A Farmer’s Life 
of all his stock before reaching the coast, it was 
sometimes worth his while to go back to Wales 
for more. From Farnborough the way seems to 
have been towards Horsham and Brighton—a 
fact pleasantly recalled to John Smith when, in 
his old age, he at last visited the former town. 
For he was reminded then of places he had often 
heard of in his boyhood in conne¢tion with the 
Welsh cattle. 
Ten miles a day was about the journey for a 
herd, across commons, avoiding roads excepting 
for roadside ponds. ‘To know these ponds, and 
to arrange for reaching them at a reasonable 
time, was of course an important item in a drover’s 
business ; and of course, too, he needed to know 
how the commons followed on. The latter 
were wanted only for travelling over; for feed, 
arrangements had to be made with farmers, to 
allow the droves a turn-out in the pastures. At 
nightfall the cattle arrived at a pasture, to rest 
and to feed; but often the next evening would 
have come (such was the drovers’ policy) before 
the herd was on the move again, for a shorter 
Stage to be done by night. 
All these arrangements, plainly, needed to be 
planned out beforehand ; and if it was profitable. 
to the farmers to sell their feed, the Welshmen for 
their part were shrewd at bargaining. “ Upright 
men,” John Smith found them, “ but close-fisted.” 
20 
