Agricultural Notes on Hertfordshire, 
305 
famous for its supply of neat cattle, brought from Wales and 
Scotland, &c. 
The modem practice of holding sales of fat stock by auction 
at such towns as Hitchin, Hertford, Bishop's Stortford, and 
Watford, has assumed such large and increasing proportions that 
it may be well to trace its development as exhibited in the town 
of Hitchini These sales which were here first held occasionally 
in 1852, took place in 1853 twice or three times in a month, and 
ultimately, in 18G2, every week. A yard specially fitted for the 
purpose was opened by Messrs. Page and Harding, 8th Decem- 
ber, l!S()2. Their sales in 18G1 realised 65,345£. 4s.; in 1862, 
7!>,4UW. 5s. ; in 18G3, 107,014?. 0s. Qd. The sale of Christmas 
last, December 15, realised 5,118?. ( Js., and consisted of 108 
oxen, (375 sheep, 2 calves, and 44 pigs. In the year 1863: 
1876 oxen, 22,492 sheep, 123 calves, 2707 pigs, and'll56 lambs 
were sold. 
Physical Geography. 
The boundaries of this county arc not, as is sometimes the 
case, determined by the physical features. On the north, the 
boundary is generally coincident with the escarpment of the chalk 
or Chiltern range of hills ; on the south-east it is formed by the 
Lea and its affluent the Stort ; to the south it lies very much along 
the high ridge, where the London clay is partially capped by drift 
of the Eocene beds ; and on the west it follows the ridge over- 
hanging the valley of the Bulborne, in which the Grand Junction 
Canal finds its course. Thus the agriculture of Hertfordshire in 
some cases takes its character from the several counties by 
which it is surrounded, and from which it is divided by an ill- 
defined and arbitrary line. The geological features of this county 
are comparatively simple. It comprehends within its limits a 
considerable portion of the north-western limb of the chalk-basin 
of London. Here nearly the whole substratum is chalk, the sur- 
face of which is either covered with drift gravel, or the tertiary 
deposits of the London and Plastic clay ; a very small part con- 
sists of the Gault clay, which, with a trace of the upper green 
sand, crops out from beneath the chalk. 
As the physical features of the surface are necessarily ruled by 
the geological condition, there is a considerable sameness in the 
outward aspect of the county, though there is a frequent and 
marked difference in the nature and quality of the soils. 
Speaking generally, the county may be divided into the 
clay and chalk districts ; the former forming the southern por- 
tion adjoining the county of Middlesex ; the latter extending 
from the outcrop of the clays to the escarpment of the chalk 
hills, the frontier of the counties of Buckingham, Bedford, and 
