488 The Cumberland and Westmoreland 
pretty common among untravelled " Southrons," and even 
among those who have perhaps made a hurried tour of " the 
Lakes ;" and that is, the non-importance of Cumberland and 
Westmoreland in an agricultural point of view. That a good 
proportion of these counties is the " land of the mountain and 
the flood," and more legitimately the " playground of England " 
than the scene of agricultural activity, cannot be denied ; but a 
not inconsiderable portion of Cumberland is of no greater eleva- 
tion than many of the midland counties of England, and is of 
that gently undulating character which presents few difficulties 
to the cultivator of the soil. The Physical Map of the county 
attached to Mr. Dickinson's Report will give a good general 
idea of the very considerable area of this section, though 
Mr. Dickinson's description given on the map * of " Lands 
where Wheat is usually grown " requires considerable modifica- 
tion in the present day, when that cereal scarcely pays for 
cultivation even in districts of more favourable soil and climate. 
The consideration of the latter factor, viz. the climate, is all 
important to the farmers of this northern district, where harvest 
is necessarily a late and often a tedious operation ; and in 
many parts the cultivation of all cereals, except oats, has been 
abandoned. 
In the Table which occupies pages 489, 490, I have given some 
agricultural statistics which cannot fail, I think, to be inte- 
resting to the reader. From this Table it will be seen that the 
proportion of cultivated land to the total area in the county of 
Cumberland is by no means despicable, approaching nearly 
to 60 per cent, of the whole surface; and that. even in West- 
moreland, with its rugged hill-ranges, no less than 49^ per cent, 
is more or less cultivated. 
An analysis of the figures there given will, however, show 
how strikingly in some particulars the cultivation of the soil 
differs from that pursued in the more southern regions of 
England. It will be noted that Westmoreland in 1878 and 
1879 grew little more than 1000 acres of wheat, and that Cum- 
berland last year produced only 16,000 acres of the same cereal. 
The area of barley, it will be observed, is extremely limited, but 
the acreage of oats in each county is considerable, amounting in 
Cumberland to about one-eighth of the whole cultivated surface, 
and in Westmoreland to about a fifteenth. 
The columns on p. 490 are, however, those to which I desire 
particularly to call attention, viz. that section in which I 
have tabulated in succession the corn-crops, the green crops, 
the rotation-grasses, and the permanent pasture for the ten years 
* ' Joiirnal of the Koyal Agricultural Society,' vol. xiii. (old series) p. 207. 1852. 
