VI 



SHROPSHIRE: SHEEP AND BARLEY 

 GROWING 



WE had now come into one of the most highly farmed 

 districts of England, where a considerable area of light 

 sandy soil gives rise to the most specifically arable dis- 

 trict of the west. The extensive county of Shropshire 

 embraces some very diversified land, much of it, like 

 the part we have just been through, hilly and given 

 over to grazing ; but from the valley of the Severn 

 eastwards and northwards stretches an extensive plain 

 of gently undulating country, covered with light drift 

 soils derived from the underlying New Red Sandstone. 

 The quality of this land may be seen from the fact 

 that Shropshire possesses a higher acreage of barley 

 than any other county until we come to the group of 

 eastern barley-growing counties Essex, Suffolk, Nor- 

 folk, Cambridge, Lincoln, and York. Again, if we 

 take root-growing as one of the best tests of good 

 cultivation, the average yield in Shropshire is only 

 exceeded in one other county as regard mangolds, and 

 in two or three of the northern counties as regards 

 turnips. 



From Shropshire we followed the Severn up for a 

 few miles to one of the best-known farms in the district, 

 famous as the home of pedigree Hereford cattle and 



