LITTLE GADDESDEN. 303 



laid out on hay and straw for the sheep at times when 

 bad weather had compelled him to keep them at home. 

 Some assured us that when a man is owner of thirty or 

 forty sheep he can [T. I. p. 300], by only folding them 

 on another man's arable, gain for himself in the year 

 from £10 to £12 sterling. Others said that if a man has 

 150 sheep, he can in two weeks' time just manure an acre 

 of land with them, and receives commonly from the 

 farmer 16s. in payment for each acre of land he so 

 manures. 



The sheep are kept no more than one night on each 

 place in the field, but they stand tolerably thick. The 

 farmer leaves the man entire freedom to bait his sheep 

 in his own way, and pays him, nevertheless, the above- 

 named summa for each acre of land. Some of these 

 sheep-men, Fara-man, sell their sheep in the winter, 

 and buy others in the spring instead, from the districts 

 where they keep many sheep. They do this for the 

 reason that in mid-winter they cannot so easily fold 

 sheep on the arable, but are then often obliged to keep 

 them at home and feed them with all kinds of straw and 

 hay. 



Late in the evening we returned to Little Gaddesden. 



The 8th April, 1748. 

 Kyrko-tak af halm eller Ljung. 



Church-roofs of straw or ling. 



Mr. Ellis told us that he had seen, on his travels in 

 Suffolk, churches with stone walls, but for want of some- 

 thing else, thatched with straw in the same way as 

 houses are here thatched with it. Such a straw thatch 

 he said may last 100 years. A gentleman from Cumber- 

 land told us the same, that in one place and another 

 there are churches in Cumberland thatched with ling. 



