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These several feedings are generally made before eight o'clock in the morning, at which time the cows are released from their stalls, and turned out into the cow-yard. About twelve o'clock, they are again confined to their different stalls, and served with the same quantity of grains as they had in the morning. About half past one o'clock in the afternoon the milking commences in the manner as before described, and continues till near three, when the cows are again served with the same quantity of turnips, and, about an hour afterwards, with the same distribution of hay as before described.

"This mode of feeding generally continues during the turnip season, which is from the month of October to the month of May. During the other months in the year they are fed with rowing, or second-cut meadow hay and grains, and are continued to be fed and milked with the same regularity as above described, until they are turned out to grass, when they continue in the field all night, and even during this season they are frequently fed with grains, which are kept sweet and eatable for a considerable length of time by being buried under ground in pits made for the purpose. There are about ten bulls to a stock of 300 cows. calves are generally sent to Smithfield market at a week old. "Good milkers are kept four, five, six, and sometimes seven, years; they are fatted by an encreased allowance of the same food as is given to them while in milk, and sold off."

The

The Produce of Cows, and the Profits of Retailers.-The following calculations are grounded on eight quarts of milk, a day, by each cow, "taken on an average the year

round."

P. 84. "The account, therefore, of eight quarts of milk a day, will stand thus, supposing the milk of every cow to be sold to the milk-men, which is not the case:

"Each cow, on an average, eight quarts a day, £. s. d. for 365 days, 2,920 quarts, at 1d. a quart

comes to

...

21 5 10

8,500 cows, at 21l. 5s. 10d. per ann. each cow, or 24,820,000 quarts, at 14d. a quart, comes to 180,9791. 3s. 4d. per ann.

"The consumers, however, as before observed, pay 3d. a quart to the retailers, which, on 24,820,000 quarts, amounts to the sum of 310, 250l. and makes a difference of 129,270% 16s. 8d. in favour of the retailers.

* The price of milk, to retailers, at the time of reporting.

"But

"But, when the families leave London, the cow-keepers do not find a ready sale for all their milk; and in this case they generally set the unsold milk for cream, of which they make fresh-butter for the London markets, and give their butter-milk to the hogs."

P. 85. "The facts and observations above stated have been collected personally by myself, from those whose engagements in, or connection with the business of cowkeeping enables them to judge with accuracy and discrimination on this subject.'

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Calves.-P. 90. "The calves from the large cows do not so soon get fat, as they grow too fast, are coarser in the grain of their flesh, and not so white. To make them better, the cow-keepers have their cows served by a bull of the longhorned breed. Those that get their calves white and bright in the fat and flesh are very valuable."

Another and well judged motive, for employing longhorned bulls, is that of lessening the risk, in calving.

Suckling Calves, in Middlesex.-P. 67. "The practice of suckling calves prevails mostly in the western part of the county."

SHEEP-Breed.-P. 60. "The county of Middlesex is not famous for the breed of sheep. Hounslow Heath, and its adjoining pastures, are the only places where flocks of sheep are kept, and this seems more for the sake of folding their lands than from the hope of sending a superior kind of mutton to market.

"The farmers buy them at the fairs at Burford, Wilton, Weyhill, and other fairs in Wiltshire and Hampshire. The flocks differ in their individual numbers in proportion to the right of common which the respective proprietors possess.

"The sheep in the parish of Harmondsworth amount, I believe, to nearly 2000, and from the best accounts I could collect about 6000 are fed on Hounslow Heath. The sheep are generally sold off between fair and fair; some few however are fatted. The hay farmers also, particularly in the neighbourhood of Hendon and Barnet, devote their aftergrass to the agistment of sheep and other cattle, which they take in at so much a score or head."

House Lamb.-The Reporter offers an account of "the method of breeding house lamb in the County of Middlesex." But it is not sufficiently full to serve as a guide to the inexperienced, nor sufficiently accurate, I think, to be inserted in this register.

VIEW

OF THE

AGRICULTURE

OF

MIDDLESE X;

WITH

OBSERVATIONS ON THE MEANS OF ITS IMPROVEMENT,

AND

SEVERAL ESSAYS ON AGRICULTURE IN GENERAL.

DRAWN UP FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF

THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE,

BY JOHN MIDDLETON, Esq.

OF WEST-BARNS FARM, MERTON, AND OF LAMBETH, SURREY, LAND SURVEYOR;

Member of the London Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactors, and Commerce, and Corresponding Member of the Board of Agriculture.

ACCOMPANIED BY THE

REMARKS OF SEVERAL RESPECTABLE GENTLEMEN

THIS

AND FARMERS.

