Durham is more distinguished for its grazing than its arable husbandry. The produce of wheat upon good land cannot be estimated higher than between twenty and thirty bushels per acre. As barley- is sel dom grown, except upon soils Brest kindly, the pro duce of it is larger, viz. from thirty to forty bushels. Oats are grown Oh a great variety of soils ; and as they also form the principal grain-produce of the western or moory part of the county, the average return per acre varies very much ; probably it may be estimated at from twenty to forty bushels. Of beans, from fourteen to twenty bushels. Pease seldom succeed, and their produce cannot be rated higher than from eight to twelve bushels per acre. The produce of the hay-lands is not great ; sonic indeed yield two tons of hav per acre, but in general the produce is below half a ton. The wood lands are not of any considerable extent ; and though the soil in many parts is peat ra: ly adapted to the oak, this tree is seldom met with. The ash is much more com mon. The banks of sonic of the rivers, however, arc adorned with timber. As the materials for making roads are good and abundant, the roads in this county arc in general excellent, except in the western parts, where the township roads are narrow and ill-constructed.
Tees water has long been famous for its breed of cattle : They are of the short horned kind. The first attempt to improve them, was by introducing a bull from lloBand ; but this did not succeed. Mr Bakewell's mode was then followed, and, by judicious selection and crossing, they have been brought to a high state of per fection. Many of them have been remarkable for fat and pent weight. The celebrated Durham ox was bred by Mr Charles Collins of Kellon, in the year• 1796. His form in every respect was nearly perfect ; and as he shelv ed an early disposition to take on fat, great attention was paid to him. At five years old he was deemed so sur prising an animal, that he was purchased to be exhibited as a show for 140/., and soon afterwards 20001. were offered for him. 1Ie was killed in 1807; and, notwith standing his being carried so much about for exhibition, yet he weighed upwards of 186 stone, 14 lb. to the stone. The lower parts of this county were formerly remarka ble for their large breed of sheep : They were, indeed, the largest in the kingdom, many of them weighing from 50 11). to GO lb. the quarter. Some of them were nearly the height of a Shetland pone•. But these sheep fell out of repute, when the Tees water farmers (who arc the principal and most intelligent graziers in the county) turned their attention to Mr Bakewell's breed, which is now the prevailing and favourite one in this part of the county. Besides these, however, there are heath sheep, which arc distinguished by their black and mottled faces, black legs, and coarse wool. They arc mostly found in the western district, on the borders of the moors. Their wool is long and coarse; the average weight of it about 4 lb. In the south-east part of Durham, as well as in the opposite district of Yorkshire, a breed of hor ses has long been famous, known by the name of Cleve land bays. They are supposed to be the original stock, front which the old English coach horse, stronger hun ters, and road horses sprung. They are remarkably good draught horses. Their form is very compact ; their legs short and sinewy ; and they arc remarkably strong and active, frequently going sixty or seventy miles for coals or lime in twenty-four hours.
The botany of Durham affords several rare and beau tiful plants, among which the barnet rose and thc gen liana yenta may be particularly enumerated. They arc both met with in the neighbourhood of Winch Bridge. The latter, till it was discovered here, was not known to exist in Great Britain. But this county is more interest ing to the mineralogist than to the botanist, as its mines arc very 1mmerous and valuable.
The mineralogical districts arc pretty well distin guished. In entering the county from the west, we im mediately meet with the lead district, which stretches the whole breadth of it in this part, and extends to the cast, as far as a line drawn from Allaresford nearly to Barnard Castle. When we pass this line, we enter on the coal district, which is more irregular in its form. Interposed between it and the sea, at least from Morn ington a little to the north of Whitburn, is the principal limestone district. There arc also other limestone dis tricts. On entering the county from the south, at Pierce bridge, we meet with it. Another lies farther north, on the ridge extending from Houghton to Aykley. Lime stone is also found in the lead mine district.
