by gentler undulations, which present a breadth of very useful arable land. This district is thus described by Sir Henry Chauncy in the ‘Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire’ (1700). He says, “The Vale of Ringtale, or Wringtale, which lies north of the great ledge of hills crossing the northern part of this county (extending from Backway to Offley), where the soil is mixed with white marl, yields the choicest wheat and barley, such as makes the best mault that serves the King’s Court or the City of London, which caused Queen Elizabeth often to boast of her Hitchin grape.”
It has been noticed that this county comprehends within its boundary a small tract of land to the north of the villages of Ashwell and Caldicot, on the outcrop of the trace of the green-sand and of the gault clay which underlies the lower chalk. It is all more or less covered by the drift of the chalk, though in some places the sheer gault lies very near the surface. Though its general features and management resemble those of the tract to the south just described, which rests on the lower chalk, there is this notable difference—that, as it rests on a clay subsoil, it requires thorough drainage. It was here that Mr. Bailey Denton carried out that mixed system of drainage of which there is so full and valuable a record in this Journal under the head of the Hinxworth Drainage.
Irrigation, Mills, and Meadows.
Although the streams which issue from the deep valleys by which the surface of the chalk is furrowed afford to this county abundant supplies of water, agriculturally they have not been turned to much account.
Near Rickmansworth, on the Chess, on the Bean, and at the Hoo, water-meadows indeed may be seen; but frequently the ancient weirs have been superseded by mills, the old water-rights having been either bought up by the millowner or lost by desuetude. The corn-mills themselves have often been diverted to the manufacture of paper, for which purpose machinery was first set up by M. Foudriener, its inventor, on the river Gade.
The Gade, as its traverses this county, has a uniform fall of 14 feet per mile, which offers great natural facilities for irrigation, as well as water-power.
Drainage of Low Meadows.
Perhaps there is nothing in the whole county which more obviously calls for improvement than the so-called water-meadows, or rather marshy swamps, which line the banks of some of the rivers. This is more striking in districts where there is little
