Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/601

CHESHIKE 589 since 1851 the increase has amounted to 105,476 persons, or 23 per cent, in twenty years. The formation of the county is generally flat, with some hills on the east on the Derbyshire and Yorkshire boundary, which extend also to the Staffordshire side. There are also lower hills near Chester and Flintshire, and at Alderley Edge and Beeston insulated hills standing up out of the prevailing level. The principal geological formation is the New Red Sandstone, which occupies nearly the whole of the central and western part of the county. A small patch of lias occurs in the south. The Coal Measures extend along the eastern side on the borders of Staffordshire and Derby shire, and also are worked on the banks of the Dee below Chester. The principal mineral produce is salt, which is found as rock-salt in mines at Northwich, and is manu factured there and at Winsford, Middle wich, Sandbach, and Lawton, from the brine-springs overlying the rock- salt. Lead and copper are also found, though not in great quantities. Copper was worked at Alderley Edge at an early period, but the works were discontinued until lately, when they have been recommenced. The flora of the central plain of Cheshire, which repre sents its most characteristic vegetation, is intermediate between that of the northern and southern counties of Britain. The botany of the high-lands east of Macclesfield is nearly ericetal in its nature, akin to that of the West Riding of Yorkshire, whilst in the west the botany of Wirral shows more variety than that of the Midland region, and is more southern in its character. The curious system of marl-pits, and the frequent inland meres., each of which has a vegetation of its own, render Mid Cheshire pre-eminent among English counties for the development of such species as Carex and Potamogeton. Two rare species may be cited to prove the strong admixture of northern elements in the flora, viz., Arundo stricta at Oakmere and Saxifraga Hirculus, now unfortunately extinct, at Knutsford. As compared with one near or south of London, a Cheshire arable field shows a lamentable paucity of species. A botanist would only in a day s walk mark 150 species of flowering plants, as against 300 species marked in the same time in Kent or Sussex. The principal rivers in Cheshire are the Dee, which, rising in the Welsh mountains, forms the boundary between the county and Denbighshire and Flintshire, and ultimately, having formed a wide navigable estuary below Chester, falls into the Irish Sea ; the Mersey, which rises in the Yorkshire hills, forms the county boundary along the whole of its northern side, and having given the opportunity for the formation of the ports of Liverpool, Birkenhead, and Runcorn, also fall into the Irish Sea ; and the Weaver, which, rising in the south-west of the county, traverses it in a north-westerly course, and being joined by the Dane at Northwich, empties itself into the Mersey at West on Point. By means of a series of locks, the Weaver has been made navigable for vessels of 200 tons as far as Winsford, and thus furnishes a means of transporta tion for the salt produced in the locality, The profits of the navigation, which was originally undertaken by a few Cheshire squires, belong to the county, and are paid over annually to the relief of the county rates. At present, in consequence of a large outlay in further deepening and improving the navigation, all payments to the county treasury are suspended, but on an average of late years from 16,000 to 20,000 has been paid over. Distributed over the surface of the county are small lakes or meres, and it seems to have been a point of honour for the old houses of the gentry to have been built on their banks. Combermere, Tatton, Rostherne, Tabley, Dodding- ton, Marbury, and Mere, with a host of smaller waters, are dotted over the county : whilst nearly in every field are old marl-pits, whence in former days the sole supply of manure for the permanent pastures was obtained. The climate is temperate and damp ; the soil is varied and irregular, but a large proportion of it is a thin-skinned clay. In only one spot of the county is the soil said to be fertile enough to feed a bullock to the acre. The agriculture of the county, which some twenty-five years ago was back ward and discreditable, has marvellously improved in the last quarter of the century. The land, which was wet and full of rushes, has been drained ; its fertility has been increased by the periodical application of bone-dust ; the old crooked fences have been removed or straightened ; and the farm-houses and buildings, which were insufficient for the decent accommodation of man and beast, have been replaced on many estates by modern structures well adapted for their purposes. Dairy-farming is the description of agriculture still principally pursued, and in March 1875 there were, according to the Board of Trade returns, 96,170 cows in the county, whose milk if all converted into cheese would have yielded a produce of about 16,000 tons of cheese. But though the tendency to make cheese in some parts of the county still prevails, the influence of the larger population gathered together round the purely agricultural part of the county has greatly diminished the production of the staple article, whilst the competition of American cheese- has made the manufacture of all but the best qualities unpro fitable. Liverpool, Manchester, Stockport, Macclesfield, the cotton districts in the north-east of the county, and the Staf fordshire Potteries on the south-west, all demand a supply of milk, meat, and garden produce, and the facilities of transit afforded by the railways have in many cases already changed, and gradually in many more will change, the character of Cheshire agriculture. Although in some cases the Cheshire tenant-farmer is little more than a labourer owning cows, working as hard as his own labourers, and with as little or less education, yet there are now a large number of farms as well and skilfully cultivated and producing as large produce to the acre (thanks to the facilities of obtaining manure from the larger towns) as any in the United Kingdom. During the years 1865 and 1866 a mighty calamity swept over this county. The cattle plague, which had in 1745 destroyed 30,000 head of cattle, appeared in the second week of October 1865 on the southern border of the county. Spreading itself there, and breaking out almost simultaneously on the north-west, west, and east, it had by the 21st February 1866 destroyed 36,823 head of stock. On that day an Act of Parliament was passed to authorize slaughter and to give compensation, and in consequence 35,675 cattle were killed. A loan was granted from the Treasury, on the security of the county rate, of 270,000 to pay the compensation for losses after the 22d February, which entails an annual charge on the county rates of 14,583, 14s. lOd. until the year 1896. Although by this terrible loss many individuals were ruined, and for the time great distress was caused, yet on the whole the agri culture of the district was benefited. Landlords discovered that stringent clauses in their leases might safely be mo dified ; tenant-farmers became convinced that cheesemaking was not the whole duty of the agriculturist, and the possi bility and even the necessity of new ways of farming, and of the introduction of sheep or feeding-stock, became ap parent. From the agricultural returns for 1875 (which, however, are not complete) it appears that the average acreage de voted in Cheshire to corn crops is exceptionally low, being 16 "2, while the average of all England is 31 2. The follow ing table shows the distribution of the acreage in the county, and the numbers of live stock in the years 1872

and 1875 :