WALES AND THE ISLANDS. 281 



d'Or, near Lyons, where a goat yields as much as a cow 

 elsewhere. As population increases, I have no doubt 

 the goat will be more appreciated ; only we must learn 

 to treat it properly, and reclaim it from that half-wild 

 state which rendered it dearer to the shepherds of Theo- 

 critus and Virgil than to agriculturists and cultivators. 

 All the gifts of Providence are good when kept in their 

 places, and treated with skill. The goat's place is on 

 the barren mountains, where shrubby plants can be 

 cultivated for its food, unless, as at the Mount d'Or, it 

 is subjected to the strictest stabulation. 



Civilisation tends to equalise in value soils the most 

 unequal in appearance. The worst may produce a great 

 deal, provided that only is required of them which they 

 are capable of producing. The constant aim of cultiva- 

 tors being to produce cereals, it is often the case that 

 lands yield no income, because the expense of raising 

 such crops upon them costs more than the produce is 

 worth. But cereals are not everything. With the vine 

 in France we obtain, upon soils unsuitable for corn, 

 results equal, or even superior, to those from lands the 

 most favourable to wheat. In other places the resinous 

 pine gives marvellous results from the driest sands ; rice 

 turns the marshes to account, &c. The skill of the agri- 

 culturist lies in discovering what is best suited to the 

 different soils. Virgil long ago wrote in his Georgics, 



" Nee vero terrse ferre omnes omnia possunt." 



The small islands belonging to England partake of the 

 general prosperity of the mainland. A good report is 

 given of the state of agriculture in the Isle of Man, 

 lying midway in St George's Channel between England 

 and Ireland, and which was once a separate kingdom. 

 Although very mountainous, the population numbers 

 fifty thousand, upon an area of one hundred and fifty 



