Exmoor Reclamation. 
89 
it can be called a system, perhaps accounts for the North Devon 
men making such indifferent hill shepherds. They possess 
little of the practical science that distinguishes the Scotch hill 
flock-owners. 
The steep hill-sides, below the limed reclaimed flats at the 
top, get the benefit of the washings of the lime, and the feeding 
and treading of the sheep which go on it to lie and chew the 
cud after feasting off the rape. 
The first experiment commenced on Exmoor in 1868 was 
carried out with the above described success on one hundred 
and forty acres of Duerdown. This pasture was eaten by sheep 
for four years. Fbr the last three years (1877) it has been mown 
for hay ; and after a dressing of one cwt. and a quarter of nitrate 
of soda and salt has yielded two tons an acre of hay of excellent 
quality. 
The great advantage of this system over the ordinary more 
elaborate and more expensive plans is that the instrument of 
reclamation, the rape-crop, feeds mutton that pays all the ex- 
penses of liming in the first year. 
Mr. Smyth finds that rape pays best when grown in May, 
but is then very subject to fly. From June to August the crop 
is more certain. 
The sheep and lambs sold off the first rape-crops before 
November pay for the lime bill, due, according to the custom of 
the country, at Christmas. 
The great object of the reclamation of these moors is to 
produce permanent pasture, which can be maintained by applying 
judicious lime dressings from time to time. With this oljject 
in view, it is Mr. Smyth's opinion that corn, that is oats, should 
not be grown on reclaimed moor-land before it is laid down 
to pasture, as the grass is never so good after a corn-crop. 
Indeed, a hill-farmer will find it more profitable to grow oats 
only for the use of his own horses. The ripening is always 
uncertain, and on recently reclaimed peat-land oats are apt to 
grow rank and flaggy. His returns must be from horses, meat, 
wool, and dairy produce. 
Some of the best permanent grasses to sow on the improved 
peats are: Timothy grass {Phleum pratense), Yorkshire hg{Holcus 
lanatus), and Cock's-foot {^Dactylis^ glomerata), with rye-grass 
and perennial clovers. 
Mr. Knight established his Scotch shepherds either in some 
of the farm-steadings built between 1843 and 1850, or in sub- 
stantial cottages, with a garden and grass for a cow attached to 
each. There they dwell, with their wives and children, in 
solitude as complete as on their native hills. 
The flocks consist of one hirsel of hardy black-faced High- 
