Book I. 



AGRICULTURE OF SOUTH WALES. 



1177 



ieats of Isabella yllow. In the north of rembrokeshire, &c. 

 tne taste is reversed ; the cottages are of a very dingy colour, 

 end gentlemen's houses are white- washtd ; the maxim is not 

 to be what the lower classes are ; not to coincide with the Tulgar 

 in their practices. 



2. Occupation. 



Farms of all sizes ; two mountain farms of 3400 aores each ; 

 eeneral run from thirty to one hundred acres ; average of the 

 district between fifty and sixty aires. In the uplands rearing 

 of stock is the main object, without neglecting the produce of 

 the dairy ; whilst they rind convenience, though without profit, 

 in a scanty and precarious tillage. In the lowlands, or moist 

 loams, especially in the more humid climature of the western 

 counties, grazing is considered, and generally recommended, as 

 the most profitable. 



Upon an average of the whole, the district may be said to 

 he occupied in that kind of system called mixed husbandry ; 

 breeding, dairying, and tillage ; varying in the proporiion of 

 each in different places, according to the imperiousness of 

 existing circumsfcJices, which will be hereafter more fully ex- 

 plained. 



Farmers may be classed as proprietors farming a part of their 

 own estates, small proprietors or yeomen, farmers of the old 

 school, and book -farmers. 



" Book-farmera, the aerialists of Marshal, are those who 

 know agriculture only by reading about it. Theory is their 

 ne yliu u'tra, as they generally grow tired before they are 

 much acquainted with practice. The practice of the country 

 tKey come to reside in is all wrong, and the inhabitants all 

 savages. They bring ploughs and ploughmen generally from 

 a distance; and when the' masters retire, the ploughmen re- 

 turn and the p'.oushs are laid aside. Tl.ey hold the farmers 

 of the old school, as they call them, in sovereign contempt; 

 w ho in return deride their puerilities, and, in their own quaint 

 phrase, style their ineffectual attempts to establish a system of 

 improvetl agriculture ' a Jlash in the plan ' They do consider- 

 able good in the vicinity thty dwell in by employing labourers ; 

 and by their imported implements thev oi>en the eyes of me- 

 chanics. Most of the harm they do is to themselves. They 

 injure others mostly by an exorbitant advance in the wages of 

 eervants, especially of such as pretend to be farm bailiffs. They 

 pive double the wages that the old established farmers in the 

 l>jst cultivated counties, Salop or Hereford, &c. will give. 

 They have generally very exalted notions of the value of land, 

 and the powers of soil. They read of the high returns of crops 

 in England or elsewhere, and calculate there upon the value 

 of land in the uplands of Wales; which, if they have farms to 

 let, makes it extremely difficult to deal with them. Their 

 opinion of manure depends on the book they have read last. 

 If Jethro Tull is their favourite author, soil requires nothing 

 but ploughing and stirring. \Vith A. lime is evert) thing ; with 

 his brother B., only a few miles distant, and on the same kind 

 , of soil,/im is nothing." 



3. Implements. 



The Welsh plough is in common use; and perhaps a more 

 awkward, unme^nrng tool is not to be found in any civilised 

 country. It is not calculated to cut a furrow, but to tear it 

 open by main force. The share is like a large wedge; the 

 coulter comes before the point of the share sometimes, and 

 sometimes stands above it; the earth-board is a thing never 

 thought of, but a stick (a hedge-stake or any thing) is fastened 

 from the right pide of the heel of the share, and extends to the 

 hind part of the plough : this is intended to turn the furrow, 

 which it sometimes perforins, and sometimes not ; so that a 

 field ploughed with this machine looks as if a drove of swine 

 had been moiling it. 



The Kotheram and other improved ploughs are in use 

 among the proprietor and book -farmers, and the Scotch plough 

 is coming into very general use. A gentleman, a naval officer, 

 in Cardiganshire, introduced the light Kotheram, and insisted 

 on his ploughmen using them. As soon as he turned his back, 

 the new ploughs were dismissed the service, and the old ones 

 brought into the field. One day, in a rage, he committed the 

 old to the flames, and set the new ploughs a-going. Afterwards 

 taking a ride to cool hi', self, and returning, he found tlie new 

 plou'ihs in the ditch, and old ploughs borrowed from the neigh- 

 bours at work : the master then thinking it useless to persevere, 

 gave up the contest. " I have," said he, " seen various kinds 

 of human beings, in different parts of the globe, from latitude 

 t?n to latitude" fifty-four, but none so obstinately bent on old 

 practices as the \\'elsh." 



