1174 



STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part IV. 



h found in various parts of Caernarvonshire, and worked to a great extent, especially on Lord Penrhj'n's 

 estate. Marble is worked in Anglesea ; and limestone, freestone, and other stones and minerals abound 

 in different places. 



1. Properti/. 



Estates from thirty shillings to 30,000?. The effect of the 

 custom of gavelkind, which prevailed all over Wales, was a too 

 minute division of property. Equality and poverty went hand 

 in hand. But when tlie custom was abolished, and alienation 

 permitted, an accumulation of property was the necessary con- 

 sequence, which became very prevalent in the two last centu- 

 ries : and having arrived at its maximum early in the eigh- 

 teenth century, it has, since that period, shown some instances 

 of retrogradation : but subdivision and accumulation of estates 

 will natutally fluctuate. Here are petty lairds or tacksmen, 

 as in Scotland and Ireland. 



Gentlemen of moderate income, and residing in the country, 

 transact the affairs of their own estates. Those of greater pro- 

 perty commit the whole care of rents, repairs, and contracts of 

 sale or purchase, to the management of agents ; who, in gene- 

 ral, are persons well qualified for the undertaking, brought up 

 solely to the business, and make it a point of honour and inte- 

 grity to do justice to the landlord, and a point of conscience 

 not to oppress the tenant. Some of the lawyer agents, having 

 by their own indiscretion and rapacity destroyed the very via 

 vita of litigation in the people, necessarily diminished the num- 

 ber of their successors. 



Only two copyhold tenements have been noticed in the whole 

 district. All tlie other estates are held either mediately or im- 

 mediately in cajiiie of the king, by a kind of mixed tenure, be- 

 tween the feudal and allodial, going under the common appel- 

 lation of freehold. 



2. Buildings. 



Some fine c.istles, as Powys, Penrhyn, and Chirk. Of farm- 

 eries, about seven in ten are in a very wretched state ; good 

 new ones in Anglesea, and Caernarvonshire, Flmtshire, and 

 Merionethshire. 



Cottages in these and other counties are truly the habit- 

 ations of wretchedness. One smoky hearth (for it should not 

 be styled a kitchen), and one damp litter-cell (for it cannot be 

 called a bedroom), are frequently all the space allotted to a 

 labourer, his wife, an(J four or five children. The consequences 

 are obvious; filth, disease, and, frequently, premature death : 

 and they would be more obvious, had not these evils an almost 

 unsubduable vigour of constitution to encounter. Threa 

 fourths of the victims of the putrid fever perish in the me- 

 phitic air of these dwellings. However, in some parts, espe- 

 cially near lime-works, mines, coll eries, &c., the example of 

 one neat cottager is followed by others. Here, their dwellings 

 are frequently white-washed ; their children are industrious 

 in collecting road manure, which is preserved within circles of 

 loose stones, for the use of their gardens. These minutiae, 

 though trifling, are worthy of record, as they are descriptive of 

 their general character. 



Some exceptions in different places, and especially on Lord 

 Penrhyn's estate. The reporter gives an exceUent plan of a 

 cottage for a cottage farm, and also plans of farms of different 

 sizes, adapted to such cottages. 



The cottage farm-haute (./i4'.-1122.) contains a kitchen (a),bed- 



1122 



mom or parlour (6), pantry (c), barn-floor {J), two biys (e and 

 />, cow-house {^), calving ()lace and calf-house (/)> pigsty (i), 

 and stairs {k) to garret and bedrooms. 



One cottage farm for the same house, and nine acras of land, 

 containsseven small enclosures (.^g. Wlo.a) including the gar- 

 den. One for six acres, contains six enclosures (b) Including 

 the garden. 



3. Occupation. 



Largest farm of cultivatable land about 600 acres, on the 

 mountains 1000 acres and upwards, at one shilling, or one 

 shilling and sixpence per acre : size on the increase, and ad- 

 mitted to be favourable to wealth by the reporter, who adds, 

 " yet that weilth should be valued, not in proportion to its 

 national aggregate, or quantity in the abstract, but eis it is 



a 1123 b 



widely and generally diffusrd. An analogy exists between 

 monopoly in all its forms and a macrocejjhalous constitution, 

 which never can jiossess the energy of a body symmetrically 

 proportionate. 



t armers, properly so called, are, as we may naturally ex- 

 jiect them to be, rather too tenacious of old customs. It is, 

 however, illiberal to charge them with obstinacy, in delaying 

 the adoption of pretended improvements ; for, as it is not all 

 gold that glitters, neither are one half of the pa'ent implements 

 and machines, nor one tenth of the writings of visionary theo- 

 rists, better than lumber and trash ; for which the farmer 

 should not throw away his hard-earned money, before they 

 are put to the test of experience, by those who have opulence 

 enough to bear disaiii)ointnient ; and who, from tlie advantage 



of superior education, may be better qualified to form a Judg- 

 ment of the probable eftects. Show the farmers their triie in- 

 terest, and, in general, their minds are as open to conviction, 

 and as susceptible to reason, as any other class of men what- 

 ever. 



Leasm out of repute. It cannot be denied that leases have 

 done good in Scotland. We are, therefore, driven to the 

 necessity of supposing, that the Scotch and Welsh tenantry 

 are very different kinds of beings. The circumstance that ren- 

 ders the Welsh leases ineHectual, is the v/ant of capital ; and 

 what enhances the evil of this want is, the ignorance of many 

 farmers in the right application of what small capital they have. 

