Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire in 1888 : Class 1. 515 
these divisions of fen soil are spots of liigher land, which were 
alone above the level of the floods in pre-drainage times, and 
now — as perhaps then — principally in grass of first-rate quality. 
The peaty fens have a subsoil of soapy blue clay, but the black 
surface soil is of a light character. Some of the alluvial lands 
are also of a lightish nature, but others are much wetter and 
heavier in surface as well as subsoil. Elsewhere are found clay 
and greensand soils, and veiy numerous examples of artificial or 
drift soils which are much too various for classification. 
The climate of the higher grounds of Lincolnshire is noted 
for its fine, dry, and bracing character — too much so, perhaps, 
for the county is peculiarly exposed to cutting easterly winds in 
the spring. These may have been even more fierce than now, 
for where the ancient forests of the fens have been exposed to 
light, the buried trees are often found leaning from the effects of 
the chilling blasts. Before the present effective drainage, these 
fen districts were productive of constant ague and other dis- 
eases to . their inhabitants. The rainfall, like that of the other 
great corn-growing counties of the eastern coast, is considerably 
below the average for England as a whole. One good test of 
the mean temperature of a district is roughly supplied in its 
suitability or otherwise for the growth of mangolds. The 
agricultural returns show that Lincolnshire — and most probably 
its more southern part — is about the most northerly limit of the 
profitable cultivation of this root. Thus the acreage in man- 
golds as given for the county of Norfolk, immediately below it, 
is four times as great as that returned for Lincolnshire. York- 
shire, nest above, grows less than half as much as Lincoln, and 
there are no more than 190 acres of this warmth-loving plant 
returned for the whole of the large county of Northumberland, 
Happily the prohibition, though a proof of lower temperature, is- 
not without its compensation, for no doubt this is fully provided 
in the more and more favourable climate for turnips of one kind 
or another which each northward step secures. 
Acreage under various descriptions of crops. ^The following 
table shows the percentage of the total acreage of arable land in 
Lincoln, Notts, and England under each kind of crop, or in 
bare fallow, in 1887. It also shows the percentage of the total 
acreage of cultivated land in the same places, which was in 
permanent pasture in 1887. In an adjoining column are the 
same particulars for 1877, in order that it may be seen what 
alterations or modifications of previously prevailing systems or 
rotations of crops, if any, have been induced by a long period of 
low prices for farm produce. 
L L 2 
