180 ;LV AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



Stone Houses Ivy Virginia Creeper A Visit to a Welsh Horse-Fair 



English Vehicles Agricultural Notes Horses Breeds of Cattle 

 Herefords, Welsh, and Smuthy Pates Character of the People Dress 



Powis Park. 



Shrewsbury, June 1th. 



T HAVE been visiting a gentleman to whom I was introduced 

 * by Prof. Norton. His residence is on the east border of 

 Wales, amidst very beautiful scenery of round-topped hills, and 

 deep, verdant, genial dells. He has the superintendence of a 

 large number of mines of coal and metals, and of several agricul- 

 tural estates, the extent of which may be imagined from the fact, 

 that he is preparing to thorough-drain 5000 acres next winter. 

 He is building a tilery, and will employ seven draining-engineers, 

 each with two foremen to oversee the work. The cost, it is esti- 

 mated, will be from $23 to $25 an acre ; drains, seventeen feet 

 apart and three feet deep. 



The house is of stone, and is covered with ivy, which I men- 

 tion that I may contradict a common report, that ivy upon the 

 wall of a house makes it damp. The contrary, I have no doubt, 

 is the fact. The ivy-leaves fall one over another, shedding off 

 the rain like shingles ; and it is well ascertained that in a long 

 storm, the inside walls of those rooms in a house which are pro- 



