Farming of Monmouthshire. 
285 
and tlie perpetual vegetation that is going on, even in the winter 
months, seem in so peculiar a manner favourable to grass that 
we cannot but lament to see so much under plough. There 
does not, however, appear to be very great attention paid to the 
management of grass lands generally through the county ; and 
irrigation, which has produced such astonishing results when it 
has been adopted on a small scale, does not meet with the atten- 
tion which it most certainly merits." Many a rivulet in this land 
of streams might be brought by judicious and inexpensive 
application to do its part in clothing with a permanent verdure 
places quite inaccessible to the plough, and at least doubling the 
crop of hay in the vale. The levels of Caldicot and Wentlloog 
in "a rainy season" produce an abundance of grass of good 
quality, but they are susceptible of very great improvement. In 
the neighbourhood of Abergavenny, near Monmouth (where the 
wet lands contiguous to the Trothy are being effectually drained 
under the direction of Mr. A. O. Wyatt, agent to His Grace the 
Duke of Beaufort), and at Usk, very great care is taken of 
the lands intended for hay, and good average crops are produced ; 
but these are favoured localities. 
To prove that the county in its least fertile parts is admirably 
adapted to the growth of grass, it is only necessary to visit the 
Rhymney or the Tredegar valley, where infinite pains are taken 
with the land, under the energetic and spirited management of 
the iron-masters. Larger crops are produced there, although 
upon the coal-measures, than almost in any other part of the 
county. 
The fields are every season carefully weeded and cleared, and 
an abundance of stable manure and ashes is applied in the autumn 
or early spring. The whole of the crop is cut with mowing 
machines, and the greatest care is paid to the "making" of it. 
It is invariably put up into heaps overnight, and opened out 
when the dew is off in the early morning; consequently, even if 
some rain falls, the "starch" is not all washed out of it, wliich 
would certainly be the case if it were left abroad ; and it retains 
the smell of good well-made hay, even when cut out of the stack 
for consumption. 
It is very observable that even if no rain falls, hay made in 
this way alone retains its peculiar aroma. 
Hill Sheep-farming. 
Some sixty years ago, before the establishment of the iron- 
works above alluded to, in the mountainous portions of Mon- 
mouthshire, bordering on South Wales, the whole farming 
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