AN IMPRESSION OF AXE EDGE 121 



for they have no gardens, few or no shade trees, and 

 there is no sign of cultivation anywhere. From one 

 side, looking towards Leek, I counted twenty-six farms, 

 and at not one of them did they grow a potato or a 

 cabbage or a flower ; and if you go all round the hill 

 you could count two or three hundred farms like these. 

 Each one has its stone-fenced fields, on which a few 

 cows feed, and, if the summer is not too cold, a little 

 hay is made for the winter. It is all the cattle get, 

 as there are no roots. The sheep, if any are kept, are 

 up on the moor, a long-woolled, horned animal with 

 black spotted face and looking all black from its habit 

 of lying in the peat holes. They are not in flocks and 

 are not folded, but live on the moor in small parties 

 of two or three to half a dozen. The farmers depend 

 mainly on their lean ill-fed cows for a livelihood ; they 

 make butter and feed a pig or two with the skim milk. 

 They live on bacon and buttermilk themselves, and 

 bread which they make or buy, but vegetables and fruit 

 are luxuries. To one from almost any other part of 

 the country it seems a miserable existence, yet the 

 farmers are not less attached to their rude homes and 

 little bleak holdings than others, and though they abuse 

 the landlord or his agent because they cannot have the 

 land for nothing, they appear to be fairly well satisfied 

 with their lot. I sometimes thought they were even 

 too well contented and wanted to know why they did 

 not try to grow a few cabbages or potatoes in some 

 sheltered nook for the house ; some said it was useless 

 to attempt it on account of the May and June frosts, 



