INTRODUCTION 19 



The gradual inclosure of the commons was one of the means of 

 developing the pure breeds of sheep, which has been one of the most 

 remarkable features of the agricultural progress of Westmorland 

 during the past century. 



The wethers were kept on the fells and commons the whole year 

 round and were sold when four or five years old for 9/- to 13/- per 

 head. The ewes were brought into the intakes in winter and into the 

 meadows for lambing in the spring, while the lambs were sent to the 

 low lands nearer the sea from the ist of November to the 6th of April 

 at a cost of 2/- per head for those that returned, 10 per cent, of them 

 usually dying before Christmas from blackwater or middling-ill. The 

 ewes were kept as long as they would breed, from 10 to 15 years if 

 they lived so long, when they would be sold for about 6/- per head. 

 Six fleeces would go to a stone, and brought, in Pringle's time, about 

 5d. per lb. 



Cattle were in almost as backward a state as the sheep, and sharing 

 the commons together were in the same starved condition. They 

 were mostly of the black Galloway type in the " Bottom of 

 Westmorland," intermingled with Irish and Killoes, but in the southern 

 part of the county, in the Barony of Kendal, they were of the Long- 

 homed breed, of which there were many good stocks, and these, crossed 

 with the Galloway or the Irish, were the prevailing type. Young cattle 

 were never housed, and the fattening of cattle of any description in 

 winter was but little practised, but if it was tried they had the best 

 of the hay and " the tops of the nicest corn sheaves, if their teeth were 

 good ; but if not, the corn was crushed at the mill or in the creening 

 trough at home." The first attempt at winter feeding had been tried 

 with sheep, which " were fed in small numbers during the dead season 

 with the tender branches of the two evergreens, ivy and holly." On 

 stinted pastures on Forest Hall and Mosley Common a summer's grass 

 for an ox and ten sheep could be had for 4/-, while on part of Troutbeck 

 Common the same quantity of stock could remain the whole year for 

 sixpence. 



The quantity of land under the plough was barely sufficient to 

 produce the oats and barley required by the farmer and his family — 

 the production of corn being only secondary to the production of grass, 

 for the whole county was given over to sheep and cattle raising : a field 



