256 FURNESS AND THE LAKE DISTRICT 



for on a farm and perhaps require special implements 

 and some skill in handling, seem to be growing in 

 agriculture. Steam cultivation and potato spraying 

 are cases in point, where one man equips himself with 

 the outfit and does his neighbour's work at a contract 

 price. In the old days the farmer did everything, not 

 only in the raising, but in the after handling of the 

 crop ; nowadays he tends to become a grower only, 

 leaving others to finish the business, especially 

 when the produce is valuable and has to be put 

 through something in the nature of a manufacturing 

 process. 



So iar we had chiefly been seeing small farms, but 

 we went some distance towards Carlisle to a large 

 farm on the limestone occupied by one of the best- 

 known men in the North of England, with a herd of 

 pedigree Shorthorns that possessed a long history in 

 the show ring. There we did see some grand stock, in 

 which respect we had hitherto been somewhat dis- 

 appointed, for we had come into the Eden Valley with 

 some expectation of finding superior milking Short- 

 horns in every farmer's hands, whether small or large, 

 whereas before reaching this particular farm we had 

 seen nothing to compare with the general run of stock 

 of North Lancashire and the adjoining districts of 

 Yorkshire and Westmorland. All the farming on this 

 holding was at a higher pitch ; the crops were ex- 

 cellent, and the temporary pastures such as to fill a 

 Southern farmer with envy. But our host was a man 

 of mark, who had been active in public business of all 

 kinds as well as in farming. He had broken away 

 from the local custom of boarding the labourers, and 

 had provided cottages for his own farms, so that he 

 could have married men living permanently on the 

 farm in their own homes. 



