572 
TJie Cumberland and Westmoreland 
1877 milk made hbll., besides about 20/. sold at home, whilst 
butter in the same year made 142/., upwards of 700/. being- thus 
realised from dairy produce. In the farm year of 187r)-(), 773/. 
was made of milk, butter, and eggs, including a small item of 
12/. for sundries ; but the Frizington trade has fallen off much of 
late from bad times, and as only as many cows are kept as will 
provide milk and butter for the demand, the receipts vary con- 
siderably from year to year, and have lately been reduced much 
below the above amount. 
The great drawback to the winter keeping of cows is the 
deficiency of litter, which can seldom be afforded. 
The cows and feeders are kept in roomy byres, and the 
younger stock in sheds and stables. The season of 1879 was 
unfavourable, and the oat-straw and hay were very bad in quality. 
This necessitated a much larger consumption than usual of 
artificial food ; and cake, bran, and meal were never used so 
freely as during the last winter. 
A five-horse power turbine-wheel, driven by a never-failing 
beck which runs near the premises, does the threshing, chaff- 
cutting and pulping of roots. A large pulper by Benthall, 
together with a chaff-cutter, is set to work each morning before 
breakfast, and a sufficiency of food mixed for the day's consump- 
tion. The landlord found the turbine-wheel and threshing 
machinery, the whole of the carting and excavating and the 
remainder of the apparatus were provided at Mr. Leathes' own 
expense. 
Sheep. — The sheep stock must now be noticed. There were 
12G0 or thereabouts on the farm at our winter inspection, and 
nearly 1700 at our July visit. About 500 Herdwick ewes run 
on the fell in winter, besides a few " twinters." They come 
down to the lower grounds for lambing, which begins early in 
April, and should finish by the end of the same month. Only 
the cull ewes (about 114) are put to a Shropshire ram (or some- 
times to a Longwool Leicester), the remainder of the flock is 
kept pure. They are a very good class of sheep, and some of 
them were shown at Kilburn in 1879, where they must have 
been delighted to find that they carried with them the weather 
to which they are accustomed on their own mountain. Much 
care is taken in the selection of the ewes, and those which do not 
show proper Herdwick character are soon rejected. It is not 
an easy matter to keep these individualities. The temptations 
are great to cross the breed with some of the more improved 
races, and thus to get earlier maturity and heavier carcasses ; 
but the recognition of the fact that there are no sheep which 
can stand drought or wet, heat or cold, frost or snow, hurricane or 
hail, in an equal degree with these hardly little animals (at least 
