312 
Farming of Buckinghamsliirc. 
Tlie sizes of farms mostly vary from 100 to 400 acres. There 
are not more than 50 which exceed that limit, and the general 
average is certainly under 200 acres. The greater part of these 
are let from year to year, with a six months' notice to quit. There 
are a few leases which extend from 7 to 21 years, and in the 
southern extremity of the county there are agreements, which 
require a two years' notice to terminate them. Provided these 
agreements contained a compensation clause, for permanent im- 
provements, they would be much preferable to leases. A bad 
farmer or disreputable tenant need not then be a twenty years' 
burden to an estate, while the good farmer would be repaid 
for his chief expenditure, and have time to look about for a fresh 
occupation. 
Air. Priest, in his able Report, heaped a series of well-merited 
strictures upon the roads of the county. In his journeys from 
one parish to another, he encountered some really serious adven- 
tures, and a more modern writer says, that one might as well 
attempt to drive into the ocean, as to venture with a respectable 
vehicle over the field-roads. There can be no doubt that very 
considerable improvements have recently been effected in road- 
making. In the Chiltern district, where flints are plentiful, they 
are as good as the most fastidious could desire. But in districts 
Avhere hard materials arc scarce, some of the parish roads are 
very bad, and the turnpikes are by no means perfect. The in- 
closures greatly improved the transit from one parish to another, 
by making good hard roads, but the farm-roads on clay soils are 
still in a dreadful state, and during wet weather and the chief 
part of the winter are deep sloughs of mud. Were roots grown 
on such land, it would be next to impossible to convey them to 
the homestead. The northern, southern, and eastern parts of the 
county .are well furnished with means of transit in the shape of 
railroads, canals, or rivers, but the south-western district, espe- 
cially about Thame, enjoys none of these conveniences. 
There is nothing particular to commend or censure in the 
labourers of Buckinghamshire. They are similar to other 
labourers of middle England, and therefore there is room for 
much improvement. As labourers, they certainly have not 
arrived at that ideal state of perfection where, as represented in 
the Society's Journal, vol. xv. p. 108, four men fill ninety-six 
cartloads of manure in the day ; and women are not yet expert in 
soAving artificial manures. A man in Bucks considers it a very 
fair day's work to fill twelve or fourteen loads of manure, and 
women do not generally venture into the fields but at hay and 
corn harvests. In addition to their domestic duties, the poor 
women, as well as their children, are employed in lace-making 
and straw-plaiting in some parts of the county. Making pillow- 
