36 WEST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE 



ever, are paid wages, or it is found that they soon 

 leave for the towns. 



In the limestone districts of Wensleydale and 

 Swaledale there is no tillage land at all. The 

 whole of the holding is invariably in grass, and the 

 only crop, therefore, is hay. This induces a type 

 of farming peculiar to the district, which has been 

 practised from earliest times, but which the gradual 

 substitution of milk-selling in the place of cheese- 

 making is altering in an interesting manner. As 

 this change bears on some points connected with 

 the general question of small holdings, it will be 

 referred to later. The stock kept are shorthorn 

 milking cows ; young cattle, which are reared to be 

 sold off to the fattening districts ; Wensleydale 

 sheep on the lowlands ; and a local breed of Scotch 

 sheep on the moors. Pigs do not seem to be kept 

 to any very considerable extent, though every 

 holding has enough to consume the by-products of 

 the dairy. Poultry are rather largely kept. 



The milk, even on the smallest farms, where 

 there are only two or three cows, is made into 

 Wensleydale cheese. There is, however, a pen- 

 dency at the present time amongst the larger 

 farmers to give up cheese-making for milk-selling. 

 I gathered that there was a very large percentage 

 of bad cheese made now which had contributed 

 towards a wholesale fall in the price of good and 

 bad alike. And whereas 7d. and 9d. a gallon 

 (exclusive of carriage) could be obtained by the 

 sale of milk in summer and winter respectively, it 



