204 MY LIFE 



The only other subject on which I attempted to write at 

 this time was on the manners and customs of the Welsh 

 peasantry as they had come under my personal observation 

 in Brecknockshire and Glamorganshire. I have already de- 

 scribed how I came to take some interest in agriculture 

 while surveying in Bedfordshire, and the adjacent counties, 

 and this interest was increased by a careful study of Sir 

 Humphry Davy's " Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry, " 

 which I met with soon afterwards. I was, therefore, the 

 better able to compare the high class farming of the home 

 counties with that of the ignorant Welshmen, under all the 

 disadvantages of a poor soil and adverse climate, of distant 

 markets, and the almost entire absence of what the English 

 farmer would consider capital. 



Having lived for more than a year on an average Welsh 

 farm at Bryn-coch, while we had often lodged with small 

 farmers and labourers, or at public-houses whose landlords 

 almost always farmed a little land, I got to know a good deal 

 about their ways, and adding to this my own observation of 

 the kind of land they had to farm, and the difficulties under 

 which they laboured, I felt inclined to write a short account 

 of them in the hope that I might perhaps get it accepted by 

 some magazine as being sufficiently interesting for publica- 

 tion. I wrote it out fairly with this intention, and two years 

 afterwards, when in London, I took it to the editor of a maga- 

 zine (I forget which) who promised to look over it. He 

 returned it in a few days with the remark that it seemed 

 more suited for an agricultural journal than for a popular 

 magazine. I made no other offer of it, and as it was my 

 first serious attempt at writing, though I am afraid it is rather 

 dull, I present it to my readers as one of the landmarks in 

 my literary career. I may add that I have recently visited 

 the Upper Vale of Neath, and renewed my acquaintance with 

 its picturesque scenery. The chief differences that I saw are 

 that some of the smaller farm houses and cottages are in ruins, 

 and that the farms seem to be somewhat larger. Where the 

 ground is fairly level the mowing machine is now used, but in 

 the condition of the farm-yards and the style of the houses I 