 By tilling too many acres, they, as well as the public, suffer 

 loss in every acre. Many a farmer, who has means barely suf-. 

 ficient to manage a farm of 60/. a year tolerably well, thinks 

 a farm under 100/. or 150;. beneath his notice; arid granting a 

 lease to such a tenant, who has not one fourth of the capital 

 requisite to carry on improvements, would be preposterous. 



Lord Penrhyn executed draining, fences, roads, and all im- 

 provements requested by his tenants, and approved of by his 

 agents, at five pounds per cent on their amount added to the 

 rent. 



4- Implements. 



The original Welsh plough, a climisy wooden fabric, still in 

 use in Caernarvonshire, and a few places m other counties ; 

 about 1660, Lammas's variety of the Kotheram introduced, 

 and now common ; Scotch plough now generally known and 

 approved; the other improved implements tried by tho 

 amateurs. 



5. Arable Land. 



" That farmers convert too much of the lands which wera 

 formerly in tillage, into pasture, is but a groundless cause of 

 alarm. Farmers should, and always will, consult their own 

 interests; and whether the conversion of their lands into 

 tillage or into pasture be found the most profitable to them- 

 selves, the same wiU eventually be found most beneficial also to 

 the public:." 



The com raised in North Wales not equal to its consump- 

 tion : fallows general and defended as necessary. In Anglesey, 

 a rotation of five white crops in succession ; most of them 

 barely return the expenses. Very little wheat grown, main 

 corn-crop oats, and next barley. Scarcely any flax or hemp 

 grown; potatoes beginning to become a gtneral crop. On the 

 whole, the managemen t of arable land wretched, excepting by 

 the amnteurs or proprietors. 



6. Grass. 



Land well adapted for tillage ; is commonly left too long in 

 pasture; by which neglect it becomes mossv, and in some 

 instances covered with ant-hills. It has been said of some 

 meadow-lands in Wales, that a man may mow in them all 

 day, and carry home his day's work at night. This may a)ipear 

 hyperbolical ; but it is so far true, that in some meadows the 

 mark of the swath never disappears ; and a mower may be cer- 

 tain of having followed the same line, to a half-inch width, for 

 twenty or any number of years back. In such meadows, the 

 trouble of raking the hay together is the great work of harvest. 

 In the eastern parts of the counties of Denbigh, Flint, and 

 Montgomery, consisting of the most fertile vales, the principal 

 object of the farmers is to convert their hay emd grass, as much 

 as Viossible, into butter and cheese. 



In the hilly parts of the afore-named counties, and in Angle- 

 sea, Caernarvon, and Meryonydd, their peculiar province is to 

 rear cattle, to be sold lean to the graziers of other districts. 

 There are but few acres of land that will fatten cattle ; the 

 vales of the Severn andVymwy in Monmouthshire, the banks 

 of the Dee in Flintshire, and the vale of the Clwyd in Den- 

 bighshire, are the principal places where the t)astures allbrd 

 sutKcient nutriment for that purpose. 

 7 Gardens. 



Much wanted for the cottagers, especially in Caernarvon 

 and Merionethshire. Too many poor cottagers have not as 

 much as a leek or a potatoe, except what they either beg or 

 buy. In the greater part of the district, the planting of orch- 

 ards would be thought a very wrong application oif the soil. 

 On the borders of England are some orchards ; and in plenti- 

 ful years, a few farmers make either cider or perry for their 

 own beverage. 

 8- Woods. 



Have been abundant m former times, especially in Anglesea ; 

 now very scarce there and in Caernarvonshire ; more in Den- 

 bigh-shire, especially round Chirk Ca.stle, Wynnstay, Erthing, 

 Vale of Clwyd, &c. Extensive young plantations made in 

 these counties, especially at Wynnstay and Lord Penrhvn's. 

 A great deal of wood ; various young plantations in Meri- 

 onethshire, and much timber, wood lands, and planta- 

 tions in Montgomeryshire, which will long be the best 

 wooded county in North Wales. Proprietors planting 

 upon a large scale, and not raising trees from seed in 

 their own nurseries, formerly used to procure seedlings 

 of larch, firs, and pines, &c. from Scotland ; but ow- 

 ing to their heating in close bundles, and otherwise 

 damaging upon the road, not above one fourth, and fre- 

 quently not above one eighth of the number could be ex- 

 pected to grow. They are now more given to encourage 

 nurserymen at home, and nurseries are accordingly esta- 

 blished in different parts of the district. " One and two 

 year old seedlings of all sorts of forest trees, nearly as 

 cheap as in Scotland, reckoning carriage, ancl one thou- 

 sand worth two of thtirs." This is true when the tenderness 

 of seedlings, distance of cartiage, and length of time, are con- 

 sidered. \Villiams, and other nurserymen, msure trees of 

 their own giowth and planting for a number of years. 



9. Improvements. 



A marsh of ,?000 acres in the southern comer of the island 

 of Anglesea attempted to be embanketl in 1790. The embank- 

 ment was brought forward from both sides at the same time, 

 and was intended to be joined in the middle of the marsh, 

 where the force of the tide was greatest ; when within about 

 twenty roods of a complete junction, owing to some of the 

 proprietors withholding their dividends, the work was de- 

 serted, after exjiending nearly 12,000/., and when a few pounds 



