54 WESTMORLAND AGRICULTURE, 1800-1900 



Large profits were made from growing crops of wheat, barley, 

 and oats and increasing quantities of turnips and potatoes on the 

 newly inclosed lands — the whole of the outlay being often returned 

 in two or three years. This improvement in the land carried with it 

 an improvement of the live stock in the county, cattle, sheep, and 

 horses — and the numbers which it was possible to keep upon the same 

 land were more than doubled, necessitating a large extension of 

 buildings for their accommodation in winter. 



Lime was a sine qua non for the proper cultivation of the commons 

 and the destruction of heath and ling — ^but coal, except in the north- 

 eastern part of the county, upon Stairmiore, of the poorest quality, 

 and a few isolated sulphury veins on the fells round Appleby, was 

 unobtainable for burning it, except at an exorbitant price. The 

 opening of the canal to Kendal relieved this state somewhat in the 

 southern part of the county. But the scarcity of coal had been felt 

 long before this, and as early as 1788 a subscription was entered into 

 at Kendal, in which four friendly societies joined, to open a colliery 

 in a field at Hawes, about 2J miles from Kendal ; the field belonged 

 to Staveley Chapel and the manor to Lady Suffolk — the adventure 

 ended in failure. Again, in 1837, ^ company was formed to try for 

 coal at Plumgarths, and a pit sunk 9 yards to the red sandstone — but 

 Professor Sedgwick, who was called in to consult, gave an unfavour- 

 able opinion, and the undertaking was abandoned. Bishop Watson 

 wrote that lime for land culture came at great expense from Kendal 

 or up Windermere, and he advocated the use of coppice for burning 

 the local limestone instead of making it into charcoal ; and Stockdale 

 speaks of the barges which took the Langdale slate down the lake 

 carrying lime on their return journey. At an early date in the century, 

 1804, a Cumberland farmer described, for the then Board of Agricul- 

 ture, a method of burning lime with peat, and in 1846 lime was 

 successfully burnt with wood in a kiln at Lowther. At Milnthorpe, in 

 1850, the price of good quality coal was 5d. per cwt. out of the ships 

 at Sandside. 



The necessity for lime being so great, some parishes such as Kendal, 

 where the burners paid the Corporation Jd. per bushel, Ravenstonedale, 

 Stainmore, Morland, Shap, etc., erected pubhc kilns, and on the lime- 

 stone formation nearly every farm had its own quarry and kiln. In 



