208 The Agriculture of Staffordshire. 
blue clays, shales, and white marls containing tliin bands of 
limestones. The famous oaks in Bagot's Park stand on the clays 
of this deposit. Quoting again from Mr. Brown's paper on the 
geology of Burton, we learn that — " A few thin beds of lias have 
escaped denudation on the highest parts of Needwood Forest. 
I have ascertained that these extend further towards Burton 
than is indicated by the Government Ordnance Map.* The lias 
beds on the Forest unfortunately contain none but useless 
materials ; and they are chiefly remarkable for the deterioration 
that has taken place in the agricultural land wherever they are 
found, and for the consequent lessened rent roll of the Duchy of 
Lancaster. It Avould seem to be a matter for regret that Need- 
wood Forest did not remain an age or two longer under water, 
so that it might have got rid completely of this incubus that 
blights its otherwise fair surface." 
The river valleys contain principally gravels derived from the 
Bunter beds, and alluvial clays and sands. I am much indebted 
to Mr. Molyneux, of Burton, for information on the subject of 
the preceding pages. 
Staffordshire might made more regular in hape by shorten- 
ing its extremities, drawing a boundary line through Wolver- 
hampton and Walsall in the south, and through Longton and 
Wootton-under-Wever in the north. The loss of these districts 
would not reduce very much the number of productive acres, but 
it would cut off the northern and southern coal-fields and the 
Potteries, as well as the limestone hills and the picturesque 
scenery of the moorland, and this represents a loss of manufac- 
tures and of population which would be disastrous to agriculture. 
Excluding the light-land tract which surrounds the county town 
and extends from Trentham through Cannock Chase and Lich- 
field to Tamworth, the county consists chiefly of the cheese- 
making districts, where pasturage prevails. The increasing 
profit of dairy farming, as compared with arable cultivation, on 
strong land, has occasioned a great portion of such land to be 
laid down in permanent pasture during the last few years. The 
heavier marls and clays are costly to work and unproductive of 
stock and meat, except under an expensive system of root culti- 
vation,, which the practical man knows to be a hazardous and 
very often an unprofitable investment. Notwithstanding the 
good average quality of the soil in the dairy district, it is less 
productive of corn, especially of wheat, than are the great corn 
districts, and it is specially suited to grass. There is no doubt 
that the soil and climate of Staffordshire are peculiarly suitable 
to its chief agricultural production, and are as essential to the 
* The map illustrating this paper is reduced from the Greenough Geological Map 
of England and Wales, published by the Geological Society of London. — Edit. 
