DEALING IN LIVE STOCK 277 



long after we had left the farm on which the experi- 

 ments were in progress. The barley harvest was just 

 beginning at the end of the first week in August, 

 about a fortnight before the usual time. The farm 

 also showed very good crops of roots ; potatoes were 

 a valuable item in the farming, as the proximity to 

 Greenore enabled them to be marketed cheaply in 

 Lancashire. 



On such a farm stock are generally subordinate to 

 the crops, and here were to be seen only " flying " 

 flocks and herds, the more fugitive because our host 

 could deal on either side of the Channel as the markets 

 served. He kept a few cows for milk on which to rear 

 calves ; he bought stores in the autumn, and either 

 sold them again in the spring as forward stores to the 

 Midland graziers or fattened them off. Again, he 

 bought cull ewes of the mountains in August, ran 

 them with a Shropshire ram, and fattened off both ewes 

 and lambs together. It was a very business-like style 

 of farming in a smiling country under the brilliant 

 summer sunshine, though we could imagine it hard 

 and desolate enough when the Mourne Mountains are 

 veiled in cloud and the cutting winds sweep in off 

 the sea. 



From Greenore to Dundalk there is a very good 

 stretch of land, nearly all of it under the plough and 

 well farmed in comparatively small holdings and 

 rather restricted enclosures. Barley is still extensively 

 grown, the balance being held about equal between 

 barley and oats. Potatoes and turnips form the other 

 chief crops, but from our cursory examination it hardly 

 appeared that the seeds hay occupied the fifth of the 

 land one would at least expect. Dundalk has 

 breweries and distilleries, which form a market for 

 the barley and explain its persistence in the district. 