H. 1-ewis, Esq., of Gallt y Gog near Caermarthen, being 

 equally unsuccessful in effecting a revolution at once, tried the 

 plan of altering the old ploughs in a slight degree, and hopes, by 

 one alteration after another, at length to transform them into 

 Kotheram ploughs " unawares to his sturdy jiloughmen." 



Wapifons and clumsv two and three horse carts are in general 

 tise ; almost every farmer of forty pounds a year rent has a 

 waggon. Single horse cartsgain ground but slowly. They were 

 introduced into the vale of Towy, several years ago, by Lord Ro- 

 bert Seymour ; into Caidiganshire, by the late '1 homas Johnes, 

 Esq. ; and into Brecknockshire, by Sir Edward Hamilton. 



A hay rake, with the head forming unequal anglts with the 

 handles, is in use in Glamorganshire, the only advantage of 

 which is said to be that of not obliging the raker to step his 

 foot backward at every reach. 



4. Arable Land. 



In general wretchedly managed, especially the fallows. The 

 reporter proposes to send farmers' sons to improved districts to 

 serve apprenticeships, as better than examples set by strangers, 

 which have been tried without success. A patriotic land pro- 

 prietor brought what were considered as enlightened farmers 

 firom Scotland into South Wales ; but as Hassel very judi- 

 ciously obs'-rves, " New practices in husbandry will be most 

 likely to succeed through the medium of the natives of the 

 country. Thev have an unconquerable dislike to every thing 

 introduced bv strangers ; and not without some reason, as most 

 of the people who have come into this country from the 

 English counties, and commenced farmers, were in bad circum- 

 RtiUices at tl:e outset, and therefore have not succeeded in their 

 undertakings; and the natives, eager to reprobate any thing 

 new, readily attributetl their failure to defcrlive practice, rather 

 than to the real cause, want of capital. This oi^servation will 

 be found to be generally true k\ every country. Few persons in 

 good circumstances can be tempted to migrate; whilst others 



of a different description are frequmtly under the necessity of 

 doing it; and, generally, it can only tend to hasten their total 

 fai;ure. Then the teaching of the natives, is recommended 

 above, would have a much superior effect in estabHsliing the 

 doctrines of the new schools, than the introduction of any 

 strangers into the country. 



The sand banks checking the progress of the tides into a flat 

 tract in Glamorganshire, in order to render them more firm, 

 they are mat'ed with the roots of tlie sea mat-weed (ylriindo 

 arenaria). The Hon. T. Mansell Talbot binds each of his te- 

 nants, who rents land in the adjoining marches, to give yearly 

 the labour of a day or more, in proportion to his holding, as a 

 kind of statute duty, for the planting of this reed;, and expe- 

 rience has proved its good effects. 



5. Grass. 



By a correct map of the rivers of a district, with a gcale of 

 their fall in a given number of furlongs or miles, and of the 

 mountains from which they flow, and those distinguished by 

 kinds of " quality colours," a geologist might give a fair estimate 

 of the quality of the soils and grasses of the respective vall.ys 

 intersecting that district, though anomalies frequently form 

 excenlions in valleys as well as on sideland places. 



The practice of fogging pastures, almost peculiar to Cardi- 

 ganshire, has been already described. (3837.) 7'he reporter saw 

 a piece that had been fogged successively for sixteen years; and 

 according to the tenant's information, was improving annually. 

 When land has been mowed too long, one year's fogging is sup- 

 posed to recover i:. Mossy pastures are benefited by it. It 

 replenishes the soil with seeds, that by this means are suffered 

 to ripen and shed on the ground ; and it is said that two years' 

 fogging will recover lands, let them be ever so run out by tillage 

 or mowing. Cattle used to fog wi'l quit hay that may be given 

 them, and clear away the snow with their feet to get at the fog. 

