WINTER FATTENING 217 



chiefly grown all over the district. Some of the 

 barley, of which a large acreage is grown, was also 

 very good, blinding white in the sunshine ; and we 

 shall not readily forget making our way through a 

 twenty-acre field of it about noon on one of the hottest 

 and stillest days of that torrid summer. The drought 

 had told worst on the young seeds in the barley, for 

 they seemed to have perished entirely and to be beyond 

 even their great powers of recovery. 



Only about one-quarter of the farm was in per- 

 manent grass, some of this on black peaty land sloping 

 down to a little stream, and the grass was used to 

 carry without much expense cattle that had been 

 bought in for winter fattening. The farm possessed 

 a very fine range of buildings, for it was the custom 

 to tie up about a hundred head every winter. Our host 

 had exchanged the Hereford for the Shorthorn, finding 

 stores of the former breed too dear to buy. It was 

 his custom to buy in a good many young milch cows 

 when dry after their first or second calf; run on the 

 grass in the summer they would lose their bags and then 

 could be fattened and sold as heifers. The black 

 Welsh runts which are brought to Shrewsbury market 

 were also profitable, if comparatively slow fatteners. 

 With so many bullocks to be fed sheep did not form 

 a considerable feature in the farming. Our host bought 

 in Shropshire and hill ewes and crossed them with an 

 Oxford ram, gaining thereby a little size, so that the 

 crossbreds filled the eye and were taken by the butcher 

 in preference to pure-bred Shropshires of equal weight. 



Though it was not the most favourable season in 

 which to view a light land farm, we were greatly 

 impressed by this holding as one of the best examples 

 of clean purposeful farming we had seen in any part 

 of England. As on the other side of Shrewsbury 



