236 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



France. The graziers of the west make cheese, which, 

 for the most part, is very much esteemed. 



The western districts are among those which form an 

 exception to the common rule in England, property and 

 farming being there generally divided. For a few large 

 estates to be met with, there are a great many small 

 ones, some of which are worked by the proprietors them- 

 selves. We have already found this division in Kent, 

 Sussex, and Devonshire ; we shall meet with it again. 

 The cause differs according to locality : in Kent, it is due 

 to the diversity of the crops ; in Sussex, it is owing to 

 the stiffness of the soil ; in Devonshire, the mountainous 

 character of the country is the cause ; while in the grass- 

 lands the nature of the prevailing occupation prohibits 

 its being carried on upon a large scale. English economists 

 find that this division has been carried too far ; and they 

 are probably right, for the general condition of the popu- 

 lation is not good, notwithstanding the high value of the 

 produce, and wages are rather low. 



The western region contains six counties. In that of 

 Somerset, the portion which adjoins Devonshire is, like it, 

 rugged and mountainous, and contains one of the most 

 desolate and uncultivated districts in the island the 

 granitic moorland, called Exmoor Forest, rivalling Dart- 

 moor in wildness : its extent is about twenty thousand 

 acres, abandoned to a kind of half- wild sheep, and forming 

 a refuge for the shyest kinds of game, such as deer. As a 

 set-off to this, the vale of Taunton, bordering on Exmoor, 

 is celebrated for its beauty and fertility ; and all the 

 country about Gloucester, near which is Bath, famous for 

 its mineral waters, and the populous seaport of Bristol, 

 abounds in excellent pasture. Nowhere in England, 

 unless perhaps in Leicestershire, and always excepting 

 Middlesex, are rents so high as in Somersetshire ; the 



