an inland county of England, is bounded on the S. by the Thames, and, as it follows the windings of that river, is in shape very irregular. The breadth near Oxford is only 7 miles, its greatest breadth in the north is 38 miles, and the extreme length nearly 50 miles. The River Cherwell bounds it on the N., with the counties of Warwick and Northampton; Buckinghamshire is on the E.; and Gloucestershire on the W. It contains 479,267 acres.

The surface of the county is very varied, from the rich water meadows of the Thames, to the high, bare chalk hills. For a southern county, the climate is certainly cold; dense fogs often hang heavily over the Chiltern Hills and woodlands, and, according to meteorological returns, there is considerably more rain in Oxford than in London. The geological strata of the county confer upon it a directly agricultural character, being those termed the secondary series, including also a small portion of the lower bed of the tertiary. These scarcely yield any minerals; the varying constituents of the strata exhibit alternately clay and stratified rock and sand. Here there is a numberless variety of soils which are not capable of a very strict classification, and as regards the practical agriculture, we must chiefly consider superficial accumulations and alluvial deposits. The soil by the Thames is rich black mould; in the midland districts it is the decomposed stone-brash or limestone, with sand and loam; in the north there are the fertile red soils; and in the Chilterns a sandy loam laid on chalk. These are the main agricultural divisions.

Owing to this character of the county, there is no particular system of agriculture, and the same course is scarcely pursued in the same parish or on the same farm. An irregularity of cropping is unavoidable. Wheat, barley, and oats are generally cultivated; pease and beans occasionally. The turnip, both the common and the Swede, are grown to a great extent; it is also a practice to sow beans and pease mixed, chiefly on the lighter lands, and this is called ponder. Clover, trefoil, and sainfoin are grown to a great extent. On the banks of the Thames and the Cherwell the best feeding lands are found; and in some places the meadows are mown twice a year. The Thames meadows are subject to frequent and injurious inundations. There have been as many as seventeen floods in a year; 6000 acres have been under water, and three-fourths of the hay has been known to be swept away. A good system of artificial drainage is much wanted; neither are there many water-meadows, though the soil is well adapted for irrigation. It is by no means a grazing county, the stock being chiefly kept for dairy purposes. The county is celebrated for its half-breds or Down-Cotswolds, which in process of time has become a distinct breed of sheep, the management of which is brought to a high state of perfection. The use of the threshing-machine has become very common.

Great improvements have taken place in the last twenty years by the extension of inclosures. The hedging is good, the ditching very inferior; in the N.E. of the county stone walls are common. In 1853 an act was passed to disafforest the wild Wychwood Forest, and to constitute it a parish, with church, schools, &c. The woods and wastes of Wychwood lie between the Evenlode and the Windrush; quarries of stone, slate, and one of marble are found beneath its stone-brash soil; springs of water and clear rills add great beauty to the wild scenery; the glens and copses are crowded with deer and game. In Corsham Park are some ancient oaks and long avenues of stately beeches; and the antiquities connected with the forest are numerous and interesting. The farmsteadings in the county are of a very inferior description, and the farms are for the most part small. On the Blenheim estate the farming is of a first-class character. Leases are seldom given; the tenant generally holds from year to year, a system which is a fatal bar to improvement on the part of the tenantry. Under the colleges, however, families have held land from generation to generation. One-sixth of the income from land belongs to the university and other religious bodies; and the general impression seems to be that they are far from being well managed.

Oxfordshire is remarkable for its many rivers, the principal being the Evenlode, the Windrush, the Cherwell, and the Isis; the last, when it is joined by the streamlet Thame, below Dorchester, is called the Thames. The river by Oxford should rightly obtain the name; and indeed it is so styled in the earlier charters. The banks of the river are studded by various beautiful country seats; the prospect is always pleasing and sometimes beautiful, growing, however, somewhat bare and tame towards the N. and N.W. Among the different seats, the famous residence of the dukes of Marlborough stands pre-eminent; we should also mention Nuneham-Courtenay, Wroxton Priory, and Stan-ton-Harcourt. The antiquities of the county are numerous and interesting: there are several Roman and some very curious British remains; the Ikenald Street, one of the four praetorian ways, skirted the base of the Chiltern Hills. There are some ancient tumuli and encampments in the neighbourhood of Wychwood Forest; and a considerable number of Roman coins, and even some old British coins, have been discovered. In this county, too, are many marks and remains of the old warfare between the Danes and Saxons, chiefly in the way of military entrenchments and sepulchral mounds. Interesting reminiscences of the civil wars are everywhere suggested. To the geologist, Oxfordshire is a very interesting county; its beds afford some of our national geological characteristics, and abound with interesting and rare fossils.

We cannot speak highly of the accommodation provided for the peasantry; and the character of the Oxfordshire labourer for temperance and intelligence does not stand high. Some of the roads in the vicinity of Oxford are in a disgraceful condition. Of late years much has been attempted in extending education and church accommodation among the poor, and with favourable effect. The smaller towns of Oxfordshire are mentioned elsewhere; the more noteworthy are Banbury, Woodstock, Henley-on-Thames, Witney, Bampton, Bicester, Burford, Chipping-Norton, Thame, Watlington. These are the market-towns; the two first are also boroughs, each returning a member to Parliament; and the county returns three members, elected at Oxford.

The population of the county amounted in 1851 to 170,439; in 1841 it was 163,143; while in 1801 it was Thus, while England has more than doubled its population in the half century, this county, in common with other midland counties, has only increased 52 per cent. It contains 1 city, 11 market-towns, 14 hundreds, and 278 parishes. It contains a population of 28 acres to a person; throughout England the proportion is 19 acres. Oxfordshire contained in 1851, in all, 504 places of worship, with 110,666 sittings. Of the former, 266 belonged to the Church of England, 116 to Wesleyan Methodists, 50 to Baptists, 43 to Independents, 12 to Quakers, and 8 to Roman Catholics. There were in the same year, 591 day-schools, with 23,498 scholars (12,135 male and 11,363 female). Of these schools 247, having 16,574 scholars, were public; 9, with 613 scholars, being supported by general or local taxation; 51, with 3014 scholars, by endowments; and 181, with 12,582 scholars, by religious bodies. Besides these, there were 314 Sunday-schools, with 19,776 scholars (9573 male and 10,203 female), and 19 evening schools, with 373 scholars.