Wellmann Imre szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 1971-1972 (Budapest, 1973)

Minchinton, Walter E.: The agricultural regions of England and Wales

during the war were compiled on a county basis as have been the Royal Agricultural Society's post-war surveys.

8 Today the Ministry of Agriculture, for administrative convenience, continues to make use of the counties as the units for the compilation of their statistical surveys. And, although the employment of the county for historical purposes has been criticised since county boundaries are to a considerable extent the result of historical events (with some deliberate modification in the last hundred years or so) and bear little relation to natural factors, this basis continues to be used by historians and agricultural economists because of its convenience. Thus, the analysis of the economy of England in the eleventh century in Professor H. C. DARBY's Domesday series is by county

9 as is the discussion of the making of the English landscape in Professor W. G. HOSKINS' series.

10 Many writers, including the authors of the Board of Agriculture county reports, were aware of the shortcomings of the county as a basis for the analysis of agricultural regions in England. An alternative form of classification which a number of them employed was to distinguish farming regions by soil types.

11 In the early seventeenth century JOHN COKER divided the county of Dorset into two main areas on this basi?. into clayland and chalkland, and in the middle of the century DUGD A LE drew a distinction between the woodland north of the Avon in Warwickshire and the open country to the south while in 1685 JOHN AUBREY pointed the contrast between the lands of chalk and cheese in Wiltshire. More than a century later in the Board of Agriculture county reports an attempt was made to describe the soil differences within the counties. Fig. 1—4. provide an illustration of the way four of the county reporters, using different classification and terminology, divided their counties (Cambridgeshire in terms of land use and soil, Lancashire largely in terms of relief and topography, Norfolk based on differences in soil texture and Wiltshire in terms of land use) into regions. Although there was no uniformity in the presentation of the material, the maps in these county reports are nevertheless of considerable importance for they represent the KGARRAD, GEORGE H. A Survey of the Agriculture of Kent. 1954. — JESSE, RICHARD H. B. A Survey of the Agriculture of Sussex. 1960. — PAWSON, HENRY C. A Survey of the Agriculture of Northumberland. 1962. — MERCER, WILFRED B. A Survey of the Agriculture of Cheshire. 1963. — GARDNER, HAROLD W. A Survey of the Agriculture of Hertfordshire. 1967. 9So far published by the Cambridge University Press: The Domesday Geography of Eastern England, ed. Henry C. Darby. 1952. — The Domesday Geography of Midland England, ed. Henry C. Darby and lan B. Terrett. 1954; The Domesday Geography of Northern England, ed. Henry C. Darby and Ian J. Maxwell. 1962. — The Domesday Geography of South-East England, ed. Henry C. Darby and Eila M. J. Campbell. 1962. — The Domesday Geography of South-West England, ed. Henry C. Darby and Rex Welldon Finn. 1967. i°So far six county volumes have been published by Hodder & Stoughton: BALCHIN, WILLIAM G. V. Cornwall. 1954. — MILLWARD, ROY. Lancashire. 1955. — FINBERG, HERBERT P. R. Gloucestershire. 1955. — HOSKINS, WILLIAM G. Leicestershire. 1957. — TAYLOR, CHRISTOPHER. Dorset. 1970. — RAISTRICK. ARTHUR. The West Riding of Yorkshire. 1970. J1

For a fuller account of regions based on soil differences, see: DARBY, HENRY C. Some Early Ideas on the Agricultural Regions of England. Agricultural History Review II: 1954. 31—37.