ABUNDANCE OF EMPLOY. 15 



the most ample employment for their labouring 

 inhabitants ; nor perhaps could any portion of the 

 kingdom, neither possessing mineral riches, manu- 

 factories, or mills, nor situate in the immediate vi- 

 cinity of a great town, be found to afford superior 

 demand for the labour, healthy employment, and 

 reasonable toil of its population. Our lime-kilns 

 engage throughout the year several persons; this 

 is, perhaps, our most laborious employ, though its 

 returns are considered as fair. In our culture, after 

 all the various business of the farms, comes the po- 

 tato setting; nor is this finished wholly before hay- 

 making commences. Teazleing succeeds ; the corn 

 harvest comes on, followed shortly by the require- 

 ments of the potato again, and the digging out and 

 securing this requires the labour of multitudes 

 until the very verge of winter. Then comes our em- 

 ployment for this dark season of the year, the 

 breaking of our limestone for the use of the roads, 

 of which we afford a large supply to less favoured 

 districts. This material is not to be sought for in 

 distant places, or of difficult attainment, but to be 

 found almost at the very doors of the cottages ; and 

 old men, women, and children can obtain a com- 

 fortable maintenance by it without any great exer- 

 tion of strength, or protraction of labour. The 

 rough material costs nothing: a short pickaxe to 

 detach the stone, and a hammer to break it, are all 

 the tools required. A man or healthy woman can 



