MILK FARMS 233 



the Red Sandstone rock crops out in places, the corn 

 takes on a better colour, and though the land is still 

 mostly arable, dairying becomes more general, and 

 we saw some fine herds of milking Shorthorns in the 

 fields. We had left behind the extensive farms that 

 occur on the mosses, though even there comparatively 

 small holdings are common ; in the rest of the county, 

 as in Cheshire, a farm of 200 acres is considered large. 

 The countryside is thickly populated, and in a small 

 way a good deal of fruit and vegetable growing goes 

 on ; the holiday-maker is a factor, for we were not far 

 back from Southport and the Lancashire coast. A 

 few miles from Preston a change takes place in the 

 farming, surprising in its suddenness : the arable farm- 

 ing ceases, and is replaced by small dairy farms on 

 poor grass land. The change must be due to a soil 

 factor ; and though the soil is still of drift origin, it 

 looked as if it had been derived with little change 

 from the Coal Measures, which generally give rise to 

 clayey soils of indifferent fertility. 



Before leaving Lancashire, where the farming is so 

 entirely conditioned by the proximity of a large manu- 

 facturing population, we went a little farther east into 

 the steeply undulating country that was once forest, 

 but is now occupied almost entirely by great towns. 

 All along the valleys from Manchester northwards, 

 through Rossendale to the Ribble and the Yorkshire 

 border, towns and townships are strung out in an 

 almost continuous line, with little oases of grassland 

 between, running up to moorland wherever the eleva- 

 tion is considerable. All these farms depend on the 

 sale of milk ; they are mostly small, and the living is 

 earned as much by the retailing as by the production 

 of the milk. 



We visited one such farm on the outskirts of 



