Arable Districts. 
283 
generally either fossil or rubbly, and are much mixed with clay. 
North of Buckingham the common yellow tinge of the oolitic 
rock is changed for a blue colour, and some have a pasty look 
and dead white colour, not unlike chalk. It was probably the 
chalky appearance of this oolite, as well as the soft white rock of 
the Portland stone, which caused the mass of the different soils 
of the county in the last Report to be denoted chalk, where there 
could be no deposit of chalk within twenty miles of the spot. 
There is hardly any real development of the stonebrash in tlie 
county, but principally cornbrash and forest marble, which latter 
is worked at Olney, Newport, Thornton, and Buckingham. 
The top soil of the forest marble is mostly clay, and forms — 
about the Lillingstones and Stowe, for instance — an argillaceous, 
wet, tenacious, and calcareous soil. In the cornbrash the mixture 
of calcareous, argillaceous, and arenaceous beds is favourable to 
their agricultural quality. It is a stronger soil than the stonebrash, 
and is distinguished by the presence of timber and pasture beyond 
Olney. In the district about Cold Brayfieldand Newton Blossom- 
ville, and again at Emberton, Newport, and Stanton Bury, there 
are extensive beds of fine gravel, which when sifted resembles 
sea-shore shingle. All along the junction of the two strata from 
W olverton to Olney, are patches of very excellent land, and 
some meadows that border on the Ouse are of first-rate quality. 
Indeed some grazing-lands at Lavendon, and by the river at Tyr- 
ringham, and again at Biddlesden in the north-west, are hardly 
inferior to any in the Vale of Aylesbury. Along parts of the Ouse 
the ground rises abruptly from the valley into the thin stonebrash 
of Newton-Underwood, and Cold Brayfield. The agriculture of 
this end of the county, like its southern portion, presents a pleas- 
ing appearance ; but whether it is from proximity to the good 
farming of Bedfordshire, or the natural fertility of the soil, it is 
difficult for a hasty glance to determine. If one were in a condi- 
tion to draw a conclusion from such a view, it might be said that 
a junction of the two, an improvable soil and an industrious 
tenantry, had combined to brighten the face of the country. 
With the exception of some insignificant patches of the lias clay, 
which are to be found in the meadows of Turweston and West- 
bury, the whole of the geological strata of Bucks have been now 
slightly reviewed. 
Arable Districts. 
In taking a general view of the management of the arable land 
throughout the county, it will again be necessary to treat of some 
of the districts separately. This must certainly be the case in 
relating an account of the various rotations of crops. Beginning 
once more at the south of the county, there are the sands, gravels, 
