Geological Description. 
273 
farms are manajjed in a very masterly style: this may particularly 
apply to the aj^riculture about Burnham, Farnham, and Datchet, 
where the land is made to constantly produce a series of <;oo(l 
crops and yet kept in excellent condition. Indeed this soil will 
produce capital crops of all cereals, more especially oats. Al- 
thouo'h winter-beans do not flourish, the spring varieties arc pro- 
duced in perfection ; and this portion of the county is celebrated 
for the fine qualities of its Chidham wheats. From the variable 
nature of the subsoil there are large reservoirs of water, and muc:h 
of the land requires draining. It is often troublesome to dry it 
perfectly ; but this may be attained by attending carefully to the 
veiny nature of the subsoil, and cutting the drains as much as 
possible across these seams. 
At the junction of the chalk with the plastic clay (which 
might be shown by a line stretching across the county from 
Maidenhead to Uxbridge), the sands of the latter formation cover 
the chalk to a considerable extent, and the south side of the 
acclivity presents a series of barren' and uncultivated heaths. 
Such lands might pay for planting, and some even for cultivation, 
but the greater part is composed of coarse sand and rounded 
pebbles, and is naturally so sterile, that with clay easy of access, 
and chalk to be had by sinking pits, there is no reason to supjxjse 
the cost of improvement would ever be repaid. Upon arriving 
at the higher ground, which commences at Woburn Hill and runs 
to the south of Beaconsfield, a slight change for the better is 
manifested ; but the improvement is certainly very slight, for in 
lieu of the sandy heaths there is a certain gravelly soil — wet, 
hungry, and weak. At Woburn Hill there is a fine development 
of tlie chalk, and the varying, overlying stratum of the plastic 
clay. On the top is a bed of gravel 20 feet deep, then comes a 
deposit of clay also about 20 feet, and under that lie 4 feet of 
sand resting on the chalk. The gravel is here used for re- 
pairing the roads, the sand and clay in the manufacture of 
bricks, and the chalk is burned into lime. Proceeding in a 
north-east direction, the country certainly improves, and presents 
the favourable features of the Cliiltern district. There are tracts 
of mouldy land full of rounded pebbles ; gravelly loams, contain- 
ing numberless flints, in the valleys ; the sides of the banks are 
chalky, and on the summit of the hills is an argillaceous loam 
interspersed with seams of gravel and flints. This deposit, which 
exists in variable quantities nearly all over the chalk-range, is 
evidently the washing of the plastic clay. On the hills which 
incline to the south or run down to the Thames, the drift is 
mostly composed of sand and gravel, while on the elevated table- 
lands and toward the north the clay appears more general. In 
