156 



State of Agriculture in Northdniberland. 



mains to show in detail what the practice is in the best districts, 

 which I understand to be the object required. And at the com- 

 mencement it may be necessary to specify which those districts are, 

 and why they are entitled to a preference over the others. The 

 county of Northumberland, as is well known, consists in great 

 measure of mountain pasture and of bleak unprofitable moors ; 

 while the vales, beautiful and fertile as they are, by which these 

 mountains are intersected, and the level country on the coast, 

 form but the exception to the general rule. In the southern 

 part of the county, the valleys of North and South Tyne, with 

 others branching from them, and also that of the Wansbeck, con- 

 tain land of excellent quality, and afford many specimens of supe- 

 rior husbandry; but in general the farms are on too small a 

 scale, and their occupiers too limited in means, to entitle them to 

 a place in the list of those distinguished agriculturists who 

 occupy extensive farms in the highly-cultivated districts of Glen- 

 dale and Bambrough Wards. The Vale of the Coquet, too, is 

 fertile and well cultivated; but in pointing to the parts of the 

 county to which the following remarks must be understood 

 especially to apply, I would take the line along the base of the 

 Cheviots, extending from Whittingham by Wooler to the banks 

 of the Tweed, as a district universally adapted to and occupied in 

 the turnip course of husbandry ; and that along the coast from 

 Warkworth to Berwick, as being of a stronger and heavier 

 quality of soil, and more generally fitted for the growth of wheat 

 and beans, intermixed however with many portions of fine turnip 

 loam and of rich grazing pasture ; in other parts of the county 

 which are not included within these limits, good farms and good 

 culture are to be found, and the same system prevails, though 

 with certain modifications, throughout. 



It will be necessary to treat of the two districts specified above, 

 separately ; but as the tenure on which farms are generally held 

 is a subject common to both, I shall begin by observing that the 

 custom prevails generally of letting farms upon leases for twenty- 

 one years, a custom which has tended very materially to increase 

 the value of property to the owner, and to produce the high 

 state of cultivation which is found to prevail in an especial 

 manner in the district extending from the source of the Till to 

 the Scottish border at Carham on the Tweed, comprising many 

 excellent farms, varying in annual rent from 500/. to upwards 

 of 2000/. The fall of rents and the dissatisfaction or change of 

 tenants after the year 1815, together with the apprehension of 

 still farther changes, had the effect of curtailing the length of 

 leases in many instances, but still on the best estates and largest 

 farms the term of twenty-one years is adhered to ; on others, 

 where less capital is to be employed, and where few extensive im- 



