[ 233 1 



of Northumberland was the moft pregnant 

 of fuch of any other, and both in that 

 county, and in many others, they are fitu- 

 ated on extreme poor foils, which an- 

 fwer much better to feed fheep than other 

 cattle. Now the average of fheep cannot 

 be taken here, as the right of commonage 

 would totally deftroy all conclufions ; it 

 would not be the fize of farms that de- 

 termined the point, but the commons. It 

 is every where a well known fact, that 

 fmall farms, under an hundred acres for 

 inftance, maintain fcarce any j unlefs with 

 a right of common. 



It is for this reafon that a general idea 

 in disfavour of large farms, with refpecl: to 

 this article of cattle, mould not be formed, 

 without reflecting, that fheep are their 

 peculiar flock; and a track of land fo ap- 

 plied equally promotes the public good, 

 with the keeping any other ftock. 



But I venture this obfervation in ge- 

 neral, and not particularly refpecting the 

 farms in Northumberland * , &c. The ge- 



* Of thirty farms above four hundred acres, near 

 half are in Northumberland, viz. fourteen j and two on 

 moors in Craven and Wejlmor eland. 



neral 



