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light loams. About Wanden or Wavendon the soil is chiefly sand.

The vale of Bedford is a very rich tract of land, the soil of which, being exceedingly fertile and well cultivated, produces abundant crops of fine wheat, barley, and turnips. The land on the north side of the vale is a strong clay; that on the south, though in general lighter, is still very productive. The natural fertility of the vale is much encreased, by the periodical overflowing of the river Ouse.

Mode of Management.

By the truly patriotic endeavours of the late Duke of Bedford, a laudable emulation has been excited among the farmers in the neighbourhood of Woburn, and other parts of the county, the good effects of which are already become visible.

The qualities of cattle, horses, sheep, hogs, &c. have been greatly improved by the introduction of the most celebrated breeds from other counties, and the melioration of the land has kept equal pace with the improvement of the cattle. In both departments the agricultural system of this county is rapidly advancing to perfection.

His grace the present duke follows the steps of of his late brother, in patronising experimental agriculture, and keeps up all the establishments which he formed with a view to that purpose. The park farm at Wobourn well deserves the attention of every man, who feels himself interested in the advancement of the science of agriculture. The farm-yard is replete with conveniences for abridging and expediting labour; besides barns, stables, fatting houses, &c. there is a mill for threshing, winnowing, grinding, and dressing wheat, &c. In another part is a small water-wheel, which gives motion to some ingenious machinery, for bruising malt and cutting straw into chaff. The water is supplied by pipes, which convey it from ponds situated on the adjoining eminences. Most of these convenienceş

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niences were constructed, under the direction of Mr. Salmon, the duke's clerk of the works, the ingenious inventor of several useful improvements in agricultural implements.

An annual sheep-shearing was established by the late Duke of Bedford, and continued by the present, at which three or four hundred persons are generally assembled, to partake of the festive cheer which then prevails at Wobourn. The meeting is held about the middle of June, and continues for several days; during this time experiments are made with newly-invented implements of agriculture, and premiums given for those which are judged to be of the most utility. Large premiums are also given to such persons, who in the course of the preceding year have expended the greatest sums in introducing valuable breeds of other counties, or who produce the best specimens of sheep, &c. bred in Bedfordshire; smaller sums are distributed for the furtherance of beneficial practices in husbandry.

Lord Ossory, Mr. Whitbread, and many other private gentlemen, add their influence and example towards the improvement of the agriculture of the county of Bedford, so that throughout the whole of the cultivated part of it, it may be generally observed that with respect to management of the land, the best systems universally obtain, and with respect to the live stock of the county, it consists of all the various kinds of the most improved breeds, as they are adapted to the nature of the land upon which they are reared.

The parish of Sandy near Northill, is much noted for its gardens; there are upwards of two hundred acres of land, occupied by nearly as many gardeners, who supply the whole country for many, miles with vegetables, from Hertford to the metropolis. Their soil is a rich black sand, two or three feet deep. Carrots they sow about Lady-day, upon ground dug one spit deep, they hoe them very carefully three

three times; and the work by the day comes to nearly two pounds per acre for the three hoeings, according to the goodness of the crop. They set them out about eight or ten inches, from plant to plant, and get, on a medium, a crop of two hundred bushels upon an acre. Parsnips they cultivate exactly in the same manner, but the product never equals that of carrots, by fifty or sixty bushels. The price of carrots vary from eighteen-pence to sixshillings per bushel, but the former price is very low. Potatoes they plant at the same time: twenty bushels plant an acre, at the distance of about one foot every way; they hoe them three times, but not at all before they come up, as is practised in some counties. They reckon the Midsummer dun sort to yield the best; a middling crop is two hundred and fifty bushels per acre; they always manure for them, either with dung or ashes, about twenty loads, but ashes they prefer.

Of onions they sow vast quantities; the time about a fortnight before Lady-day; they hoe and weed them always five times, at the expence of about four pounds per acre, and set them out six inches asunder. The average crop is about two hundred bushels, the price varying from two to six shillings a bushel. They always manure for them with great

care.

