

PREFACE. 



SOME years ago I wrote the chapter on Agriculture in the still 

 unpublished Victoria County History of Westmorland, but the 

 space available was too small for more than the briefest outline of a 

 subject worthy of the more extended treatment given in the present 

 volume. 



The following pages must not be regarded as a history of the 

 agriculture of the county — though they may contain some of the 

 materials for one. 



My object has been to give sufficient material to enable each 

 reader to form a conception of the state of agriculture during the 

 past century, the phases through which it has passed and the 

 development of stock — more especially that which is indigenous to 

 the county — and to indicate the direction in which it is trending. 



Some branches of agriculture are but lightly touched upon and 

 others not at all, including such important ones as the land tenures in 

 the several manors and the geology — all important subjects from an 

 agricultural point of view ; other subjects in the same category arc the 

 amusements of the agricultural community — the hirings, fairs, and 

 galas, with their dancing, drinking and fighting and side shows of every 

 description — the sports, such as hound-trailing, fell-running, pigeon 

 shooting, spell and knur, hunting, and, greatest of all, wrestling 

 — each of which is well worthy of being treated — apart altogether 

 from the more serious side of agriculture. 



I thank the Committee of the Kendal Free Library for special 

 facilities given me in consulting old newspaper files, more especially 

 those of the Chronicle and Mercury and Times, and Mr. F. B. PoUitt, 

 proprietor of the Westmorland Gazette, for permitting my use at home 

 of all the files of that publication. Without such facilities it would 

 have been ■ impossible to attempt the work I have undertaken. 



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