THIRD JOURNEY, 1912 



STOCK-RAISING IN MONMOUTHSHIRE 



DURING the previous stages of our farming pilgrimage 

 it had been possible to take a line of country and go 

 straight ahead, so that there was a geographical 

 sequence between the districts visited, even if the style 

 of farming changed abruptly from day to day. Such 

 a method, however, inevitably leaves certain parts of 

 the country untouched, margins that lie outside the 

 route, and interior tracts between the eastern and western 

 roads. Our pilgrimage in 1912, undertaken to fill up 

 the gaps, therefore resolved itself into a series of other- 

 wise disconnected tours, and the first district we set 

 out to see was Wales from south to north. 



We broke new ground first when we left the city of 

 Gloucester for Monmouth, and as geographical boun- 

 daries are of little importance in farming, we might 

 very well consider that we entered upon Wales on 

 crossing the Severn. We took the most direct, but, 

 because of the gradients involved, not the quickest, 

 route across the Forest of Dean, certainly one of the 

 most characteristic wooded areas in the British Isles. 

 The great stretch of oak-clothed uplands form the only 

 places south of the Highland line where you get the 

 impression of a real forest ; and though the actual 



