MARKETS. P. 134. "Hay and straw are carried to London from Bygrave, two miles beyond Baldock,” (37 m.)“ and ashes, soot, and sheep's trotters brought back: this is a vast exertion. The carriage is hired at Stevenage" (31 m.) "at 258. for a load of hay, and 128. for a load of straw."

SUBJECT THE THIRD.

RURAL ECONOMY.

ESTATES

TENANTED ESTATES.

STATES.-P. 18. "Property in Hertfordshire is much divided the vicinity of the capital; the goodness of the air and roads, and the beauty of the country, have much contributed to this circumstance, by making this county a favourite residence, and by attracting great numbers of wealthy persons to purchase land for building villas: this has multiplied estates in a manner unknown in the more distant counties. About 7000l. a-year is the largest estate in the county: there are six or seven from 3 to 4000l.; more of about 2000l.; and below that sum, of every value."

TENURES.-P. 19. "A large portion of the county is held by copyhold tenure, with a fine certain, or at the will of the lord; but which fine never exceeds two years rent. Such land sells here at about six years purchase under the price of freehold."

PURCHASING ESTATES.-P. 18. "Freehold estates have of late sold at 28 years purchase, when any particular circumstances have not had an influence; but much of the Watton Wood-hall estate sold at 30, and some at 31, and even at 32."

DRAINING ESTATES.-P. 154. "The importance of hollow-drains is no where better understood than at Sawbridgeworth and its vicinity, upon clay and strong loam. They vary the distance from five to ten yards, and fill the drains with bushes, or with straw; Mr. Parris uses long pea-straw in preference, and has tried the twisting it into a rope, which answers perfectly. The expense in labour amounts to 2d. a rod. The effect is so great, that the improvement of the first crop has often paid all the expense."

SODBURNING.-P. 155. I had little expectation relative

to

to this practice in Hertfordshire; and in the few cases I found, it was quite of modern introduction."

IRRIGATION.-P. 178. "The county affords great opportunities for this important work; but it abounds also with so many mills, as to impede it greatly."

Some instances of practice are noticed. But owing to the Reporter's deficiency in knowledge (practical and theoretical) concerning that subject, the information is unavailing.

RENT.-Some entries of the rate of rent, in different parts of the County, are given. But the time or times of collecting the information not being to be found, nor the qualities of the lands sufficiently explained, no comparison can be properly made between the rental values of lands, in Hertfordshire, and those of other districts. The following is the Reporter's retrospective, and apparently well considered, remarks, on the memoranda inserted.

P. 29. "From these notes, which apply to every part of the county, it is clear, that the estimate of 15s. subject to tithe, for the general average of rent, is nearly the truth. Probably, the whole surface of the county included, the rent is little less.

"In point of rent, therefore, it classes high amongst the English counties; much higher than the mere soil would permit, unconnected with the advantages of situation. London is a market for hay and straw to every part of the county; and manures are thence brought to every part, which, with good roads, and a general attention to the draining of most of the wet lands, and to improvements by chalking, have so ameliorated the soil, as to enable the farmer to pay perhaps 4s. per acre more rent on an average of the whole, than he would be able to do under a less favourable management."

WOODLANDS.

WOODS.-P. 146. " Much of the timber in Moor

park is of great antiquity; and no inconsiderable portion of it is in a state of decay."

P. 147

* MOORE PARK was once a show place of high renown. It was laid out, in the line-and-rule manner, by the celebrated COUNTESS of BEDFORD; probably, in the beginning of the 17th century—about 200 years ago. It was extolled by Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, and laughed at by HORACE WALPOLE,

P. 147. "I have rarely seen finer trees than at Sir John Sebright's at Beachwood: it has the name in strict propriety, for the number of stately beeches is great; but the soil agrees with all sorts of trees: the cedars are immense; the oak very large; the ash straight and beautiful; the larch, spruce, and Scotch fir equally fine, but the beech uncommon."

COPPICES.-P. 145. "The woods in the country between Hockerill, Ware, and Buntingford, are rented generally at about 128. an acre, and cut at twelve years growth, when the produce is about 91. an acre."

"Mr Rook, of Hertford, has hollow-drained many acres, and found it a very capital improvement."

"At Beachwood, the best underwood in Sir John Sebright's copses is black sallow, superior to all the rest; of this hurdles are made: hazel and ash are in the next estimation. When black sallow abounds, an acre at 12 years growth is worth 15l. paying better than the adjoining arable land, without including the timber that is taken; but this is particularly valuable. Wherever Sir John cuts down a timber tree in a copse, he plants a black sallow set, not a cutting, as that will not grow; the sallow takes well, and thickens the wood consequently with the most valuable of the copse tribe."

AGRICULTURE.

FARMS.-P.

ARMS.-P. 23. "These are, in general, small in Hertfordshire. Not one in the county exceeds 1000 acres, and 500 form a large one; perhaps the size most common is from 150 to 400; but there are many much smaller;"—as there ever ought to be.

