Farmim/ of the North Ridinr/ of Yorkshire. 
515 
covered with soil and the grass of a poorer quality, but is never- 
theless very valuable in producing cheese. On the lower and 
more productive portions cattle are grazed and fed for the 
markets of the West Riding of Yorkshire and Lancashire ; })igs 
are fed on the milk after the cheese has been made : and thus the 
exports are fat cattle, sheep grazed on the more perpendicular 
uplands, bacon, lard, and cheese, richer perhaps than even the 
Derbyshire or Cheshire, but destitute of the peculiar flavour of 
the latter, and more mild generally than the former. The calves are 
partly reared in the valleys and partly sold off, and the cattle are 
purchased at the Falkirk and other trysts of the north. It is no 
uncommon thing for one beast to be fatted on an acre. The 
main duties of the dairy devolve upon the females of the house; 
and as there are no green crops, and no corn, the cattle have to 
depend through a long winter, usually severe, upon the hay ex- 
clusively; hence, the hay-time is principally the busy season, 
and a more catching and critical time, in this rainy district, it is 
hardly possible to conceive. 
A small portion is usually mown, turned assiduously, and 
always placed [in lap-cocks, i. e. raked into small heaps of the 
dimensions just capable of being 
taken up in the arms and then 
shaken, so as to present an even 
surface ; it is folded round the 
arm, and so doubled, set down 
firmly on the ground, and there re- 
mains, until a promise of another 
favourable day, when they are 
thrown out and exposed to the 
sun again ; and this is repeated 
until the whole is fit for " pike," or conical heaps, containing 
from half a ton to a ton. These, after undergoing: an incipient 
sweating or fermentation, are combined in a stack and undergo 
another fermentation, and possess a grateful aroma peculiarly 
rich, and its nutritive character enables cattle to get fat upon it 
alone without any subsidiary food. The limestone is of the purest 
possible character, and it is extraordinary what powerful effects 
are produced by its application even upon those grass lands lying 
immediately upon it. The extraordinary phenomenon of coarse 
benty grasses giving way before rich and thick-set white clover, 
— even where no seed is sown — on its application to the land, is 
not easily accounted for, except on the hypothesis that the seeds 
are existing in the soil in a condition unfavourable to germina- 
tion, and are stimulated by the application ; but there is no 
doubt whatever of the fact. 
The only bar to productiveness in those rich valleys is the 
Hay " Lap-Cock." 
