lSo6. 



NEW EXGLAXD FARMER. 



323 



land of her competitors, instead of advancing more 

 capital to her land. 



The plan adopted in this county, for bringing 

 bog or moss land into cultivation, is worth descril>- 

 ing. First of all, deep trenches are cut at a dis- 

 tance of thirty feet ajjart, in which the tiles are 

 placed ; after that, vegetation on the surface is 

 burnt, and the ground is broken uj) by several 

 cross ])lovvings. When the whole is well pulverized, 

 marl is carried on, by means of a movable railway, 

 and spread over the land, at the rate of 100 to luO 

 tons to the acre. During these ojjerations, it fre- 

 quently happens, that the ground is so soft that it 

 is necessary to put planks under the feet of both 

 men and horses to prevent their sinking. The 

 land then receives a manuring of night soil and cin- 

 ders, and is planted with potatoes; after this crop, 

 wliich is usually a good one, the Norfolk rotation 

 follows. 



Yorli is the largest county in England, contain- 

 ing 3,800,000 acres. It has been divided into three 

 parts, called Ridings, each of which is larger than 

 an ordinary county. The West Riding contains 

 the great manufacturing towns of Leeds and Shef- 

 field, the one as famous for its woolens, as the oth- 

 er for its hardware ; and in such a neighborhood, 

 agriculture must necessarily flourish, and rents and 

 wages rule higher than the average. The land is 

 nearly all in grass, and like all districts, where the 

 population is great, dairy forming, and the fatten- 

 ing of cattle, are the chief occuj)afions. jNIany 

 farms are below twenty arces, cultivated l)y journey- 

 men weavers, who add the produce of the farm to 

 that of the loom. 



The East Riding is quite different from the 

 West, without manufactures, no large towns, no 

 small farms, the country is exclusively agricultural, 

 and large farming reigns supreme. 



The North Riding is the beginning of the moun- 

 tainous region. It contains some fertile valleys, 

 but the whole is a vast table-land of about 400,000 

 acres, 1500 feet above the level of the sea, called 

 the Yorkshire moors. Human ingenuity has dis- 

 covered a way of turning these poor lands to good 

 account. Both hill and valley are almost entirely 

 in pasture, and the stock reared upon them, horses, 

 oxen and sheep, are held in great repute. The 

 best English carriage horses are bred here ; the 

 sheej) of this region, a distinct race, improved af- 

 ter Bakevifell's principle, sujiply the markets of the 

 north. Of cattle, the largest number are the short- 

 horned breed. There are, perhaps, half a dozen 

 breeders of them, who have, to a certain extent, a 

 monopoly, and spare neither expense nor pains to 

 keep up and improve their stock — often selling 

 their bulls at from $1000 to $2000. 



Durham is a small county, whose principal 

 wealth consists in coal mines; the inexhaustible 

 produce of which is exported from Newcastle, and 

 other ports. Clay lands, with their usual difficul- 

 ties, predominate. The average extent of farms is 

 60 acres, the farmers of which are, generally 

 speaking, common laborers, who do everything for 

 themselves, and are not rich enough to lay out 

 much upon the land. 



Westmoreland is also a small county, and its 

 name — land of the icesl moors — indicates the char- 

 acter of the soil, while it is the most mountainous, 

 the most uncultivated and thinly peopled part of 

 England. The valleys of Eden and Kendall have 

 a rich agriculture amidst this land of lakes, this 



; Switzerland of England, so celebrated by ihe 

 poets. 



Cumberland also is mountainous, and crowned, 

 in the south-east, with the high peaks of Seafell, 

 Helvellyn and Skiddaw. The history of this coun- 

 ty is very instructive, and confirms the truth, that 

 fai'mers, even proprietor farmers, who adhere to old 

 usages, and des])ise skill and capital in farming, 

 will run out and disappear from the land. At one 

 time, a pojiuiation of small proprietors, called 

 Statesmen, dwelt in this county, each family pos- 

 sessing from fifty to a hundred acres. Probably 

 they owed their origin to the necessity of defense 

 against the invasion of Scottish marauders. You 

 will find their mode of life pleasingly de^criljcd by 

 Wadsworth. Rut, as time went on, they adhered 

 to their old usages, their want of ready ca])ital, and 

 want of skill rendered the land unproductive in 

 their hand*: ; and debts, from one cause or another, 

 accumulated on their small properties, and swal- 

 lowed them up. On the very lands where these 

 lairds, as they were called, could not get a living, 

 with no rent to pay, a rent-paying farmer, with a 

 little money, and more skill, now flourishes. Noth- 

 ing can stop a decay of this kind. 



No English nol)leman, and but few Englishmen, 

 can be convinced that any other than large farming 

 can be made profitable. Sir James Graham owns 

 a large property in this county, called Netherby, of 

 30,000 acres. In 1820, this property contained 

 340 farms, averaging 90 acres each. The starting 

 point of Sir James, in the improvement of this prop- 

 erty, was to reduce the number of fiirms upon it to 

 sixty-five, and retain only those fl^rmers who had 

 ca])ital, skill and energy. He spent, also, consider- 

 able sums in draining his lands, on which outlays 

 the farmers paid him five ])er cent., in addition to 

 their rents. Pie improved his property and rents ; 

 but two hundred and seventy farmers and their 

 families must have discussed and settled all the sad 

 questions which pertain to the breaking up of 

 home, the change of pursuits, and to emigration. 

 That cannot be a good system which breeds such 

 questions. 



Nowhere does one realize the necessity and ben- 

 efits of draining, as he does in these northern coun- 

 ties. And this is attributa!)le to two causes ; the 

 clayey nature of the soil and the subsoil, and the 

 great abundance of rain. In London, the amount 

 of rain that falls, in a year, is twenty inches ; in 

 Lancashire, forty ; on the coast of Cumberland, 

 forty-seven, and in the lake district of Cumberland, 

 in the high valleys, one hundred and sixty inches — 

 a tropical amount of rain. 



Northumberland is situated on the eastern side 

 of the range of the British Appenines, as Cumber- 

 land is on the western side, and, like Cumberland, 

 is divided into a mountainous district, and low 

 ground. The mountainous part is mostly sterile ; 

 but the Cheviot hills support the race of sheep 

 which bear their name ; and some of the valleys 

 are rich and excellent land. The agriculture of 

 the Lowlands of Northumberland has a high repu- 

 tation, which is just, only in respect to the light 

 soils, which lie between the mountains and the 

 coasts. The clayey district is not to be praised. 



We have now finished our tour of England, the 

 sovereign portion of three kingdoms — the scep- 

 tered isle. 



If it is rich in its agriculture, I think our journey 

 justifies my remark, that it does not owe the supe- 



