marsh, and meadow 
land interspersed with garden cultivation, which is found in 
that district, is again varied by some part being under ordi- 
nary arable cultivation. A fair idea of the relative situations 
and quantities of arable and meadow may be formed from the 
map illustrating Middleton's report, of which a copy showing 
these divisions is given, though the commons must now be 
reckoned as arable, and a large part of that marked arable between 
Harrow and Uxbridge as now laid down in grass. 
The estimates that Beard gives of the area of the county are so 
Avide of the mark that they are scarcely worth notice, except inas- 
much as they show his idea of the relative quantities of meadow, 
arable, nursery, and common. He gives the whole area at 
250,000 acres, of which he estimates 130,000 as meadow, 
50,000 arable, 60,000 nursery, and 20,000 common. Mid- 
dleton comes near the absolute quantity, 280 square miles, or 
179,200 acres ; of this he gives 73,000 as meadow ; upland, 
70,000 ; low meadow, 2500 ; the Isle of Dogs, 500. He accounts 
for 20,000 acres in corn crops, but gives no details as to potatoe 
and other root crops or garden ground. The Parliamentary 
Returns already quoted for 1866 and 1867 give a detailed account 
of the quantities, not only as to grass and arable, but each sort 
of crop grown. The total area, as before stated, is 180,136 
acres in extent; the areas under grass and arable being as fol- 
lows : — 
Under aU Crops. Under Arable. J^",,!-^, 
18G6 .. 109,879 71,143 .. .. .38,730 .. .. 70,257 
1867 .. 108,900 .... 72,068 36,832 .... 71,236 
Allowing that two-thirds of this area io be accounted for, is 
occupied by buildings, roads, railway s, and other encroachments, 
— amounting as it appears to an increase of 969 acres between 
the dates of the returns of 1866 and 1867 — about 23,416 or 
23,742, or Avith the increase of buildings, 23,000 may remain for 
plots under 5 acres, market and other gardens not included in 
the cultivated area. The original gardens and orchards of Ken- 
sington, Islcworth, Bientford, and Twickenham, and other places 
to the north-east of London, on the line of the river Lea, scarcely 
come within the scope of an essay on agriculture, though they 
are noticed by Middleton as lining the road for 7 miles in length 
between Kensington and Twickenham. In the neighbourhood 
of these places the apple, pear, cherry, and other fruit trees, 
standing in the small gardens attached to the newly built houses, 
show by their age and linear position, that they were originally 
planted as orchard trees. These orchards, with their upper and 
