418 
Farming of Dorsetshire. 
vale district. Beef is sent from this vale in considerable cjuan- 
tities to the fortnightly markets of Salisbury, Shaftesbury, Stur- 
minster, and Stalbridge, and is also sold to contractors and sent to 
Poole, Portsmouth, &c., without passing through any market, 
and it is computed that tliis district alone sends as many fat 
pigs to the London markets as either of the counties of Somerset 
or Devon, one dealer at Gillingham sending on an average 200 
a-week. It is reckoned that the summer run of a beast should 
pay the grazier 11, a-month, and that a stall-fed beast ought to 
bring him 85. a-week for " board, lodging, and attendance ;" 
the latter being most attentively rendered by the l)est grci?iers, 
some of wliQm keep one hand entirely employed in looking after 
the beasts in the stalls, cutting turnips for them, currycombing 
them, &c. Messrs. Coate, Mr. Senior, Mr. R. R. Harvey, and 
others, graze very heavily and contribute much to the neigh- 
bouring show of fat stock, and on one occasion an ox weighing 
upwards of 100 score was shown by one of the first-named gen- 
tlemen at the annual exhibition of the Sturminster Agricultural 
Society. The young beasts are not generally reared in the vale, 
but bought by the dealers from the dairies of North Wilts, &c., 
but most dairy farmers raise sufficient stock to replace their 
losses by barreners, &c. The general mode of fattening beasts 
is to buy them (mostly barreners) at Candlemas and keep them 
on hay or perhaps a few roots until May, when they are turned 
on to the pastures. About the beginning of July the foremost 
are fit for market, and if keep is plentiful more barreners are 
bought to replace those sold. About the 1st of October hay is 
given in the field, and by the 1st of November, if tlie grazier is 
provided with roots and stall-room (which is not always the case), 
they are taken into house and fed on hay, roots, and, in some 
instances, corn and oil-cake for the (Christmas market. The 
general time of stocking tire pastures is May the 12tli, or nearly 
a fortnight later than the Somerset farmers stock the vale of 
Taunton Deane. There are but few farms devoted entirely to 
pasture, but where they are, they are taken better care of than 
where the farmer's attention is divided between arable and 
pasture. The want of straw is a great drawback on such farms, 
and there is also in many instances a want of sufficient stall- 
room in winter. Some dairy farmers mow the same land every 
year, putting all the manure they can collect ujion it, mostly 
during the winter frosts. Others mow and feed alternately. A 
good deal of cider is made in the vale, chiefly of a rough kind 
for home consumption. 
The rotations on arable lands arc, as we have indicated, very 
various. Some farmers grow wheat and roots alternately, the 
roots being swedes ov mangolds for stall-fed beasts. Another 
