Farming of Cumherland. 



217 



makes a start it advances rapidly, — the pastures are filled and the 

 hay-grounds ready for cutting in a very short time. The hay- 

 grass is mostly of good quality, but requires much drying ; though 

 when the season does arrive, it is generally good and not much 

 interrupted ; and when well over, winter comes at an earlier 

 period than in any other part of the county. 



The bridge at Alston is said to be 300 feet above the level of 

 the villages of Melmerby and Gamblesby, on the opposite side of 

 Hartside mountain, where the land is very fertile, but too high 

 even there for much dependence on wheat. 



The high grounds of Castle Sowerby and of Hutton Moor,* 

 where seldom any grain except oats is grown, enable the harvest- 

 men to fall back upon them when the harvests of other parts are 

 over. The crop, however, is sometimes cut amid showers of snow 

 or hail, and grouse are often known to come down from the 

 mountains to feed on the stooks on Hutton Moor during snow. 

 There is another tract of hill-land, comprising the farms of 

 Thistlebottom, Snow Hill, and the upper part of Bolton Park, 

 where oats and turnips are occasionally cultivated to a con- 

 siderable extent, by way of renewing and improving the land for 

 pasturage. This land lies at a great elevation (apparently at 900 

 to 1000 feet) ; the soil is a free loam on the carboniferous lime- 

 stone, the highest parts capped with millstone grit. High as it 

 is, oats usually produce a great bulk of straw, and, in good 

 seasons, a fair return of grain upon the limestone soil ; but in 

 gloomy and untoward seasons, or on any part with a northern 

 aspect, the crop is often to cut in a green state, sometimes so late 

 as November, and is then worthless. The soil over the grit will 

 scarcely feed oats or even ripen the straw in the best seasons, 

 and some loss has been incurred in proving this fact. 



There is another elevated district extending along the north 

 side of Binsey Fell to the ancient encampment at Caermote, com- 

 prising many hundred acres of fertile soil on limestone and 

 contorted transition rocks, where oats are the only kind of grain 

 that can be grown. In all these districts the oats are sown as 

 early as the season will permit, sometimes early in March. The 

 mists of autumn occasionally hang over the crops for many days, 

 when all is bright and sunny in the lower districts : and though 

 it sometimes happens that the grain of the hills is more in 

 quantity than that of the lower lands, it is always of a coarse and 

 husky quality, and is sometimes so soft and worthless as to be fit 

 only for carting into the straw-yards for the young cattle and 

 pigs. It is found necessary now and then to break up these high 

 grounds for the sake of renovating the pasture ; this, with a 



* Hutton Moor is from 800 to 900 feet above the sea. 



