14 Wild Life in Wales 



left the field with more discretion than dignity at the first 

 growl of the enemy. It is said that you can always safely 

 count upon delaying a bull's pursuit by dropping first a hat 

 and then a coat to occupy his attention, while you make 

 for shelter the most approved method being to stick 

 your hat up on your walking-stick, leave an expanded 

 umbrella, and so forth but I can only speak of these 

 devices upon that hearsay evidence which so seldom 

 carries conviction. 



Hay is, of course, an important item on all these hill 

 farms, and is cut and stored from every available piece of 

 ground ; but the fields are generally cropped so bare 

 by the sheep till late in spring, that even with the top 

 dressing of dung which it is customary for them to receive, 

 the crop is seldom a bulky one. The tilling of the land is 

 often a laborious business. Frequently the fields are so 

 steep that it is only possible to plough them in one direction 

 straight down hill while the dragging back of the empty 

 plough to the top of the hill is sometimes harder work 

 upon the horses than the return journey when the furrow 

 is being turned over. Not uncommonly boggy land is 

 cultivated, which is too soft to carry the weight of a horse, 

 and in these cases resort is had to a hand-plough, or 

 Gwythio y a most antique implement, consisting of a long, 

 naturally bent, wooden shaft shod with a broad, shallow 

 share, and having a cross bar at the other end, against 

 which the man pushes. It is hard work ; but in soft, peaty 

 soil, and taking a shallow furrow of two or three inches, a 

 man is able to get over an acre in about four days. One 

 part of a field, near the station, was ploughed (to the aston- 

 ishment of sundry passing visitors, who were able to see 

 only a man guiding a plough through the soil without any 

 visible traction power) by attaching a long rope to the 

 plough by which a horse at either end pulled it alternately 

 back and forwards, in steam-plough fashion, only that the 

 horses, instead of coiling the rope on a wheel, walked away 

 with it each time a corresponding distance across another 

 part of the field. Water power is of course cheap, where 

 a mountain stream tumbles past the greater number of the 