1798."

HIS is one of the earliest of the "reprinted" Reports of the Board.

The QUALIFICATIONS of its author as a rural Reporter, is declared in the title page, only. It does not evidently appear, in his work, that Mr. Middleton possessed, at the time of writing it, a maturity of knowledge in practical agriculture. Nevertheless, throughout his extended volume, there is abundant evidence to show that Mr. M. naturally possesses a considerable compass of mind, amply stored,-by reading, as well as by professional observations on the practices of other men,-with general ideas on rural subjects.

Mr. Middleton's mode of cOLLECTING the MATERIALS which his volume contains, concerning the established practices of the County of Middlesex, is not explained.

We

We perceive no evident traces of a regular SURVEY of the County, with a view toward the requisite groundwork of Report. The fresh matter, relating to its practices, might be deemed inconsiderable. And the quotations from the former reports are neither numerous, nor important (saving such as appear in the preceding article); nor do the marginal notes, made on those reports, convey much practical information.

Viewing the Work in the mass, it appears as a didactic essay, dissertation, or treatise;-a lecture on the Natural, Political, and Rural Economy of the island at large. Not only are its propositions frequently enforced by prompt assertions, but some considerable part of them is marked by Italic types; even to the length of long paragraphs.

This, however, is merely a matter of taste, and cannot lower, in the mind of a considerate reader, the many ingenious suggestions that are discernible in the book. It would, nevertheless, be unpardonable, in a censor, not to apprize the unpractised student, that the work is not free from misconceptions, and hazardous dictations :-a caution, this, which is the more requisite, as the forcible language, and impressive tone, in which they are generally conveyed, are such as may be capable of leading, not only students, but novitial practitioners, into error.

Having already refuted, in the course of my present undertaking, many or most of the ill grounded doctrines which the volume before me contains, I will here bring forward such particulars, only, as relate to the County which is now under view;-with, however, such new or important observations of the author, as I may think will enrich this concentration of useful knowledge.

The number of pages-five hundred and ninetyseven; including a copious index.

A map of the County (the same as that prefixed to Mr. Foot's sketch). No other engraving.

SUBJECT THE FIRST.

NATURAL ECONOMY.

EXTENT

XTENT.-Mr. Middleton estimates, in p. 2, the extent of the County of Middlesex, at "280 square miles, or 179,200 acres." Hence, it ranks among the smallest of the English Counties.

SURFACE.-P. 22. "This county, from its gentle waving surface, is particularly suited to the general purposes of

agriculture:

agriculture: it being sufficiently sloping, to secure a proper drainage, and at the same time without those abrupt elevations which in some places so much increase the labour and expence of tillage; and from its being entirely free from large stones, those powerful enemies to the free operations of the plough."

P. 23. "All the land to the south of the road passing from Brentford through Hounslow to Longford, is so nearly level, as to have no more than a proper drainage, and much the greater part of it is less than ten feet above the surface of the river Thames at Staines-bridge, and not more than from three to five feet above the level of the rivulets flowing through this district.

"From Staines, through Ashford and Hanworth commons, to Twickenham, a distance of seven miles and an half, is a perfect level, and generally of from ten to twenty feet above the surface of the river Thames."

CLIMATURE.-P. 14. "The temperature of the atmosphere, except perhaps so far as the influence of the London fires extend, is nearly the same through the whole county, there being no situation so much elevated as to produce the cold and thin air that we find in mountainous countries."

WATERS.-The section, " Water," of this report, is rather uninteresting. The rivers named in it are the Thames, the Lea, the Brent and the Coln; and to those are added the "New River" (Sir Hugh Middleton's Aqueduct) and the "Serpentine River" (a fish pool in Hyde Park): also several brooks. and rivulets. I find nothing in the section that requires transcription. The navigation of the Thames and the Lea is spoken of in another section," Rivers and Canals.".

SOILS-On this important subject of a provincial report, Mr. Middleton speaks with satisfactory intelligence, and becoming diffidence.

P. 16. "The following observations are offered in a very general way. To delineate the variety of soils, so as accurately to draw the lines between them, would require much more time, even supposing it possible to investigate every part of the county, than can be expected in a work of this kind.

"A surface of perfect sand, clean gravel, or pure clay, is not now perhaps to be found in any part of the county. The top soil has every where been ameliorated or changed by the operation of the elements, by manure and cultivation; these powerful agents have made the surface of all the lands in this county assume, more or less, the appearance of loam.

"Sand and Gravel.-Hampstead-hill consists of eight or ten feet of yellow iron-stained sand, with some loam and

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