diirins; the last Four Years. 205 



"to 



the production of meat for an increased population ; it is con- 

 tinued and extended, not from a view to profit in the sale of the 

 meat, but for the production of dung, and the consequent increase 

 of the corn-crop. It is well known to farmers, though not to others, 

 that the dung of an ox fattened with corn or oil-cake is far more 

 valuable than that of a cow kept in merely ordinary condition — 

 perhaps worth twice as much. This principle is the great dis- 

 tinction of English agriculture, and constitutes what is called high 

 farming. It is worked out in different ways. 



Every autumn horned cattle move across England, from Devon- 

 shire, Herefordshire, parts of Yorkshire, and Scotland, to the 

 eastern coast, where they are fattened, I do not know why this 

 practice should be confined to that side of the country ; but though 

 it may be known elsewhere to individual farmers, all the counties in 

 which stall-feeding seems to be established lie to the east — Essex, 

 Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, 

 Northumberland, and in Scotland the Lothians. There is some 

 variety, however, in the mode. The more common method, I 

 believe, is to tie up the beasts in stalls in close houses. In 

 Northumberland, Mr. Grey of Dilston informs me that this 

 plan is given up, and that the cattle are kept loose (eight or nine 

 together) in small yards, with an open shed on one side : he gives 

 as the reason of this change, that they appear to be more healthy 

 when so treated ; that they turn the litter more regularly into 

 manure, do not lose their hair, and, their joints not being 

 stiffened, are better able to travel to market. In Lincolnshire, 

 again, many good farmers find it answer not to fatten beasts at 

 all, but to keep young stock in straw-yards ; not, however, upon 

 straw only, as in the old system of low farming, but pushing them 

 forward with oil -cake : for this is one great merit of improved 

 farming, that whereas, by the old practice, the animals which 

 serve for our food were kept often on the brink of starvation for 

 several years — by the new one they are maintained in an improv- 

 ing state from their birth ; and so their comfort, as long as they 

 live, coincides with our profit. Such is the high farming of the 

 eastern side of England — there so well known that it may appear 

 superfluous to have described it at all ; but in the counties with 

 which I am more conversant — Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Hamp- 

 shire, and Berkshire — a feeding-house full of oxen on an arable 

 farm is almost, if not quite, unknown ; yet here, too, we have 

 high feeding, which is high farming, but it is the high feeding 

 of sheep penned on the turnip-field, receiving hay, peas, barley, 

 oats, or oil-cake, with their turnips sliced for them in troughs (nor 

 is there a better mark of good farming for the traveller than a 

 turnip-slicer in the fold), and brought to market sometimes at the 

 age of one year. This is excellent farming : and I have been 



