SMOKE AND CROPS 231 



that an excessive number of men were being wretchedly 

 paid to do slavish sort of work, because with labour at 

 that price it was not worth the farmer's while to scheme 

 out labour-saving devices. However, time did not 

 permit of any long discussion of policy and tendencies in 

 agriculture ; at any rate our host had furnished us with 

 an example of one kind of a modern farm a highly 

 effective crop manufactory designed to make the most 

 of the conditions prevailing. It was very good 

 business, if not very attractive farming, and it must be 

 recognized that many men farm in particular ways for 

 the pleasure it gives them ; they like fattening bullocks 

 or rearing pedigree stock, or growing barley, to the 

 point of being careful not to inquire too closely 

 whether their particular hobby pays. 



For the rest of our journey in northern Cheshire we 

 left the low land by the Mersey and travelled through 

 a succession of parks and suburbs, until we turned to 

 cross the Mersey at Warrington. There we saw where 

 the smoke came from, for Warrington itself seemed to 

 be dispensing enough black smoke to darken the air 

 of a whole county, while a little farther seaward lay 

 Widnes and Runcorn, where it has been suggested that 

 cast-metal trees should be set up, so poisonous is the 

 atmosphere to living ones. But for all the smoke 

 the cultivated land, highly farmed too at that, comes 

 right up to Warrington, and we saw the shadows from 

 the chimney-tops wreathing over good crops of wheat 

 and oats, which appeared to have taken no greater 

 harm than a little dinginess of aspect. We were soon 

 into the region of the " moss " farming which prevails 

 all over South Lancashire, where a moss signifies a 

 low-lying area of black peaty soil generally on a sub- 

 stratum of sand. The underlying rock is almost 

 invariably New Red Sandstone, but it is overlaid by 