"Throughout the triangle of country formed by Hockerill, Ware, and Buntingford, and where the soil is generally strong, the farms are moderate; one of 400 acres is a large one; and many are very small. At the Hadhams they are even as low rented as from 20 to 30l. a-year, and the farmers are worse off than day-labourers. This part is entirely arable."

P. 24. "At Albury, which is a large parish, farms rise from 100 to 500 acres; in general, from 100 to 400; nor are there so many small ones of 30, 40, or 50 acres, as are common elsewhere."

From these and a few other notices adduced, the farms of Hertfordshire appear to be well varied, in size, to suit

the

the capitals of the several orders of occupiers which the profession requires.

FARM FENCES.-P. 49. "Hertfordshire may be considered as the county where the plashing system is carried on to the greatest extent it has been universally practised here from time immemorial. Scarcely can any county be worse. situated for coals; and the copses are not more extensive than common. These causes may have induced the farmers to fill the old hedges every where with oak, ash, sallow, and with all sorts of plants more generally calculated for fuel than fences, and which would form no kind of fence under any management but their own."

These conjectures appear, to me, to be instably grounded. The rough hedges of Hertfordshire, and of every other district that has been inclosed from the woodland state, have not, I conceive, been wholely formed by art;-are not old hedges that have been filled up with oak, ash, &c. by the farmers; but the natural hedges-the aboriginal fences themselves.

While wood continued to be the fuel of the Metropolis, Hertfordshire, with its other environs for several miles' round, was necessarily kept, in great part, in a state of woodland. But, when coals became the prevailing fuel, the principal part of those woods were, in consequence, cleared for cultivation; they having become unprofitable as a source of fuel. In the act of clearing,-lines of native coppice wood were very judiciously left; not only as fences between inclosures, but as a supply of fuel, for the occupiers of the lands and their country neighbours.

Under these circumstances, it is more than probable, I conceive, that the art of " Plashing," like many other arts, was an invention of necessity. For it would be difficult, even in close thick set coppice woods, to find entire lines of natural wood, sufficient to form fences, against every species of stock, without the helping hand of the husbandman,-to "lay" the taller sappling shoots across the vacancies and thinner parts.

This being as it may, the art of laying live hedgewood, of rough uneven fences, is well understood in Hertfordshire: a fact, this, of which the Secretary was so fully aware that he has entered upon a didactic discourse concerning the Hertfordshire practice; and accompanied it with seven explanatory engravings. One of the first instances, this, in which I have recognized the Secretary of the Board in the character of a preceptor.

STATE OF HUSBANDRY. (Chapter, "Arable Lands.")-P. 55. "We are here come to the great object of the Hertfordshire husbandry. By far the greatest part of the

county

county is under tillage, for which the county was singularly famous perhaps before the improvements in Norfolk were began; and it may not be improper to observe, before I enter on the particulars to be detailed here, that there are two opinions relative to the progress of husbandry in this county. Thirty years ago, when I resided in it, I often heard the Duke of Leeds remark, that the Hertfordshire farmers, through the period of his recollection (and he was an old man), had stood still, at least; perhaps had declined in the merit of their agriculture; and this appears from the writings of Ellis, who lived in this county, and whose books were published from 60 to 75 years since. There are at. present scarcely any practices to be be met with in the county, that were not well understood at that period.

"Mr. Rooper, of Berkhamsted, informs me, that turnips and clover are supposed to have been introduced into this county in the time of Oliver Cromwell, who gave 1001. a year on that account to a farmer of the name of Howe. It appears also by old leases, that the course of crops, and the management in general, have experienced very little change in the last hundred years."

PLAN of MANAGEMENT.-In this, as in the other Reports of the Secretary to the Board, we find page after page filled with " Courses of Crops." In the present instance however, only one sheet of paper is expended upon

them.

OCCUPIERS.-P. 18. "In the more eastern counties, the farmers have been very considerable purchasers of land; a circumstance that has not happened, except in very few instances, in Hertfordshire. The farms are not large, and the expenses of agriculture are higher than common; which may account for the want. of this sign of farming wealth." WORKPEOPLE.—Wages.-By reason of the want of dates-the year or years in which the reported information was taken-this item, in the "Rural Economy"! of Hert fordshire, is rendered abortive.

At the time of writing (whensoever that happened) wages were exorbitantly raised, and farm work people rendered difficult to be procured; owing to the rage for straw bonnets, which, at that time, would seem to have been at its height; when working women were able to “earn 58 a day," and girls (one at least) "a guinea a week."-"The farmers complain of it, as doing mischief, for it makes the poor saucy, and no servants can be procured, or any field-work done, where this manufacture establishes itself."-" There is so much plaiting at Hitchin, that they will not go to service; boys are here also em. ployed in it." They were of course rendered little fit for

farm