FARM BUILDINGS 263 



which the price depends are entirely determined by 

 the retting. Some waters are supposed to induce 

 better retting than others, but nobody has determined 

 why indeed, it is only one or two foreign investigators 

 who have studied the bacteria bringing about the 

 change. But a crop that may be worth 20 an acre 

 in the field will pay for a little attention and ought to 

 be preserved in the country. 



Naturally enough, so near Belfast a good many 

 milch cows were kept, while a little farther down the 

 peninsula near Newtownards, where a lighter soil 

 prevailed, vegetable-growing was a prominent feature 

 of the farming. 



On the seaward side of the peninsula there are a 

 succession of little watering-places between which the 

 farms come down to the shore without any margin of 

 unenclosed land, inland are several great demesnes 

 enclosed each within its high stone wall, then other 

 farms bordering the shallow land-locked bay which is 

 Strangford Lough. Nearly all the farms possess shore 

 rights and draw up seaweed as their main fertilizer, 

 and what the countryside owes to this source of rich- 

 ness may be seen in the clean, prosperous villages and 

 the excellent, neatly-kept farmhouses by the roadside. 

 We visited another farm of about 50 acres farther 

 down the peninsula, and were astonished at the size 

 and excellence of the house and buildings maintained 

 on so small an area. They had all been erected by 

 the occupier and must have cost well over 1200 

 on an English scale of prices. But the farm was 

 exceedingly well done, all under the plough, and 

 showing magnificent root crops. The flax field 

 was being retted, a small piece of wheat and a larger 

 area of wide-eared barley were just ready to cut, but 

 oats, the chief cereal on the farm, were still very green. 



