It is not a valley proper, as we use that term; as the Valley of the Mississippi or the Valley of the Connecticut.

If the word were admissible, it might be called most descriptively the land-bay of a river, at a certain distance between its source and mouth, such for instance as the German Flats on the Mohawk, or the Oxbow on the Connecticut, at Wethersfield, in Vermont, or the great onion-growing flat on the same river at Wethersfield in Connecticut.
These straths are numerous in Scotland, and constitute the great productive centres of the mountain sections.

They are generally cultivated to the highest perfection of agricultural science and economy and are devoted mostly to grain.

As they are always walled in by bald-headed mountains and lofty hills, cropped as high as man and horse can climb with a plough and planted with firs and larches beyond, they show beautifully to the eye, and constitute, with these surroundings, the peculiar charm of Scotch scenery.

The term is always prefixed to the name of the river, as Strathearn, Strathspey, etc.
I noticed on this day's walk the same singular habit that struck me in the north part of Yorkshire; that is, of cutting inward upon the standing grain.