222 CHESHIRE 



the cause; for though Cheshire lies to the south and 

 west of the great manufacturing districts of Lancashire 

 and the Potteries, the winds do blow pretty frequently 

 from east and north, and the county is itself thickly 

 populated. The annual crops and the grass are not 

 perceptibly damaged, but the effect accumulates on 

 the perennial trees and shrubs, and chiefly shows in 

 the reduction of the leaves both in number and in size, 

 though they are not killed outright as they are in South- 

 east Lancashire. We realized the smoke in the 

 atmosphere in another way by the extra state of dirt 

 acquired by one's face and hands after a day's knocking 

 about in Cheshire ; the result was more like that 

 which follows a day in London. But, despite the 

 smoke, Cheshire is a most productive and intensively 

 farmed county, for nowhere else is there such an area 

 of good land close to one of the densest and richest 

 town populations in the world. On the south-western 

 side of the county and up the Dee valley the soils are 

 heavy, and grass-land farms for cheese-making prevail ; 

 but on the lighter lands, especially on the northern 

 side of the county, the land is too valuable for any- 

 thing but arable farming, and is mostly held in 

 smallish holdings of from 30 to 200 acres. 



Whether on grass or arable, the mainstay of 

 Cheshire farming is milk production ; with the ex- 

 ception of Lancashire, no other county contains, as 

 Cheshire does, more than 100,000 milch cows, and in 

 no other county do the cattle of all kinds outnumber 

 the sheep. We were unfortunately unable to see 

 anything of the cheese-making grass farms, as our 

 visit happened to coincide with one of the leading 

 cheese shows which every one was attending, conse- 

 quently we left the Dee valley and the sandstone ridge, 

 and made our way by Crewe towards Manchester. 



