182 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



through, but the farming in much of it no better than in some 

 parts of the Connecticut Valley. Coarse, rushy grass, indicating 

 the need of draining, grew in much of the meadow land as I 

 think it does, to the exclusion of more valuable grasses, in land 

 that is ordinarily dryer than such as would spontaneously produce 

 it in America. The buildings along the road were such as I 

 have previously described ; but I saw one old shackling board 

 barn which, but for its thatched roof, would have looked very 

 home-like. 



"Welsh Pool is a small, compact town (population 5000), with 

 a market-house, and a single small church, on the tower of which 

 a union-jack was hoisted, and within which there is a peal of 

 three bells, that continually, all day long, did ring most unmusic- 

 ally ; there were booths in the main street, in which women sold 

 dry goods, hosiery, pottery, etc. In another street horses were 

 paraded, and in other places cows and swine. 



There was present a considerable crowd of the country people, 

 which I observed carefully. I verily believe, if five hundred of 

 the common class of farmers and farm-laboring men, such as 

 would have come together on similar business say from all parts 

 of Litchfield County, in Connecticut had been introduced among 

 them, I should not have known it, except from some peculiarities 

 of dress. I think our farmers, and particularly our laborers, 

 would have been dressed up a little nearer the town fashions, and 

 would have seemed a little more wide awake, perhaps, and that's 

 all. I not only saw no drunkenness, except a very few solitary 

 cases late in the day ; no rioting, though there were some police- 

 men present, but no gayety ; every body wore a sober business 

 face, very New England-like. 



The small farmers and laboring men all wore leggins, button- 

 ing from the knee to the ankle ; heavy hob-nailed shoes ; little, 

 low, narrow-brimmed, round-topped felt hats, and frocks of linen, 



