306 STOCK-RAISING IN MONMOUTHSHIRE 



plantations look casual and uncommercial in com- 

 parison with such forests as the Spessart or the 

 Thuringer Wald, you do see something of timber- 

 growing as a business and not as an ornament or game 

 shelter. The strangeness of the scene is intensified by 

 the sudden patches of coal workings and spoil heaps, 

 themselves looking very much out of place among the 

 trees to any one accustomed to the bare coal districts 

 of the North or Midlands. The descent from the forest 

 to the smiling valley of the Wye provides another 

 notable view, though not so extensive nor so varied as 

 the outlook from the edge of the Cotswolds into the 

 wider Severn Valley. 



Agriculturally, Monmouth consists of the valleys of 

 the Wye and the Usk with the ridge of land between ; 

 and practically all of it lies on the Old Red Sandstone 

 formation, for the elevated mining area to the west is 

 of little importance agriculturally. The soils are 

 nearly all red in colour and heavy in type, and as 

 the rainfall is high, averaging something like 40 in., 

 the land is mainly under grass, though most of the 

 farms carry a little arable land, about one-tenth or so 

 of the total area. Only in the south of the country on 

 the light alluvial soils near the river do we find true 

 arable farms. Generally, the holdings run small, from 

 40 up to 200 acres, the most typical size being about 

 100 acres. Rents may be said to average about 1 

 an acre, the upland farms more remote from the railway 

 letting at 155. or less, while for small farms on the 

 richer lands to the south of the county as much as 

 355. an acre is paid. On the smaller holdings but 

 little labour is employed, and all over the district 

 labour is dear because of the proximity of the coal- 

 fields. On the smaller farms, as a rule, there would only 

 be a single hired man living in, but in other places the 



