120 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



looking, most unhomelike farms you will find in 

 England, for they have no gardens, few or no shade 

 trees, and there is no sign of cultivation anywhere. 

 From one side, looking towards Leek, I counted 

 twenty-six farms, and at not one of them did they 

 grow a potato or a cabbage or a flower; and if you 

 go all round the hill you could count two or three 

 hundred farms like these. Each one has its stone- 

 fenced fields, on which a few cows feed, and, if the 

 summer is not too cold, a little hay is made for the 

 winter. It is all the cattle get, as there are no roots. 

 The sheep, if any are kept, are up on the moor, a 

 long-woolled, horned animal with black' spotted face 

 and looking all black from its habit of lying in the 

 peat holes. They are not in flocks and are not folded, 

 but live on the moor in small parties of two or three 

 to half a dozen. The farmers depend mainly on their 

 lean ill-fed cows for a livelihood; they make butter 

 and feed a pig or two with the skim milk. They 

 live on bacon and buttermilk themselves, and bread 

 which they make or buy, but vegetables and fruit 

 are luxuries. To one from almost any other part of 

 the country it seems a miserable existence, yet the 

 farmers are not less attached to their rude homes and 

 little bleak holdings than others, and though they 

 abuse the landlord or his agent because they cannot 

 have the land for nothing, they appear to be fairly 

 well satisfied with their lot. I sometimes thought 

 they were even too well contented and wanted to 

 know why they did not try to grow a few cabbages 

 or potatoes in some sheltered nook for the house; 



