Indications of the Fertility or Barrenness of Soils. 435 
of butter and cheese is as bad. The colour of the top-soil is 
mostly dark, inclined to blue — a clay mixed with stones from the 
subsoil, and pebbles, apparently transported hither : it also con- 
tains a great deal of lime-wash. The subsoil partakes of nearly 
the same nature, but mostly of a lighter colour, in consequence of 
its being excluded from the sun and air. In some places on this 
formation, as I have before observed at the commencement of this 
Essay, the veins of stone and clay, or beds, as we call them, crop 
out many of them in the space of a furlong, and impede the 
plough as badly as any of the stony land on the oolite formati(m. 
Here also I observe, the paler the colour of the soil the weaker 
the land, whether arable or pasture ; and from the same reason — 
that is, the subsoil — either stone or clay approaches nearer the 
top, and becomes mixed, thereby causing the difference in colour. 
On this formation, where the stone is soft and weak, and of a 
light colour, there the land is worst. This district of poor land 
extends, from east to west, about 2 miles in breadth, and about 4, 
from north to south, in length. By the cause of some natural 
agency, there is a ridge of high land running nearly the whole 
length of this district ; and on the highest part of this ridge, for a 
few acres, the soil is as good as 1 could wish to see, and makes 
excellent pasture, always dry ; the turf of a rich green colour, with 
much clover. The best sort of bents are to be seen, and plenty 
of sorrel and craisies. The soil is a rich-looking gravelly loam, 
with a subsoil of the same earth. The elm grows well — better 
than the oak ; but as soon as you begin to descend the hill, the 
soil becomes clay directly. The turf looks russet and stingy, and 
the herbage of the worst sort — carnation-grass for the most part, 
without clover or craisy. The bents are of the worst sort, and in 
some places scarcely anything else growing but what we call 
black bents. On a great deal of this pasture-land the wood- wax 
and gorse are very abundant, as well as many other nasty weeds 
which I do not know the names of. Nearly the whole of this 
land wants draining, pasture as well as arable. Some has been 
done, which has improved it much, but will never make it land 
of an average quality. Extreme wet or dry seasons affect it very 
much — I may say injure it very much. The arable land, if fal- 
lowed in very dry summers, becomes so light in the staple that 
the crop generally fails if planted with wheat next year, and you 
get a crop of weeds instead. On the other hand, if fallowed in 
wet summers, you cannot clean it. Here are hundreds of acres 
in this state now, not a morsel cleaner for having been fallowed 
last summer. 
In March, 1842, my landlord drained a piece of arable land on 
this farm. I then, in the course of the summer, cleaned it as well 
as possible : there was not a bit of couch or other roots to be seen. 
VOL. V. 2 G 
