xiv] FIRST LITERARY EFFORTS 207 



out of ten English commonly spoken, while directly you have crossed 

 the river, there is as great or a still greater preponderance of Welsh. In 

 the country a few miles round the seaport town of Swansea most of the 

 peculiarities I shall mention may be seen to advantage. In the'east and 

 south-eastern parts of Glamorganshire, called the Vale of Glamorgan, the 

 appearance of the country and the inhabitants is much more like those of 

 England. The land is very good and fertile, agriculture is much attended 

 to and practised on much better principles. This part, therefore (the 

 neighbourhood of the towns of Cowbridge and Cardiff), is excepted from 

 the following remarks. 



The South-Wales Farmer: His Modes of Agriculture, 

 Domestic Life, Customs, and Character. 



The generality of mountain farms in Glamorganshire and most other 

 parts of South Wales are small, though they may appear large when the 

 number of acres only is considered, a large proportion being frequently 

 rough mountain land. On the average they consist of from twenty to 

 fifty acres of arable land in fields of from four to six, and rarely so much 

 as ten acres ; the same quantity of rough, boggy, bushy, rushy pasture, 

 and perhaps as much, or twice as much, short-hay meadow, which term 

 will be explained hereafter; and from fifty to five hundred acres of rough 

 mountain pasture, on which sheep and cattle are turned to pick up their 

 living as they can. 



Their system of farming is as poor as the land they cultivate. In it 

 we see all the results of carelessness, prejudice, and complete ignorance. 

 We see the principle of doing as well as those who went before them, and 

 no better, in full operation ; the good old system which teaches us not to 

 suppose ourselves capable of improving on the wisdom of our forefathers, 

 and which has made the early polished nations of the East so inferior in 

 every respect to us, whose reclamation from barbarism is ephemeral 

 compared with their long period of almost stationary civilization. The 

 Welshman, when you recommend any improvement in his operations, will 

 tell you, like the Chinaman, that it is an " old custom," and that what did 

 for his forefathers is good enough for him. But let us see if the farmer is 

 so bad as this mode of doing his business may be supposed to make him. 

 In his farmyard we find the buildings with broken and gaping doors, and 

 the floors of the roughest pitching. In one corner is a putrid pond, the 

 overflowings of which empty themselves into the brook below. Into this 

 all the drainings from the dungheaps in the upper part of the yard run, 

 and thus, by evaporation in summer and the running into the brook in 

 winter, full one-half of the small quantity of manure he can obtain (from 

 his cattle spending the greater part of their time on the mountain and in 

 wet bushy pastures) is lost. 



The management of his arable land is dreadfully wasteful and injurious. 



