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V. — Farming of the East Riding of Yorkshire. 
By Gkorge Legard. 
Prizk Risport. 
The East Ridins: of Yorkshire comprises the south-eastern por- 
tion of that county ; and, unlike the majority of English counties, 
is, with the exception of a few miles, defined by an entirely na- 
tural boundary. Tlie German Ocean flanks it on the East ; the 
rivers Harford, Derwent, and Ouse surround it on the north and 
west; and the last river, uniting with the H umber, forms its 
southern limit. The only break in this natural boundary, as will 
be observed in the map, occurs on the west side of the Riding, 
where the boundary-line leaves the river Derwent at Stamford 
Bridge, and runs for 8 miles along an ancient Roman road from that 
place to the city of York. There is also a very short interrup- 
tion in the north-eastern corner, where an unimportant streamlet 
of a mile and a half in length falls eastward from the watershed 
of the Vale of Pickering into Filey Bay, and divides the North 
from the East Riding. 
The East Riding is the least of the three divisions of the 
county, both in area and population. It consists, by computation, 
of 711,000 acres, and its population in 1841 was 194,936. 
Its topographical features, as well as its geological construc- 
tion, seem to require that it should be separated into three dis- 
tricts, which may be described as— 1st, TJie Wold district, 
occupying the central high ground of the Riding ; 2nd, Holder- 
ness,'^ stretching out in a south-easterly direction from the Wold 
Hills to Spurn Point; and 3rd, The Vale of York, extending 
from the western escarpment of the Wolds to the rivers Derwent 
and Ouse. 
Of the Wolds. — The chalk Wolds of Yorkshire exhibit the 
same characteristics as distinguish this particular formation in 
other parts of the kingdom. Their rounded uniform outline 
forms a strong contrast to the nearest neighbouring range of hills, 
viz. the oolitic, which lie to the north-west. Professor Phillips, 
in his Geology of Yorkshire, describes the Wold thus : — 
" High and bare of trees, yet not dreary nor sterile, they are furrowed, 
as all other chalk hills, by smooth, winding, ramified valleys, without any 
channel for a stream. Where several of these valleys meet, they pro- 
* In reality the division of Holderness is bounded by the river Hull 
and by Earl's Dike, but, for the purposes of this Report, it has been found 
necessary to extend it agriculturally rather more widely, both on the west 
and north sides. The term Vale of York also applies, strictly speaking, to 
a much more extensive area, and is used generally to designate a tract of 
country 60 miles long by 20 wide, and which runs through the centre of 
Yorkshire, from Thirsk to Bawtry. 
