Farming of Cumherlaud. 



243 



does not exceed 20^. or 21s. for the wood- work, and no exactness 

 of dimensions need be observ ed. It has been suggested that a row 

 or two of teeth in the hmder plank might be found useful 

 in lighter soils : but, in weedy ground, the roots would collect 

 before the teeth, and, by raising the ribbed surface, would throw 

 the implement out of work. 



The skim-plough is hardly kno^n here except by description. 



The waggon and two-horse cart are alike unknown in the 

 agriculture of the county, and the single-horse cart hardly dates 

 two centuries back. Even the clumsy cart* mounted on solid 

 wheels was not in general use till the middle of the last century : 

 before that period only yeomen and the larger occupiers could 

 boast of carts ; the produce of the farms, hay, corn, and peats, 

 being brought in on railed sledges, and the more portable 

 articles on packhorses.f Coal and lime were conveyed by the 

 last method across the miry moors and commons, where tracks, 

 instead of roads, existed, till near the end of the eighteenth 

 century ; ^ and manv persons now living remember the very 

 common use of the packhorse, both as the general canier from 

 town to town, and as the vehicle of transit for grain to the mill 

 or market, and for manure, 6c c, on the farm. 



The father of the present Mr. John Dodgson, of Roanstrees, 

 in Bewcastle, was the first§ to have a spoke-wheel cart made in 

 that vicinity, and the neighbours said " it wad aye be turnin'." 

 W hen the roads began to be improved, || the utter unsuitableness 

 of the clog-wheel and tumble-car w^as readily admitted, and its 

 use, compared with the modern cart, soon acknovvdedged to be a 

 waste of time. So convinced were all parties of the superiority 

 of the spoke-wheel cart and its improved form and construction, 

 that a very few years at the end of the last and beginning of the 

 present century effected an entire revolution in the carrying 

 department of the farm, and substituted the present light and 

 easy-drawn vehicle as the confirmed and approved cart of the 

 country for general purposes. 



A few years ago the late Mr. Studholme, of Morton House, 

 and tvio or three others, agreed that each should purchase a cart 

 of the best construction he could find, and have the vrhole com- 

 pared at Carlisle. The one bought by Mr. Studholme was 



* Called a " tumble car" in the east of Cumberland, and a " clog-^heel car" in 

 the Trest. Both appellations are very expressive. 



t Hay -was made into trusses with ropes, or packed into large sheets, and carried 

 on horseback, in the ^vest : some so late as 1824. 



X A string of seven or eight pack-ponies might be seen laden ^vith coals in the 

 streets of Whitehaven so late as 1830. conducted by one -woman of nearly eighty 

 years of age. These -were too near the era of rail-ways to be longer encouraged, 

 and are the last of the class remembered bv the writer. 



§ About 1785. 



11 Many of the ancient cart-roads -«-ere laid -with broad flag-stones through the 

 soft places. 



