The greater part of Hertfordshire is a corn-bear ing country. The proportion of meadow land, or good pasture, is very small, if those parts are ex cepted which are contiguous to the numerous gen tlemen's seats with which the county abounds.
There are indeed some very rich pastures on the banks of the river Stort, which extend from Hert ford to Hockeril, on the borders of the river Lea, and near Rickmansworth, where they are watered by the Colne. The whole of the meadow land is susceptible of great improvement by irrigation ; but the vicinity to the metropolis makes the streams of wa ter so valuable to turn mills,that little of their contents can be afforded to assist agriculture. The rotation of crops on the arable lands is very various, as may be supposed where the soil is so different. The most common course is turnips, barley, clover, wheat, and oats. In the districts where the soil is of a more tenacious consistence, fellows are very generally used for a whole year, and followed by barley, clover, wheat, and peas or beans. The average quantity of wheat sown is two bushels and a half to the acre ; of barley, from three and half to four bushels ; and of oats, from four to five bushels. The average produce is, wheat, from twenty-three to twenty-five bushels, barley, thirty-two, and oats from thirty-eight to forty.
The drill husbandry is very partially introduced ; and, from the nature of the soil, does not appear very likely to make any very rapid or extensive pro gress. It is found beneficial for pulse crops, but its superiority for barley, wheat, and oats, does not ap pear to be generally recognised. The ploughs now commonly used are small, and have almost su perseded the use of the great Hertfordshire ploughs, which required four strong horses to use them with effect. In a great part of the country oxen are us ed in the plough, and frequently in the waggons,— in the latter case they are shod with light iron shoes.
The principal cause of the productiveness of this county arises from its vicinity to the metropolis, and the facility with which abundance of the substances adapted to improve the soil can be furnished, by means of the water carriage, which is extensive. On the land, below the surface, chalk is found everywhere ; this, laid on at the rate of a hundred cart loads to the acre, improves the heavy lands in a wonderful degree ; but the manures brought as back carriage by the barges from London are dif fused and applied in a very liberal manner. Soot is
spread at the rate of thirty or forty bushels to the acre ; ashes from fifty to one hundred bushels to the acre ; and ground bones from four to five chaldrons, on the same extent of land. For the pastures, burnt bones are deemed preferable, but for arable land they are merely boiled and crushed. Oil-cake, peat-ashes, hair, woollen rags, and other substances, are much employed. In addition to these, the use of the sheep-fold, and the application of farm-yard dung, are as universal as in any part of the island.
In the south-west part of the county there are many orchards of apples and of cherries ; the for mer the most considerable and the most profitable to the growers, from being less expensive to gather, and bearing carriage to London better than cherries. The cherry trees are in full bearing after being plant ed ten years, and on an average yield about six hund red pounds of cherries annually. They are usually in ferior to those of Kent, and sell for much less in the markets. Each cherry tree is usually allowed nine square perches of ground. The size of the or chards, whether for apples or cherries, is usually four or five acres.
As this is a corn country, less attention is paid to the breeds of cattle than in some others. The cows are either of the Welsh, Devon, Suffolk, or Here fordshire races ; the Suffolk breed is generally pre ferred. The sheep are mostly breeding ewes of the South Down or Wiltshire kind, the former are deem ed the most profitable. Of late, a species of sheep, from crosses between those of Leicestershire and those of the Cotswold Hills, nave been extensively and beneficially propagated. Oil-cake is very ex tensively used for feeding sheep. The horses com monly employed for agricultural purposes are of the Suffolk kind ; for their sustenance, as well as for that of sheep and cows, great tracts of land are cultivat ed with both kinds of tares and with clover.