Report on the Wancickshire Farm-Prize Competition, 1876. 491 
the land, although in many spots there is perhaps too much for 
agricultural purposes. A large district, east, south, and west 
ot this, is occupied by the Keuper of the New Red Sandstone, 
which extends over almost the entire south-western corner of the 
county, whilst the whole of the south-eastern portion is taken 
up by the Lias. The difference in the agricultural character oi 
the Permian and Triassic systems is, as might be expected, much 
less distinctly marked than that between the sandstone and the 
Lias. In the drive from Stratford to Bidford, for instance, the 
generally cold, tenacious character of the latter formation is well 
exemplified ; and the backward state of the agriculture of such 
districts is very striking by contrast with the warmer and more 
fertile loams of the sandstone in the neighbourhood of the 
former place. Such names as " Starve-all," " Cold-coinfort," tScc, 
which one finds dotted about on this portion of the Ordnance 
Map are, perhaps, suggestive of the character of the land. 
The valley of the Avon has long been considered one of the 
most fertile districts of the county. It is in a great measure 
occupied by the usual diluvial loams and gravels ; but in many 
places, at considerable elevations, the surface of the land is 
much covered with the glacial deposit of the " Northern drift." 
In such spots the soil consists principally of a gravelly loam 
containing a great variety of pebbles, derived probably from the 
primitive and other rocks of Northern England. The stones 
are mostly rounded ; but the late Mr. H. E. Strickland, whose 
geological researches are well known, was of opinion that, in 
many cases, they had been brought direct from the conglome- 
rates of the New Red Sandstone, and therefore that " we should 
be cautious in attributing their rounded form to the transitory 
action which placed them in their present position." * 
The general appearance of South Warwickshire is pleasant, 
and, if not strikingly picturesque, is at least marked by that soft 
* Since this was written I have received an interesting note from the Rev. P. B. 
Brodie, of Eowington, near Warwick, an eminent local geologist. He informs me 
that in his neighbourhood the pebbles of the drift matter " are chiefly Lower 
Silurian, as seen by their fossils, but many others are found from rocks of all 
ages, from the cretaceous downwards, flints abounding in places. In the Avon 
valley the gravel is finer, and what is called 'low level drift,' with, rarely, 
mammalian remains." Mr. Brodie also says that where the Lower Keuper mark 
are developed, the surface, for the most part, consists of cold clay ; and that the 
Upper Keuper Sandstone, " which runs in irregular patches, somewhat influences 
the soil, as its chemical ingredients difter considerably from those of the green 
and red marls, both of which occur in the upper and lower divisions of the New 
Red Sandstone." "The Permian, in the neighboiuhood of Kenilworth, Coventry, 
&c., consists of red and grey sandstone rock more or less hard, divided by green 
and red marls, but no magnesian limestone proper." 
I have not thought it necessary to speak of the Lower Oolite which forms 
the cap of the Lias on some of the hills in the extreme south-eastern portion 
of the county, as the farms we visited were far removed from that neighbour- 
hood— H. J. L. 
