Agriculture of Berkshire. 
33 
In a great many places we find the buildings have been erected 
from time to time as occasion required, without any regard to unity 
of design or uniformity of style, and are so ill-connected as to 
render it impossible to carry off the water from them, which is 
allowed to saturate the manure in the yards, and, after extracting 
much of its valuable property, to run off, through some drain, to 
the nearest pond, cesspool, or ditch. 
The Berkshire farmers are quite alive to the value of good 
manure, and do not spare expense in making it by keeping their 
yards well filled with stock and well littered with straw, of which 
they have an ample supply in consequence of so great a portion of 
tlieir land being arable, which also their covenants often prohibit 
them from selling. The average quantity of rain that falls is no 
more than is required to moisten and make the manure, when the 
buildings are so arranged that the water from them can be carried 
off and not allowed to run into the yards ; but where they are 
unconnected, as I before described, much injury is done to the 
manure which the farmer has no means of remedying : even if 
he turns the drainings to a good account, as many do, he still 
remembers that it is first robbed from his yards. 
The large sheep-farms in the centre of the county are notorious 
for the inconvenient situation of the homesteads. In most cases 
the farms are laid out so as to take in a portion of the vale, hill, 
and down-land, and run in narrow strips of not more than half 
a mile in width, and of two or three miles, or even more, in 
length ; here Ave almost invariably find the homestead placed at 
the extreme end in the village, with a few plots of meadow 
around it. Hence arose the necessity of constructing what are 
generally called the " down farms," which often consist of one or 
two barns, a shed, stable, yard, and cart-house, Avith one or two 
cottages. A few carthorses stand here, and here some of the corn 
is stacked that the straw may be converted into manure near 
at hand, in order to save the carting both of corn and manure. 
On some farms there is a lone barn or two in addition to these, 
where a yard is made for the sheep to pick over the straw grown 
close at hand and make it into manure. 
This state of things is very unsatisfactory in one respect, and 
must undergo a change as the condition of the poor improves. 
No respectable man with a family cares to live in these lonely 
situations, where, in addition to other inconveniences, his chil- 
dren are almost deprived of the means of education. - Under- 
carters and boys of good character, who are required to attend to 
tlie horses, mostly object to such isolated places, where they are 
deprived of the means of improvement, and, in most instances, 
their comforts are uncared for : consequently, we often find the 
most unsatisfactory characters settled in these localities. 
VOL. XXI. D 
