Agriculture of Berkshire. 
23 
stand the opposite way, the south side gets all the sun and wind. 
1 have frequently in wet harvests seen the north side of the shocks 
one mass of green, when on the south not a grown ear could be 
found. I am surprised that my brother-farmers do not see the 
necessity of placing the shocks north and south, without regard 
to the way in which the lands or furrows run. As soon as the 
fields are cleared under the four-course shift, the preparation for 
the succeeding root-crop commences, as before described ; but 
under the five-course shift the usual mode was to plough up 
the stubble, let it remain till the following spring, and, if clean, 
then drill in the barley or oats on the back : this has now much 
given way to the improved plan of cleaning the stubble in autumn 
with the skim-plough or scarifier. 
So far as my own experience goes, and the information which 
I have obtained from others, the above description of the mode 
of tilling and cropping is that which is carried out for the most 
part in this county ; there is, nevertheless, some land in the Vale 
district where the soil is very stiff and wet, upon which no system 
is or can be adhered to. Where so much depends on weather 
and other circumstances, it is impossible to give an exact descrip- 
tion of the methods adopted. 
Drainage. 
No subject of late years has been more fully discussed and 
more widely canvassed, both in public and private, than that of 
draining ; so much so that to write a long chapter on one system 
or the other would be invidious, more particularly in a county 
where drainage forms so unimportant a feature : for it may safely 
be said that few counties in proportion to their area have so 
small a surface requiring that adjunct as Berkshire. Suffice it, 
therefore, to say that the greater part has already been done on 
the most approved system, and that which remains is in contem- 
plation. 
Beginning on the east side of the county, the first soil we meet 
with requiring drainage is that portion in Windsor Park which lies 
between the alluvial soil of the Thames valley and the Bagshot 
Sand, including the Flemish Farm, described under the head of the 
Royal Farms : as we pass on to Winkfield, Warfield, and Binfield, 
in the direction of Wokingham, thence to the south side of the 
county beyond Mortimer, we again find a tract of land of the 
London and Plastic Clay formation, which invariably requires 
draining. From^information which I have obtained, I find that 
this work has been executed nearly over the whole district on 
the plan most generally approved, — that is with drains parallel to 
the incline, 4 feet deep and 24 feet distant, laid with 2-inch pipes. 
The cost is — for pipes 24s. per 1000 ; for cutting the drains and 
