Farming of Cumberland. 



275 



make on a small scale in 1852. The growth of this grass was 

 quite equal to that of the Italian rye-grass, and its juices of a 

 highly saccharine quality, judging by the taste. 



Farm-Houses. 



Bailey and Culley, in their survey of the county made in 1805, 

 say that " through the greatest part of the county \he farm-houses 

 are remarkably well built of stone ;" and, in a note, add, " except 

 a small district in the neighbourhood of Abbey Holme and the 

 north-east extremity of the county, particularly in the parishes of 

 Bewcastle, Stapleton, Kirklinton, Kirkandrews, and Arthuret, 

 where they are mostly built of mud or clay, and form a miserable 

 contrast to the buildings in the other parts of the county." 

 They might have added Scaleby, RocklifF, Brough, Drigg, and a 

 few others to the list of parishes enumerated above, and also that 

 the mud-walled buildings (provincially termed " clay daubies")* 

 were almost invariably roofed with thatch, consisting of straw, 

 rushes, or heather. 



These old farm-houses, judging from the samples still existing, 

 and from recollection of numbers pulled down and rebuilt, once 

 the residences of our forefathers, were of a very humble descrip- 

 tion. In those parts of the county where stone suitable for 

 building purposes was scarce, or, from the deficiency of proper 

 quarrying implements, difficult to procure, and which the sledges 

 and pack-horses of the day were ill-qualified to remove, recourse 

 was naturally had to such materials as were most at hand. In 

 those places, wood and clay being more plentiful, buildings of 

 those materials were constructed, by first erecting the main tim- 

 bers. These timbers, corresponding with what are now called 

 principals, were then called couples, and consisted of two trees 

 chosen with natural bends. These, when pinned together at the 

 smaller ends, and set up in a triangular fashion, with the butt- 

 ends let into the ground, and the curves bending outwards below, 

 were again fastened by a cross-beam, high enough to admit of 

 persons walking under it. The cross-beam in the outhouses was 

 called the jenny-bauk, from its being the usual domicile of the 

 barn owl. 



When a sufficient number of these couples were set up and 

 connected by pannions — all being of half-squared oak — the clay 

 w^alls, tempered and mixed with straw, were begun upon the sur- 

 face of the soil, and carried up to " man-height," that is, 6 or 

 7 feet, and then roofed with split oak rafters and thatch. The 

 doors and window-holes were small, on the principle of a small 

 entrance being more easily defended than a larger one, light 



* The old clay walls, when broken down and applied to the land, are found to 

 be excellent manure. 