These gardeners give from two pounds to five pounds rent per acre, for their land, and in some instances considerably more. It is, as we have above observed, a rich loose black sand, of a good depth, and very favourably protected from cold winds by several considerable hills. It is a curious, and a very pleasing sight, to behold crops of onions, potatoes, French-beans, and even whole fields of cucumbers, intermixed with crops of wheat, barley, turnips, &c.

Woad (Isatis Tinctoria) was formerly universally cultivated in this county; at present there is none to

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be found in it. The seeds of this plant, are sown every year, and the old woad plucked up, unless it is intended to be saved for seed. It is sown about the beginning of March, and cropt about the middle of May following, as the leaves come up. It is best in quality in a fair and dry summer, but most in quantity in a moist one. Then they crop it four or five times, according as it comes up; the first crop is best; every crop after is worse in order, and the last worst of all. As soon as it is cut it is carried to the woad mill, and ground as small as it can be until it becomes fit to ball. When it is balled, they lay the balls on hurdles to dry, and when it is perfectly dry they grind them to powder in the mill as small as possible; thus ground they throw it upon a floor, and water it, which they call couching, and let it smoak and heat, turning it every day until it be perfectly dry and mouldy, which they call silvering. When it is silvered they weigh it by the hundred, and bag it, putting two hundred weight in a bag, and so send it as fit for sale to the dyers, who try how it will dye and set the price accordingly the best woad is usually worth 181. per ton. Three hundred acres were lately let for the cultivation of woad at 71. per acre at Tyrringham and Lathbury in Buckinghamshire.

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With the tincture of this plant the ancient Britons were wont to dye their bodies, that they might appear more terrible to their enemies. The Romans called this herb Vitrum, witness Cæsar, Vitruvius, Mela, Pliny, and Marcellus Empyricus; which word being manifestly an interpretation of Glastum, it appears that Glassa or Glasse signified the same thing among the ancient Britons that it does among us, and not a blue colour, as Mr. Camden tells us, as it now does among the Welch. Why the Britons should call this herb Glasse, we know no better reason than because it resembles some kind of glass in colour, which we know hath often a tincture of blue

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in it; whence also a dilute blue is called Color hyalinus.

MINES AND MINERALS.

There are no mines in this county, nor any great abundance of fossils, either native or extraneous.— A gold mine is said to have been discovered at Pollux Hill in this county, about the year 1700, which was seized for the king, and granted by lease to some refiners; who, though they produced gold from the ore, found the quantity so small, that it was not equal to the expence of separation. Woodward, in his History of Fossils, mentions "a mass of shining yellow talc, with a yellow matter mixed with it," as having been found at this place, which probably was the substance mistaken for gold.

Cornua Ammonis, and other kinds of shells, are found in the stratum of stone in the Toternhoe quarries, and great abundance of petrified wood, together with griphites, belemnites, &c. under the stratum of fuller's earth at Aspley.

There are several mineral springs in this county, but none of them have acquired much celebrity: the springs enumerated are at Barton; Bedford, (near the Friars); Cupwell, at Bletsoe (near the Falcon); Poplar Well, at Blunham (near Barford bridge; Bromham (near Web's-Lane); Bushmead; Clapham; Cranfield; Hulcot; Milton Ernest; two at Odell; Chadwell at Pertenhall; a well called Ochres, at Resely; Selsoe (at a farm called New Inn); Turvey in Dovehouse Close; and the spring which supplies the cold bath in Wrest Gardens.

The Fuller's Earth Pits, in the vicinity of Wobourn, have been in general described as being in this county, but this is a mistake; they being certainly in Buckinghamshire, in the parish of Wavendon or Wandon, as it is commonly called. They are two miles north of Woburn, and about one furlong on the western side of the Northampton road.

The more ancient pit, it is true, is in the county

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