West Riding of Yorkshire. 
299 
generally sold for the supply of Leeds. Carrots are occasionally 
grown in these districts, but being esteemed a more precarious 
crop than potatoes, and more troublesome to manage with equally 
satisfactory results, their cultivation is of course not so extensive. 
It must not, however, be inferred, that the bulk of the land form- 
ing this alluvial tract is of equal quality with that just alluded to. 
On the contrary, a very large proportion of it is strong and wet, 
and, from its low level, greatly dependent on the suitableness of 
the season for the yield of its crops. 
As respects the cultivation throughout the range of the new 
red-sandstone it may, like the soil itself, be appropriately de- 
scribed as generally very good ; without perhaps, at the same 
time, having any of those more marked peculiarities of culture 
which would seem to call for any special notice. The usual rota- 
tion on the lighter portions is the ordinary four-course turnip 
culture; the great facility which these sandy soils offer for the 
easy and rapid spread of twitch or couch grass, making the turnip 
crop every fourth year essential for the periodcal eradication of 
this weed. Where the soil possesses more stamina, as at Bawtry 
and Tadcaster, and more particularly around Whixley, Green 
Hammerton, and Boroughbridge, the longer rotation is practised. 
The barley from these latter districts is usually of particularly 
fine quality, in every respect, and is consequently much esteemed 
by the better class of maltsters, and realizes the highest market 
value. 
From these productive soils we pass in succession to the poorer 
ones of the millstone grit, the culture of which presents no pe- 
culiarity, except that of being peculiarly bad. Fallow, wheat, 
and beans, is the customary mode of cropping, with occasionally 
oats, and here and there a few turnips, which are pulled and 
given to the cattle in the fold. I do not mean to say that 
some better cultivation is not found on these soils, but assuredly 
the exceptions are few. At Ripley, Otley, and one or two other 
localities, which come more immediately under the personal 
observation of some of the larger proprietors, better things are 
certainly met with. Nevertheless, there is a wide scope for some 
improvement in the cultivation of the inclosed lands and lower 
levels of this stratum ; to say nothing of the more elevated parts, 
of the improvements to be effected upon which we shall speak in 
the proper place. Suffice it, that in many respects, and consider- 
ing the disadvantage of climate they have to contend with, the 
management on these higher grounds is an example to their 
neighbours on the lower levels ; and at least proves, beyond ques- 
tion, the capabilities of these altitudes to yield a compensating 
return for even that partial and superficial improvement to whicli 
they have been too long consigned. 
X 2 
