8 
Agriculttire of Berkshire. 
cation of good jarcl-manure. This land has grown Swedes 
averaging 20 tons per acre, and this year considerably more, in 
only the fourth year of its cultivation. It has also grown good 
clover, oats, and rye, and this year exhibits some promising 
wheat ; the first crop is produced at a cost of 20/. per acre, which 
time is likely to repay. In the neighbourhood of Wokingham, 
where there is a good depth of soil before coming to the clay, 
the land is grateful and productive, but the light sands burn 
quickly, and in wet seasons the corn becomes yellow and does 
not yield well ; this land seems calculated for the production of 
wheat and oats with advantage to the grower. A considerable 
breadth of beans is planted, but the soil is not strong enough to 
be called good bean land. The red or broad clover grows 
well ; barley is bad in quality and yields hardly more than half 
as much produce as oats : with proper management all descriji- 
tions of root-crops may be successfully grown. The land requires 
to be kept in good condition by constant cleaning, being subject 
to a running grassy kind of couch, as is often the case on a light 
soil with a wet subsoil. The larger holdings in the district have 
within the last nine years been much improved, both by laying 
small fields into large ones and by draining, which has been 
attended Avith great success ; many holdings, however, are still 
small and badly cultivated, in some instances from want of judg- 
ment, in others from lack of sufficient capital, and in not a few 
cases from these two wants combined. 
The grass-land, in general, produces little and that of middling 
quality, although some of it is very useful, but it is not good 
stock-land, in consequence of its cold subsoil. 
The London Clay (on which the Bagshot Sand rests) is indi- 
cated by a heavy tillage and by brick-yards at the boundary of 
the sand and clay. It commences at Old Windsor and extends 
to the parish of Winkfield, forming as irregular a junction with 
the Plastic Clay as that does with the Chalk ; this London Clay 
is again shown at Wokingham, also near Reading, and on the 
south side of the Kennet, more or less occupying the cap of the 
hills to the edge of the county : beneath this London Clay crops 
out the admixed soil, the sand and clay of the Plastic Clay 
formation with varied depths [of sandy flint-gravel, as shown in 
the neighbourhood of Reading ; it constitutes a happy mixed 
soil, having an ample supply of calcareous matter abraded from 
the chalk, the next stratum below. These clay-soils are mostly 
characterized by small enclosures and the growth of the oak and 
the elm. * 
The heavy land in this district grows good wheat, beans, 
and oats, .and, when drained, heavy crops of roots. There is 
also a light sandy loam, on a yellow sand subsoil, near Bagshot 
