SECOND JOURNEY, 1911 



THE VALE OF PEWSEY 



IN 1910 our farming pilgrimage lay through the 

 southern and eastern counties, and diversified as were 

 the forms of agriculture we saw they had this in 

 common, that they mainly depended upon the arable 

 land. In the east the chief source of income is the 

 sale of crops, and even where stock form a leading 

 feature in the farming the sheep are fattened on the 

 arable or the bullocks on the roots that are drawn off 

 the land for the winter. In 1911 we determined to 

 take the western route, where we knew we should find 

 systems of farming in which live stock on grass land 

 play the most important part. 



The difference between east and west is very largely 

 one of rainfall ; elevation and contour count for some- 

 thing, because on the more accidented western side of 

 our island lie the older rocks that had already been 

 elevated and disturbed by volcanic action before the 

 sandstones, oolites, and cretaceous formations which 

 stretch across the Midlands were laid down on their 

 flanks ; but the chief factors are the extra five or six 

 inches of rain and the softer airs which prevail from 

 Gloucestershire to Cumberland. More rain, less 

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