86 
Exmoor Reclamation. 
low rentals, which has been caused bj the inclosure of the com- 
mons, has been turned to good account by the hard-working and 
intelligent labouring class of North Devon and West Somerset. 
The patois of the inhabitants of the Exmoor Hill parishes, 
fifty or sixty years ago, was wholly unintelligible to ordinary 
Englishmen. A little book entitled ' An Exmoor Scolding, and 
Exmoor Courtship, in all the propriety and decency of the Ex- 
moor Language, with a Glossary,' was compiled by a neigh- 
bouring clergyman, aided by one Peter Lock, a blind itinerant 
fiddler and native of North Molton. It was printed about the 
year 1725, and passed through seven editions before 1771. It 
has since been several times reprinted at Exeter, and was con- 
sidered a text-book for young barristers on the Western Circuit. 
Witnesses from the hill country were generally aware of the 
advantage they possessed in having an unintelligible jargon 
to fall back upon when teased with questions they did not like 
to answer. An ordinary tourist can now make himself easily 
understood in passing through the Exmoor neighbourhood. 
During the last half-century the farmhouses and buildings 
in some of these parishes have been entirely rebuilt, and in all 
they have been much improved. The roads, from having been 
execrable, are now almost universally in a fair condition, and 
many new turnpike and leading roads have been made. 
Changes have taken place in the ownership of property. 
Many of the small freeholds have been sold to men of larger 
means ; and in some cases the old proprietors are living com- 
fortably as tenants on farms where they had starved as land- 
owners. The leases for lives are almost extinguished. Turnips 
have been encouraged. The old plan of exhausting one field 
at a time has been exchanged for improved methods which 
enable farmers to earn and pay a fair rent half-yearly. 
The extension of railway communication to South Molton 
and Barnstaple, as already mentioned, has opened the markets 
of England to the North Devon farmers. A further railway 
extension through the hill country is now being planned, which 
will, when carried out, by greatly cheapening and increasing 
the supply of lime, increase the produce and the value of the 
Exmoor district to an amount that no one living can at present 
estimate. 
The rents are paid to the day, and for the last dozen years 
there has not been an arrear on any Exmoor farm. The new 
principle in North Devon of breeding and feeding is at the 
bottom of the success. TJie old North Devon farmer sold his store- 
stock to the dealer ; the new one sells his stock fat to the butcher. 
In 1875 and 1876 West Country farmers were thriving on 
