THE STATESMEN. 187 



and the spot becomes a place of human resort. 

 While nature is thus working transformations in 

 her deeper retreat, the generations of men are more 

 obviously busy elsewhere. They build their houses, 

 and plant their orchards on the slopes which con- 

 nect the levels of the valleys : they encroach upon 

 the swamps below them, and plough among the 

 stones on the uplands, — here fencing in new 

 grounds, there throwing several plots into one : they 

 open slate-quarries, and make broad roads for the 

 carriage of the produce; they cherish the young 

 hollies and ash, whose sprouts feed their flocks, 

 thus providing a compensation in the future for 

 the past destruction of the woods. Thus, while the 

 general primitive aspect of the region remains, and 

 its intensely rural character is little impaired, there 

 is scarcely a valley in the district which looks the 

 same from one half-century to another. 



The changes among the people proceed faster : 



and some of these changes are less agreeable to 



contemplate, however well aware we 



THE STATESMEN. i , i / , l ■ • 1 



may be that they are to issue in good. 

 Formerly, every household had nearly all that it 

 wanted within itself. The people thought so little 

 of wheaten bread, that wheat was hardly to be 

 bought in the towns. Within the last few years, 

 an old man of eighty-five was fond of telling how, 

 when a boy, he wanted to spend his penny on 

 wheaten bread ; and he searched through Carlisle 

 from morning to evening before he could find a 

 penny-roll. The cultivator among the hills divided 

 his field into plots where he grew barley, oats, flax, 

 and other produce to meet the needs of the house- 

 hold. His pigs, fed partly on acorns or beech-mast, 



