Agriculture 3 



eggs ad lib. in a cottage, I happened to recall a curious 

 old poem, and quoted it : 



" The priest's rule is (a priest's rule shold be true) 

 Those egges are best, are long, and white, and new. 

 Remember eating new laid egges and soft, 

 For every egge yow eat yow drink as oft." x 



When my companion, a Scotsman, humorously added : 



" It's unco queer, in fact as strange as true, 

 That Lipton here supplants the mountain dew ; 

 And yet, methinks, they'd sweeter be, tho' fewer, 

 If thae same drinks contained a drap o' Dewar." 



It was from Llanuwchllyn as headquarters that most of 

 the excursions referred to in the following chapters were 

 made, and, if the area be somewhat circumscribed, it may 

 be remarked that with a change of names many of the 

 observations would apply with equal force to a large portion 

 of Northern Wales. A stranger wandering through the 

 mountains will be surprised to find how thickly little home- 

 steads are clustered about the lower slopes of the valleys. 

 They are chiefly quite small farms, each with its two 

 or three inclosed fields, and to each is attached the right 

 to keep a certain number of sheep upon the uninclosed 

 mountain. Wire fences or stone walls divide many of the 

 hills, or separate one estate from another, but the grazing 

 on the larger mountains is often held in a sort of common 

 interest to which each holding carries its appointed rights, 

 set out by the landlord, and defined in the lease ; so that 

 the sheep of many owners are pastured together. They 

 are looked after, from time to time, by one or other of 

 the farmers, and collected and driven home at such seasons 

 as clipping time, but live otherwise more nearly in a wild 

 state than perhaps any other domestic animals in Britain. 

 Of course, it often happens that sheep find their way to 

 wrong farms, and when one is so discovered, it is customary 

 for the finder to attach collar and rope to its neck and so 



1 The Englishman^ Doctor dated 1607. A translation of an early Latin 

 poem. 



