Farming of Cumberland. 295 



grass commences to grow, they are depastured till nearly the time 

 when the forward meadows ought to be cut.* 



It would seem almost in vain to struggle with the customary 

 rains of July on the western or " wet side " of England in hay- 

 making, with a fall of rain in that month, amounting, in most 

 years, to more than falls in the other summer months ; and unless 

 the meadows are better drained, managed and manured, and shut up 

 much earlier, and every other facility given to their early growth, 

 it is in vain, in ordinary years, to attempt the meadow haymaking 

 so early as June ; but when an early season does occur, every 

 hand that can be spared from the turnip work should be put to 

 the hay, to have it quickly secured, as the quality of early and 

 quickly-made hay usually compensates for the deficiency in quan- 

 tity, and the fog or after-growth is much heavier as well as better. 



Very little meadow grass is cut a second time in the same year. 

 It is only on the better class of meadows that fog can be grown in 

 any quantity. On many of the inferior meadows cut about August, 

 the fog is not worth half-a-crown an acre, and the marks of the 

 scythe may be discerned on them till the following spring. 



The greater part of the meadow hay is made in August, which 

 month usually averages less rain than falls in July. Until 

 some cheap and effective method, in these days of invention, is 

 discovered of drying crops by artificial means, the Cumberland 

 farmer must content himself with " making hay when the sun 

 shines," whether the month be June, July, or August. 



The Cumberland farmer cannot claim any credit for his supe- 

 rior system of haymaking. His main object is to secure it dry 

 enough for keeping, with as little labour as can possibly be given 

 to it ; and his anxiety to get it, in our precarious climate, is so 

 great that he is often compelled to overlook the important object 

 of obtaining quality in order to be able to secure it at all.f It 

 happens that the district having most meadow-land is generally 

 most thinly inhabited ; and so many of the hay- farms being at a 

 distance of 6, 8, and 10 miles or more, from towns and villages 

 having labour of this kind to dispose of, and the uncertainty of 

 the weather continuing fine if help were brought, coupled with 

 the froward assurance and unskilfulness of many of the town 

 labourers, which the retired demeanour of most country people 



* Plants, as well as animals, are the creatures of habit, though in a lesser degree ; 

 and when the meadow-grasses are constantly retarded from perfecting their seeds 

 beyond the period ordained by nature, it is reasonable to infer that, when the cause 

 is extended over a succession of generations, the effect is likely to be a slowly- 

 acquired but confirmed habit of not attaining maturity till a later period of the 

 season. This is a proved fact in horticulture. 



t The writer recollects the season of 1816, when a range of meadow-land, in 

 which he was engaged, was flooded three times before the crop was cut, and 

 fourteen or fifteen after, in the months of July and August. Of course the crop 

 was useless, and little hay was tolerably got in that year. 



VOL. XIII. X 



