Next in importance to the cultivation of watercress in the Harpenden-Redbourn district is that of lavender at Hitchin, where numerous fields on a spur of the chalk range near Windmill Hill are devoted to the growth of this fragrant plant. In late summer or early autumn the terminal spikes of blossom are nipped from their long stems, and garnered for the sake of their contained oil, which is distilled into lavender-water in Hitchin itself. Lavender-water has been produced at Hitchin for a period of fully eighty years. The growing of lavender as an industry is extremely restricted in England. [Illustration: A Lavender Field, Hitchin] 12. Industries and Manufactures. As will be inferred from the statements in earlier chapters with regard to its essentially agricultural nature, Hertfordshire is in no wise a manufacturing county like Lancashire or Yorkshire; this being due, no doubt, in great part to the fact that it possesses no commercially valuable minerals of its own, or, at all events, none which are at present accessible to the miner. During the last quarter of a century or so a certain number of manufacturing and industrial establishments have been moved from London and set up in various parts of the county, as at St Albans and elsewhere; but these cannot be termed Hertfordshire industries in the proper sense of the term, and do not need further mention. One of the great industries of the county is the malting business carried on at Ware, as is indicated by the number of cowls over the drying-kilns, which form conspicuous objects for miles round. Ware was the greatest malting place in England. The method of malting is too well known and the industry too widely spread to call for any special notes on the subject.