THE EDEN VALLEY 253 



are known as " grey faces," the ewes of which are 

 often kept to be bred from again, as is very rarely 

 done with any other first cross. 



We followed the well-known road along Windermere 

 and by Rydal Water and Grasmere up Dunmail Raise 

 to Thirlmere, where we were interested in the planting 

 operations that the Manchester Corporation are carry- 

 ing out on their catchment area. These big upland 

 water-collecting areas belonging to the great cities 

 afford perhaps the best opportunity for trying forestry 

 on a working scale in England, but the work wants 

 the expert knowledge of forest management of which 

 we as yet possess so little. To try to make timber 

 out of trees that had been growing many years in the 

 usual slovenly widely planted English fashion by 

 pruning off the straggling lower branches and carefully 

 tarring the wounds, is mere gardening, not economic 

 forestry. 



From Keswick, in the broad valley under the crest 

 of Saddleback, we began to get back into more of a 

 farming country, and approaching Penrith the soil 

 lightens sufficiently to admit of arable cultivation, with 

 oats, potatoes, and turnips as the staple crops. At 

 Penrith one might be regarded as in the famous Eden 

 Valley, though Penrith itself lies in a parallel tributary 

 valley and a low ridge has to be crossed before reach- 

 ing the Eden itself hard by Eden Hall. The valley is 

 occupied by reddish drift soils which lie on Permian 

 rocks to the west and on the New Red Sandstone 

 (its most northerly outcrop) to the east of the river 

 itself, the soils being derived mainly from these two 

 formations, but also from the carboniferous limestones 

 and shales farther to the west. All the land is full of 

 stones and is light and easy to work, some of it rather 

 too light for a season like that of 1911. The Permian 



