Agriculture of Berkshire. 
25 
Vale district, and some in other parts of the county ; a part lias 
been broken up within the last 20 years with good results, but 
much more remains to be done. 
There is a considerable quantity of meadow-land on the edge 
of the Thames and a little on the banks of the Loddon, of varied 
quality, some very serviceable, some very coarse, either from want 
of draining or from the flood- water lying too long upon it and 
destroying all the more tender herbage ; this may be much im- 
proved by attending to the river, but no care whatever is taken to 
free the land rapidly from flood-water. 
The meadows in the neighbourhood of Lechlade will graze 
a beast and at the same time would starve a horse : these are 
occupied for grazing and feeding young stock, and for dairy 
purposes, and many of them are mown for hay once in the year. 
There is some excellent pasture in the neighbourhood of Wantage, 
Hanney, Ardington, Grove, Steventon and Milton, producing 
hay of good quality and valuable for grazing purposes. These 
pastures are better attended to than those previously referred to, 
as are also the lands occupied in other parts of the county by 
gentlemen's parks, paddocks, or by enclosures surrounding home- 
steads, (Sec. ; they are occasionally dressed with road-scrapings, 
either by themselves or mixed with manure from the yards : the 
parks, where no deer are kept, are mown once in the year, the 
after-feed being in some cases let to dealers or butchers. 
A range of valuable water-meadows lies on each side of the 
Kennet and of the Lambourne, from ShefFord to Newbury, and a 
small quantity by the stream running from Hampstead-Norris to 
Pangbourne. These are usually fed off in the spring, from April 
to the middle of May, with sheep, being let for 3/. or 4Z. per acre 
for the feed — in some backward springs they make more. They 
are watered from the middle of May to about the middle of July, 
then cut for hay and afterwards fed up to the end of November, 
by cow-stock and horses. In some cases the spring-crop is mown 
instead of being fed ; this hay is more valuable than the second 
crop, but requires great care in making : the process of making 
hay is too well understood to require explanation. 
Remarkable or Characteristic Farms. 
Berkshire is favoured with as wealthy and influential a body 
of landed proprietors as most counties, who are ever foremost in 
giving a stimulus to agricultural improvements. There are many 
large estates, but the greater portion is in the hands of smaller 
proprietors. It will be impossible here to mention every farm 
worthy of notice ; but, as several of the largest landowners have 
in their own hands a farm which they cultivate upon the most 
improved systems, I have selected three or four of those, the 
