Agriculture of North Wales. 
571 
neighbourhood a great many of tlie Galloway breed of cattle are reared ; 
also a good many crosses from the Galloways ; the stock is mostly sold 
at the fairs. Some of the farms in the three last-named places will feed 
from 20 to 40 pigs, weighing on an average 20 score each. DufiVyn : 
soil of a sandy and peaty nature, resting on a gravelly subsoil upon blue 
clay ; stones principally greenstone and slate. Cropping : first, oats ; 2nd 
year, potatoes, very seldom swedes ; in the drills they dibble two rows 
of beans; across the top they are in distance aijout 4 inches from each 
other, lengthways about 12 inches, so that every potato set is between 
4 bean sets; they answer well ; 3rd crop, wheat; 4th bnrley, sometimes 
laid down. Good fat pigs are sent from this neighbourhood. Dolgellan 
is their fair. 
' Cheese. — In the smallest farms of the county cheese is made (in fact, 
where they only keep from one to three cows) ; you will often meet with 
them of no greater weight than 3 lbs. ; they are principally skim-milk; 
but on the large farms they make a certain quantity for home consump- 
tion of skim-milk, and what they make to sell is made from one meal's 
milk skimmed, and the other meal's milk with the cream in it, which 
makes pretty middling sort of stuff; it generally goes to Chester, Wol- 
verhampton, &c. ; price about 4rf. to 4^rf. per lb. 
' Butter. — The butter of the county is mostly put up in tubs or mugs, 
weighing about 75 to 84 lbs. each. Chester, Liverpool, and Shrews- 
bury, are the markets; price in Dolgellan about 10c?. per lb., salt, an 
article the Welsh are too free with in their butter : if they wouhl use 
less they would sell their butter at a better price, and have a quicker sale 
for it. 
' JVages — taking the qualities of the servants into consideration, are 
high: I would rather pay double the wages to a Lancashire servant, 
either male or female, than I would to a Welsh servant ; they are gene- 
rally crammed with conceit, stubborn, &c. ; and those who have not seen 
farming in England, fancy all the knowledge the English have of agri- 
culture is derived from them, when in fact they are a century behind 
the English ; — show them a good short-horn beast, they will say — not 
good, not black : show any of the improved breeds of pigs or sheep, 
their remark would be — of pigs, that their ears are not long enough, their 
ears ought to cover their eyes, so that they cannot see, then they will 
fatten ; but if their ears are short and cock up, they can see everything, 
and it is impossible for them to fatten- Their remarks about sheep are 
quite as ridiculous: mind, these remarks do not apply to Flintshire and 
Denbighshire ; these counties border on England, consequently the 
inhabitants are a little more civilised. Men's wages: head ploughman, 
living in the house, from 9/. to 15/. per annum, according to the size or 
respectability of the farm ; 2nd ploughman, 6/. to 9/. ; ploughman out 
of doors, finding his own meat, 20^/. per day. The average quantity a 
man will plough in a day is not more than ^ an acre ; and in mowing 
they will not get over much more ground, besides doing their work very 
imperfectly. Shepherd's wages from 6/. to 12/., living in the house; 
cowman's wages, 5/. to Si. living in the house ; lads from thirteen to 
eighteen years, from 30*. to 4/. per annum, according to strength and 
VOL. YII. 2 Q 
