On the Farming of Middlesex. 
9 
sagacious and painstaking author's work. The writer of this Essay 
was told by a fanner who was detailing his method of forcing two 
crops on a fallow on a portion of that which had been Hounslovv 
Heath, " It will not do to be content with crops which only 
return 10/. per acre,".'as though that, being the amount fixed on 
by Middleton, would be the amount under ordinary cultivation. 
Gkass or Meadow Land. 
In few counties is the meadow and arable land so nearly 
divided, or the extent so clearly defined, and though not without 
exceptions, the surface occupied by the London clay, and the 
loam or brick-earth respectively, determines the extent under 
grass and under the plough. According to the Parliamentary 
return before mentioned the extent occupied by pasture and 
meadow is 71,143, and in 1867 72,068 acres, leaving for other 
crops 38,736, and In 1867 36,832, or about two-thirds in 
meadow. In a note it is stated that " these returns have been 
collected from occupiers of and above five acres of land." In a 
country where there are so many small residences, with small 
plots of accommodation land attached, this v/ill add to the 
acreage a considerable breadth of surface. Middleton gives 
70,000 acres of upland, 2500 as low meadow, and 500 for 
the Isle of Dogs then under grass. The suburbs of London 
have encroached on this quantity, which has been replaced by 
laying down in grass much of the heavy land formerly under 
bean and wheat cultivation, when his rough and unverified 
estimate was made, whereas the land under corn and root 
crops has been extended by the cultivation of commons, given 
by him at 8688 acres. 
The cultivation, or rather treatment, of grass land is the 
characteristic feature of Middlesex farming, the great object 
being to supply the London market with hay, and maintain 
the productive power of the soil by the application of London 
dung ; a system not confined to farms properly so called, but 
comprehending the parks and paddocks which occupy a con- 
siderable portion of the surface of the county. Notwithstanding^ 
however, the proximity to London, the soil offers but little attrac- 
tion for the residences of gentry — who do not accept the descrip- 
tion given by Speed, who says of Middlesex, — 
"It lieth seated in a vale most wholesome and rich, liaviun; some hills also, 
and them of good ascent, from whose tops the prospect of the whole is seen 
like unto Zoar in Egypt, or rather like a Paradise and Garden of God." 
Though many farms on the clay are not exclusively grass 
land, the extent of arable is not sufficient in most cases to 
affect the character of the farming, which Is very simple, and as 