 The fields proper to be kept in fog must be of a dry, sound, 

 and close soil ; the argillaceous rather than the siliceous earths 

 should prevail in it : but not so much as to be over-retentive of 

 water. 



The late Thomas Johnes, Esq., of Hafod, observes, " Fog- 

 ging is getting out of repute : it must have ori;;inattd in 

 chance, and want of a summer stock of cattle." 



Clover is grown in some few places for sef d, which is separ- 

 ated from the heads in a common com mill, the upper mill- 

 stone being replaced for a time with a square piece of oak 

 furnished with eight wings studded with nails on their upper 

 surfaces. These spokes, by their rapid motion, soon beat out 

 the seed. 

 8. Gardens. 



On the maritime coast of South Wales generally very pro- 

 ductive ; those of the cottagers better attended to than in other 

 parts of the district; a pleasing mixture of flowers, small fruits, 

 and vegetables. 



Orchards in Radnorshire and Brecknockshire thrive well in 

 the valleys, but more especially in the vales of Wye and Usk. 

 Not much cider made, except on the Wye. 



7. Woods and Plantatioiis. 



" It appears from old deeds, that estates were formerly sold 

 at an inferior price, in consequence of their being crowded 

 with timber. Times are now changed." 



There are a great many oak woods and coppices in hilly 

 parts of the district, and many thriving plantations in every 

 part of it. It is calculated that at an average six millions of 

 trees are annually plantetl ; if tb.is be the fact, it is probable 

 nine tenths of them either die or are doomed to come to nothing: 

 for at this rate, in fifty years, there would be 150 trees for every 

 acre in South Wales, which, added to the old wood and copse, 

 would give 300 trees, or enough to render the country one en- 

 tire forest. 



8. Improvements. 



Numerous enclosures have been made, and fencing, draining, 

 and, in some cases, watering practised as in other counties- 

 There are nearly 15,000 acres of fen and sands on the coast of 

 Cardiganshire, which are considered highly improvable, and 

 which it has been at different times in contemplation to em- 

 bank. Of one of the worst parts of this Izmd, the late agricul- 

 turist Dr. Anderson, who was much with Johnes of Hafod, 

 said he could make it carry wheat in five years. 



9. Live stock. 



From ancient records it appears that the colours of Welsh 

 cattle were white, with red e.irs, like the wild hreed at Chil- 

 lingham (6S04.); they appear to have been in a wild state so 

 late as the time of king John. The present stock are of four 

 kinds : the coal-blacks of Pembrokeshire ; the brownish blacks, 

 or dark browns, of Glamorgan ; the black runts of Cardigan- 

 shire, Caemi^.rthenshire, and the western parts of the counties, 

 of Brecon and Radnor ; introduced breeds, from Herefordshire 

 and Shropshire, into the eastern and more fertile parts of Bre- 

 con and Radnor. 



Cows are kept for breeding, and making bu'ter and skim-milk 

 cheese. Johnes has proved, that at Hafod cheese may be 

 made at will so nearly resembling Parmesan, Stilton, Glou- 

 cester, or Cheshire, that the diflfVrence cannot be perceived by 

 good judges ; and that the whole mystery consists in various 

 modes of producing it from the milk. 



The sheep of South Wales are of four kinos : mountaineers, 

 Glamorgan vale sheep, Ulaniorgan Down sheep, and crossed 

 and intermixed breeds. 



Mountaineers occupy the hills in the several counties of the 



The Glamorgan vale sheep is the only breed in Wales, not 

 introduced within memory of man, that produces combing 



The Glamorgan Down sheep is a beautiful and excellent 

 small breed. Feeding upon the oldest and sweetest pastures 

 of the limestone tract, their mutton is superior in quality to 

 most, ard inferior to none ; their wool is of the short clothing 

 kind, and fine. They are generally polled. 



With crossed and intermixed breeds many experiments have 

 l-een tried within the district, and most of them confessedly 

 without the expected success. Particular breeds of sheep have 

 their peculiar diseases, which continue in their constitution, 

 wherever they are removed. The limestone tract may be con- 

 sidered as the healthiest for sheep within the Uistrict,"but even 

 there the imported modern breeds have brought with them 

 the scab, the foot-rot, ll;e goggles, maggots, and a long train 



