566 
Afjriculture of North Wales. 
The ordinary Modes of Farmhig, and Courses of Cropinnij. 
The first thing that strikes the inquirer on entering Wales for 
agricultural and statistical information, is, that it is essentially a 
pastoral district, tillage being in most cases made subservient to 
grazing. There are many farmers in North Wales who do not 
grow one single ounce of grain : nay, I was assured that some 
did not even cultivate a potato-patch. This latter circumstance 
appeared to me so surprising that I made most minute inquiries 
on the subject ; and from a close examination of the grounds 
about, and also to a considerable distance from, the dwellings of 
several farmers in the alj)ine slate district of Caernarvonshire, I 
am bound to give credence to my informants. In such cases the 
farmer, and what few assistants he may have, obtain their supplies 
of oatmeal from the nearest miller or town. Such farms are 
almost solely mountain sheep-farms of great extent. A few 
black cattle may be grazed in addition, such being desirable ; a 
little milk; butter, or cheese being an agreeable addition to vary 
the modes in which oatmeal is usually used as an article of diet. 
Black cattle are only kept when some deep, wet, and rushy soil, 
generally peat, exists in the hollows, which yields a crop of indif- 
ferent hay, and affords the only winter fodder for the cattle. If 
any bedding is given, it consists of rushes and fern. The miser- 
able manure such provender and bedding must produce can 
easily be conceived by the fanner who spends hundreds per 
annum for oil-cake in order to enrich his manure heap. As if it 
Avas not already sufficiently poor, the manure, when heaved out of 
doors, is thrown into an irregular heap; and as the oflices are 
usually placed on the side of a declivity, it not unfrequently 
happens — in fact, oftener so than otherwise — that the place se- 
lected is a hollow formed in the bed of some small watercourse, 
which might persuade an observer that the object was to bleach 
the heap by the joint action ol the atmosphere and water. After 
undergoing the process stated, it is eventually spread in spring on 
the meadows by way of top-dressing, if such a term as meadow 
is applicable to places, the hay from which, when stacked, is 
nearly as black as a bean-stack. These, of course, are extreme 
cases, but such things exist, and as a faithful chronicler 1 feel it 
my duty to describe them. With respect to the vale of Clwyd, 
I will give an extract from a letter favoured me by a gentleman 
resident at Ruthin; the modes of farming which it describes, so 
far as tillage is concerned, accord with my own observations and 
the information received from others : — 
" In tlic fertile vale of Chvyd I consider there exist two descriptions 
of occupation, one ranging from 150 to 300 acres, tlie other from 60 to 
150. The former tenantry arc a respectable class of people, generally 
