A SHROPSHIRE FARMERY. 229 



cept the beauty of fitness, but every thing was neat, useful, 

 well ordered, and thoroughly made of the best material the 

 barns, stables, and out-buildings of hewn stone, with slated 

 roofs, grout floors, and iron fixtures. The cattle stables were 

 roomy, well ventilated and drained, their mangers of stone 

 and iron ; fastenings, sliding chains ; food, fresh-cut vetches, 

 and the cattle standing knee deep in straw. 



The fatting cattle were the finest lot I ever saw, notwith 

 standing the forty finest cows that had been wintered had been 

 sold within a fortnight. These forty had been fattened on ruta 

 baga and oil-cake, and their average weight was over 10 cwt., 

 some of them weighing over 12 cwt. They were mostly short 

 horns. Those remaining were mostly Hereford bullocks. 



Sheep were fatting on a field of heavy vetches : Cheviots 

 and Leicesters, and crosses of these breeds. 



The VETCH is a plant in appearance something like a dwarf 

 pea ; it is sown in the autumn upon wheat stubble, grows very 

 rapidly, and at this season gives a fine supply of green food, 

 when it is very valuable. It requires a rich, clean soil, but 

 grows well on clay lands. I think it has not been found to 

 succeed well in the United States. 



In the rear of the barns was a yard half filled with very 

 large and beautifully made-up stacks of hay, wheat, oats, and 

 peas. The hay was of rye-grass, a much finer (smaller) sort 

 than our timothy. The peas were thatched with wheat-straw. 

 The grain stacks were very beautiful, several of them 

 stood three years, and could not be distinguished from tho 

 made last year. The butts of the straw had been all turn/a 

 over at regular distances, those of one tier to the top of t/at 

 below it, and driven in, so the stack appeared precisely f&amp;gt; if 

 it had been served with straw-rope, and I supposed that ^had 

 been, until I was told. The threshing of the farm is d/ne by 

 Bteam, the engine being in the stack-yard, the furnac/under- 



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