Arable Districts. 
285 
and g^ault c:lay some of the farmers crop on the four-course or 
Norfolk s^'stem, some on the old rotation of two crops and a 
faHow, and some on no system at all. Since the time of the last 
Report, the cultivation of the land at the north base of the Chil- 
terns has much improved, but there are some unhappy exceptions 
to this jirogression ; and about the Ilisboroughs and Ilalton there 
are some farms in a similar condition to that in v/liich they 
were fifty years ago. 
The principal arable districts of the county are now gone over, 
and next comes the ploughed land in the Vale of Aylesbury, and 
the dairy-grounds of the north. In the districts already described, 
nine-tenths of the land are under the plough, — in the rest of the 
county not above one-fourth is arable ; of course on grass farms 
the cultivation of the ploughed land is quite subservient to the 
pastures. Tlie systems of farming are numberless, but, by taking 
the various description of soils, the general style of farming of 
each sort of land may be illustrated. The soils within ten miles 
of Aylesbury vary greatly, from a strong clay to a burning gravel ; 
and the proportion of arable land also differs very widely — on 
some farms as much as half the land is under the plough, on 
others none at all. The loams and good turnip soils of course 
are mostly arable, and will be first considered. This descrip- 
tion of land, of which the largest tract is found south-west of 
Aylesbur}', is generally by good farmers cultivated under the- 
four-course shift. For eight vears the rotation would stand 
thus : — 
1. Fallow and swedes. 
2. Barley. 
3. Clover. 
4. Wheat. 
5. Turnips after vetches or fallow. 
6. Barley. 
7. Beans with a heavy coating of dung. 
8. Wheat. 
On rubbly and gravelly soils the same course is pursued where 
the land is capable of carrying winter stock without injury; but if 
injury is likely to be produced either to the stock or the land, 
green crops, to be fed off in the summer montlis, are substituted, 
instead of root crops for winter feed. Stiff retentive clays, by the 
best agriculturists of Bucks, are, in their present undrained state, 
often cultivated under the three-course, viz. — 1st, fallow, either a 
dead fallow, or vetches fed off ; 2nd, wheat ; and 3rd, beans ; and 
begin again. Occasionally oats are sown upon a fallow, and then 
clover, which is followed by wheat, l)ut more generally by beans 
first, as there is always a danger in losing the wheat-plant from 
slugs after clovers on stiff clays. Clover is never introduced 
oftener than once in eight years. There is a loose frothy descrip- 
VOL. XVI. ^ u 
