10 
Agriculture of Berkshire. 
and requires lengthened description. The margin of the 
Thames (varying much in widtli) from Old Windsor to the 
Wallingford Road Station, on the Great Western Railway, is 
an alluvial soil, being an admixture of the London and Plastic 
Clay, Bagshot Sand, and Hint-gravel, forming a rich gravelly loam. 
In this valley the land in many places is ploughed nearly to the 
edge of the river ; where it lies low there is a considerable width 
of meadows which are subject to floods. Seldom can so great a 
diversity of soil be seen in so small a compass as that which lies 
between the Great Western Railway and the valley of the 
Thames from Maidenhead to Reading : here we have sharp 
gravels, good loams, and tenacious clays, with all the inter- 
mediate gradations ; the chalk which underlies the whole ap- 
proaches at some points close to the surface, whilst at others 
there is a varied depth of gravel. The presence of the chalk 
beneath the heavier lands is an important feature, affording, 
as it does, a simple drainage, with or without pipes, according 
to circumstances ; in the stiffest clays they have only to bore 
through to the chalk, and all surface water is removed. There is a 
field in the parish of Cookham possessing a special interest ; it 
consists of Thames deposit, and grows crops of corn of very 
great bulk, without any supply of manure. 
The Kcnnet Valley has a mixed soil, composed of the sand and 
clay of the Plastic Clay formation, together with flint-gravel and 
much vegetable humus ; in some instances a deep peat exists on 
the surface, as seen in the meadows between Kintbury and New- 
bury. The slopes of the valley formed by the river Lambourne, 
and by the stream which passes through Hampstead-Norris, Fril- 
sham, Buckleburv, Bradfield, and Tidmarsh, as well as the bottoms 
themselves, are of a superior quality, composed generally of a 
rich gravelly loam. The other valleys, and mos^ of the hills, are 
capped with a mixed soil of plastic clay and sand, and are fertile 
just in proportion to the quantity of sand mixed with the clay. 
The greater part of the parishes of East Garston, Fawley, Farn- 
borough, Shefford, Welford, Chaddleworth, Wickham, Boxford, 
Leckhampstead,Brightwaltham, Peasemore, Catmore, and Beedon, 
are of this uniform description, and are very productive. The 
clay is not very tenacious, and, although very wet in rainy 
weather, soon transmits the water through to the chalk below, and 
is dry again ; the clay, however, is sufficiently thick on the caps 
of some of the hills to justify geologists in classing them with the 
London and Plastic Clay of the first division, as shown on the 
map. This clay is used for making bricks at Beedon, Frilsham 
Common, and Upper Basildon, &c. 
Where there is a deficiency of sand, as in Lambourne wood- 
lands, the soil is cold and less fertile ; nothing improves it so much 
