On the Farmivg of Middlesex. 
7 
the bed of the Tliamcs below London. Ancient London was 
in a great measure supplied by wells sunk into the gravel by 
which the clay is there covered, and it was only as the popula- 
tion increased and the area extended beyond these beds that the 
supply from extraneous sources was needed. 
The whole of the south-western portion of the county, south of 
a line nearly coincident with the high turnpike-road from Ux- 
bridge to London is of a marked and peculiar character. The 
substratum is London Clay, covered by a bed of low level sub- 
angular flint -gravel, which is again, over a great portion of its 
surface, covered by a fine sandy loam or brick-earth, apparently 
of ancient fluviatile or lacustrine deposit ; a condition of soil 
which, though chiefly developed in this part of the county, is also 
fouml in a narrow strip to the entire eastern boundary, following 
the line of the River Lea. Norden, in his ' Speculum Britan- 
niae ' — the oldest record of the state of agriculture in the county 
— in the first edition, dated 1593, says of Middlesex (derived 
from " Middle Saxon ") :— 
" The soyle is excellent, fat and fertile and full of profite, it yieldeth corne 
nnd graine, not onelie in aboundance, hut most excellent good whcate, espe- 
ciallie about Heston, which ])lace may be called Granarium tritici regalis for 
the singularitie of the corne— the vaine of this especialle corne seemeth to 
extend from Heston to Harrow." 
He also says — • 
" This part of Middlesex may for fertilitie compare with Tandeane (Taunton 
•dean) in the west part of Somersetshire, but that Tandeane farre siirpasseth it 
for sundiie fruites and commodities, which this countrie might also yeeldc 
were it the like employed, but it seemeth they only covet to maintaine their 
ancient course of life and observe the husbandrie of their fathers without 
adding any thing to their greater profite." 
This last remark is certainly true at the present time with 
reference to grass and meadow cultivation, if not to other 
branches of husbandry. John Speed, in his ' Description of 
Middlesex,' in his ' Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain,' in 
the reign of James L, says — 
" In form it is almost square, for air passing temperate, for soil abundantly 
fertile, and for pasture and grain of all kinds yielding the best ; so that the 
wheat of this county hath served a long time for the manchet of eur Prince's 
table." 
The tradition that Queen Elizabeth would have none other 
than bread made from wheat grown at Heston is still preserved 
in the neighbourhood ; and to this day the finest qualities of 
wheat, chiefly Chidham, are grown on the loam or brick-earth 
of Middlesex ; and it is to the wheat grown on this district, 
which extends into Buckinghamshire, that Uxbridge Market is 
famed for the superior quality of wheat which finds a sale there. 
