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XXXIII. — On  the  Farming  of  Somersetshire.  By  Thomas 
Dyke  Acland,  Jun. 
Prize  Report. 
If  the  farming  of  Somersetshire  has  no  other  claim  to  attention, 
it  has  at  least  the  interest  of  variety.  This  county  furnishes 
examples  of  almost  every  kind  of  soil,  subsoil,  an!  climate  found 
in  England  ; it  is  therefore  difficult  to  describe  its  agriculture 
under  a systematic  arrangement  or  within  a smal  compass.  Its 
grass  lands  include  breeding,  grazing,  and  dairy  ustricts  equal  in 
their  respective  qualities  to  any  in  England.  Anong  its  arable 
soils  are  to  be  found  a rich  alluvial  deposit,  a andy  loam,  red 
marl,  peat  and  fen  lands,  heavy  clay  and  thisty  stonebrash, 
flint,  gravel,  and  chalk. 
The  geology  of  Somersetshire  includes  specimns  of  nearly  all 
the  formations  which  appear  on  the  surface  o England  from 
Wales  to  Norfolk — the  grauwacke  in  the  hills  f Exmoor  and 
Quantock;  the  old  red  sandstone  and  mountai  limestone  in 
Mendip;  the  coal-measures  among  the  hills  nea  Bath  ; the  new 
red  sandstone  and  marls  in  the  vale  of  Taunton  )ean  and  at  the 
base  of  many  of  the  hills;  the  lias,  which  bouJs  the  Bridge- 
water  Level  like  a sea  cliff,  or  rises  out  of  itin  patches  like 
islands  ; the  oolite  formations,  extending  over  tt  south  and  east 
of  the  county  ; the  greensand  and  chalk,  which  apjar  in  the  Chard 
and  Crewkerne  hills,  and  in  the  table-land  bween  Somerset 
and  Devon  ; and  lastly,  an  extensive  alluvial  depo:,  partly  covered 
bv  peat  and  fen  land,  which  fills  up  the  Bridgevter  flat. 
The  physical  aspect  of  the  county  is  muclvaried.  If  the 
reader  will  take  the  trouble  to  glance  at  the  mexed  physical 
map,  and  to  compare  it  with  the  geological  m>,  he  will  notice 
the  general  correspondence  of  a great  part  of  tffiounty  boundary 
with  the  line  of  the  Watershed,  from  which  theaters  flow  north- 
wards into  the  Bristol  Channel,  and  will  percei  that  the  county 
of  Somerset  naturally  arranges  itself  in  three  rin  divisions,  viz., 
a Central  Basin,  draining  into  the  Bristol  Chael  between  two 
hilly  districts,  one  on  the  west,  the  other  on  tlnorth-east. 
If,  to  avoid  needless  precision,  the  Quan-k  and  Brendon 
hills  be  taken  as  the  boundaries  of  the  Westi  district,  and  the 
Mendip  range  as  that  of  the  North-Eastern,  e Middle  district 
will  then  be  nearly,  but  not  strictly,  coinciderwith  the  physical 
basin,  I he  waters  of  which  find  their  way  intBridgewater  Bay 
by  the  channels  of  the  Axe,  the  Brue,  and  tlffarret. 
The  western  district  contains  the  schistosmd  stony  soils  on 
the  grauwacke,  with  occasional  bogs ; the  elate  is  moist,  and 
the  streams  abundant.  Breeding  and  rearirstock  characterize 
