Farm-Prize Competition, 1880. 
487 
mountain-paths, now trod only by shepherds or casual tourists, 
was guarded as a family secret by the dalesmen ; — he would not 
be a very intelligent wayfarer who did not associate the scenery 
of the country with some of these reminiscences : and I trust I 
may be pardoned this brief allusion to a period whose annals 
are written in many a song and legend, and whose history is 
enshrined in many a hoary castle and ruined tower, now devoted 
to the peaceful pursuits of husbandry. 
Again, the prosaic 'reporter of the commonplaces of agricul- 
tural progress or routine may be going beyond his province 
should he venture an allusion to that poetic halo which has 
been especially shed in modern times upon the Lake and Moun- 
tain districts of these counties. And yet it is difficult to move 
in a region, every part of which is associated with the genius 
of Wordsworth, or of some other of that famous gi'oup of men 
who made it their school as well as their home, and forget the 
part they have had in increasing its attractions. The names of the 
Coleridges and Southey, of Christopher North and De Quincey, 
crowd to one's memory in connection with that of the great 
man already mentioned ; and in our own day the great prose- 
poet, art-critic, and, perhaps I might add, moral philosopher of 
the century, has also made it his home. If Rydal Mount will 
ever be associated with the genius of Wordsworth, so in future 
times should Brantwood be with that of John Ruskin. 
But to proceed to more relevant topics. It is not only its 
history, or its natural beauty, or \\\e genius loci which still lingers 
in the land, which makes these counties so interesting. There 
is also in them much to engage the attention of the agricul- 
turist. It is a land where small proprietors — " statesmen," as 
they are locally called — have until lately always been the back- 
bone of the country, and therefore where some politicians of the 
day who are anxious to test the experiment of peasant pro- 
prietorship in other quarters might perhaps learn some useful 
lessons. Turn then to any reliable account of these counties, 
and we shall find that these small proprietors are gradually, but 
surely, diminishing in number, and that the extinctiori of this 
class of men is probably not very far distant. Mr. Webster's 
' Report on Westmoreland' (Vol. IV., New Series, p. 8) is very 
emphatic on this point. Unfortunately our own observations 
did not extend to the remnants of this once important class of 
owners. The competition for the Farm Prizes was by desire of 
the Local Committee limited to farmers paying a bond fide rent 
for all land in their occupation, and we were therefore precluded 
from making what might have been an interesting comparison. 
Before I say a few words about the geology of the district 
under consideration, let me dispel a fallacy which I know is 