The coal district occupies a space of twenty-two miles in length, and eleven and a half in breadth, and contains about 160,000 acres. The collieries are divided into " water sale" and " land sale:" the former occupy about one-third, the latter two-thirds of the district. As, how ever, there are several parts in which no coal is found, or at least where it is either thrown out by dikes, or lies so low as not to be workable, the actual district of work able coals cannot be estimated to occupy more than 100,000 acres. The strata are very various in thickness, and in the quality of the coal. The land sale collieries lie in the south and western parts of the district, the water sale the northern parts. It is calculated, that in the water sale collieries 1,333,000 chaldrons are wrought annually, which employ 7011 men; and that in the land sale collieries 147,080 chaldrons are wrought, which employ 382. The kreelmen employed on the two
rivers of Tyne and the Wear are 3257; so that the total number of chaldrons are 1,480,080, and the number of men employed is 10,650. It is calculated, that if the seamen who navigate the colliers which sail from Sun derland are taken into the account, the number of risen employed in the coal trade on the river Wear arc 15,000; and their families being computed at 11,000, there will thus be 26,000 persons supported by the coal works. As each chaldron of coals weighs 28 cwt. and a cubic yard of coal weighs a ton, there are 1,866,2C0 cubic yards wrought yearly for exportation, which occupy 112 acres. The average thickness of the workable seams is about five yards. The strata seldom lie horizontally, but ge nerally at a small angle; and whatever the angle of in clination in one seam may be, let there be ever so many, they have all the same inclination. The fall dip is gene rally in a south-westerly direction. The dikes are divided into up-cast dikes and down-cast dikes, as the strata are cast up or down. The gut of the dikes is mostly filled with clay. The most remarkable dike is the whinstone dike, upon Cockfield Fell : it runs nearly in a south easterly direction : it is a " down-cast" to the north, of three fathoms. The breadth is seventeen yards, which is occupied by whinstone, that appears to have been in a state of fusion when it filled up the fracture. This is inferred from the appearance and nature of the coal, to the distance of some feet on each side of it, which is turned into a sooty substance, and becomes cinder as the distance from the whinstone increases. By degrees, how ever, it assumes the natural appearance of coal, and possesses all its properties. This takes place completely at about fifty yards from the whinstone. Considerable quantities of ore of sulphur, of a beautiful bright yellow colour, and of an angular form, is found on the under surface of the stratum, lying on that part of the seam which is converted into cinder. The cinder burns clear, without smoke, and affords a durable heat. In a dike somewhat similar to this, near Durham, some small quantities of lead ore have been found. The coals are brought out of the pits on machines drawn by steam ; and from the pits to the water on waggons, which run on iron railways. It may not he improper here to notice an ingenious contrivance by the late Mr George Dixon of Cockfield, in this county, for conveying coals, or other bodies of nearly the same specific gravity, by water, without boats: "The specific gravity of coals not being much greater than water, he calculated the declivity ne cessary to give water a sufficient force to overcome the excess of weight that an equal bulk of coals had over an equal bulk of water, and had a cut made upon Cockfield Fell, about four feet wide at top, and three feet deep, with such an inclination as to give the water the necessary velocity. When a cart load of coals was put into it, they swam, or were carried gently by the water into a reser voir, or standing pool, at the lower end, and deposited in proper vessels, to be drawn out as they were filled." Lead appears to have been wrought in this county at a very early period. In the neighbourhood of Eggleston, in Teesdale, there are lead mines which have been wrought from the time of Edward VI. Various ancient workings have also been traced here, which, by the dif ferent implements found in them, are supposed to have been wrought by the Romans. The lead mines, as has been already noticed, lie principally in Teesdale and Weardale. The ore is mostly found in veins. Where the adjoining strata consist of limestone, the ore gene rally produces a considerable quantity of metal ; but where the adjoining strata are freestone, indurated ar gillaceous earth, which are called here " plate beds," there is little metal in proportion to the ore. Of the different strata of limestone, that which is called " the great limestone," and which is seventy feet thick, has probably produced more ore than all the other strata together. There are generally about eighty-six lead mines wrought in this county : Of which, in 1809, four were in Derwent ; twenty in Weardale on the north side of the river ; fourteen on the south side of the river; and forty-eight in Teesdale. The rent paid to the proprie tors is generally one-fifth of the ore. The number of people employed has not been accurately ascertained. Their earnings are about 401. a-year on an average, each man. Thirty-two cwt. of clean ore generally produces 20 cwt. of lead. The proportion of silver varies much ; on the average, 22 ounces are produced from each fother (22 cwt.) in Teesdale. If a ton will not yield 8 ounces, it is not worth refining. In Derwent there are four small mills, in Weardale three, and in Teesdale five. In the parish of Middleton, which extends nearly twenty miles from west to east, and between two and three from north to south, nearly the whole of the northern half is one se ries of lead mines. As the district is very mountainous, the mode of clearing them of water, called hushing, is frequently practised. These frequently raise and discolour the water of the Tees, destroying its fish in great quantities.