wood must have been exactly similar to those which are common with us on heavy land to-day.

Here, regretting that space will not allow me to quote from him more largely, I must bid farewell to Mr. Vancouver. Greatly do I wonder what changes another hundred and seven years have in store for the agriculture of Essex and of England, and greatly do I hope that when, my determined days fulfilled and my labours finished, I too have become an inhabitant of that immense Silence which has swallowed him, his generation, and all its works, my eyes and ears may still be open so that I may see and know these-and many other things.

Of the actual conditions of the rural interests in Essex as I found them, the reader must judge from the foregoing pages, which, I believe-although of course they are but a summary-give a sufficient and accurate view of the facts. For my part I cannot speak of them very hopefully. Essex is in the main, and I think must continue to be, a corngrowing country. It would seem, therefore, that until the price of that staple is increased, prosperity can scarcely return to those who own and cultivate her soil.

The average weekly wage of ordinary labourers
is augmented by piece-work, hay, and harvest.
Sometimes potato ground is given; beer allow
ance is valued at £3 per annuin.

Total area, 404.518 acres, of which 24.500 are
woodlands. Total cultivated area, 331.431 acres,
of which 120,830 are permanent pasture. Wheat
is more largely grown than other cereals, the area
being, for 1901, 47.542 arces. There were 13,000
acres of bare fallow also in that year. In 1899 the
acreage of wheat grown was 54.755 acres.

The London Geographical Institute

Longmans Green & Co. London New York & Bombay

509

HERTFORDSHIRE AND MIDDLESEX

THE inland south-eastern county of Hertfordshire, which I visited after Essex, is one of the smallest in England, having an area of about 406,100 acres only and an extreme length from north-east to south-west of thirty-nine miles, with an extreme breadth of twenty-six miles.

Although so near to London it is almost purely agricultural in character. In addition to the ordinary cereal crops, potatoes, hay, vegetables, and fruit are grown in quantity for the markets of the metropolis, whither go also the bulk of its cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry. On account of its situation it is a favourite place of residence for those whose occupations take them frequently to town; also here there are many landowners whose families have been established in the county for generations. It is well watered by numerous streams, for the most part tributaries of the Thames; but one of the great complaints of the residents is of the way in which the subsoil is being drained of its water by the great London companies, who pump it out of deep wells and from every other available source. For this damage, which threatens to injure the county materially, there seems to be no remedy at law. It appears that if a man buys half an acre of land, he has a right to sink in it wells of any depth he pleases, even if by doing so he renders all those of his neighbours useless, and impairs the value and utility of a large surrounding area.

After the examination of various districts in Hertfordshire, were I asked what struck me most in that county I think that I should answer, the submergence of the Hertfordshire

farmer. 'But where are the home people?' I inquired after visiting a long succession of Scotch and Cornish agriculturists. 'You must look for them in the backwoods,' was the reply. By backwoods' I may explain was meant those districts which are a long way from the railway line or station, and therefore least desirable for the purposes of agriculture as it is practised in this county. In Herts, and in Essex also for that matter, this occupation of the best of the country by outlander farmers is a subject which not unnaturally excites a good deal of feeling. Therefore I touch on it with diffidence, and solely for the reason that to attempt to treat of the agriculture of the county without doing so would be misleading and even absurd. Of course some of the old local men still remain, some prosper even, but on the whole victory is to the Scotch and Cornish. Theirs are the best and the best worked farms, although in this respect there are Cornishmen and Cornishmen; theirs without a doubt is the largest share of prosperity.

In Hertfordshire, I think, almost for the first time in the course of all my journeying, except in the case of those who practise some special industry, when I have put to farmers the question of how their business did, I have in various instances received the reply: 'Well, sir, I have no reason to complain '-which, coming from the lips of an agriculturist, means a very great deal. As I do not wish to be invidious I will not attempt to write of the fundamental causes of the success of the strangers, even if I could be sure of them. Indeed, it is not necessary to travel further than their system of farming. The newcomers have thrown over the old shibboleths. The Scotchman introduced potato growing, which he has brought to a fine art, and practises in conjunction with dairying, the cows consuming all the unmarketable tubers, that are pulped and fed to them like roots. Also he imports from London vast quantities of manure purchased from the collecting merchants, with which he doses his potato lands, giving them as much as thirty loads to the acre or even more. Further he makes use of all the newest and