40 
Tour in England* 
sold to the graziers, or fatted for beef. The 
cattle used here for the plow, were mostly a 
large coarse mixed Devon or Hereford, together 
with various crosses of other kinds, and when 
worked they were harnessed to the plow like 
horses, and not unfrequently wore the blind 
bridle. For roadsters, they use all kinds, from 
the thoro-bred with its various crosses, down to 
little rats of ponies, for children’s hobbies, and 
ladies gigs and phaetons. 
Cows are not abundant, and are kept mostly 
for family purposes. They are generally of 
the Jersey tribe, more or less crossed with the 
common stock of the country, and now and then 
a Short Horn with its grades may be found, but 
these are rare. We saw a few of the old Not 
sheep remaining, crossed with the South Downs, 
which adds to their fineness of points, and other¬ 
wise greatly improves them. The pure South 
Downs are kept here also in large numbers, 
and crossed sometimes with the Cotswold. 
This they have done in order to increase their 
size and obtain heavier fleeces, but the mutton 
of this cross is not so desirable as the pure Down. 
However, killed as they generally are at one 
year old, the same objection will not hold 
against it, as when the animal is longer kept 
and loads on such a quantity of fat. 
If the Downs are in the neighborhood, the 
sheep are taken out by their shepherds every 
day during the season to pasture upon them. 
This change of food and exercise is very bene¬ 
ficial to their health, and every night they are 
brought home and folded with hurdles, on tares, 
clover, sain foin, or something of the kind, or 
3t is cut and fed them standing in an adjoining 
field. An acre of cultivated grass will thus 
keep a hundred sheep from seven to ten days. 
In the winter they are folded on the turnip 
fields, fed a little straw or hay, and allowed to 
dig the roots for themselves, or as is more 
generally done by good farmers, the roots are 
pulled and sliced in machines, and then put into 
troughs or boxes for the sheep to feed from. 
The English winters are totally different 
from ours, being rainy, foggy, and open, with 
little sun, high bleak winds, and the ground 
seldom frozen, and then only slightly; and 
snow rarely lying more than three or four days 
after falling. Hogs are kept in the barn-yards 
or small fields adjacent to the out buildino-s: 
and in their season, tares, clover, or any green 
food is cut and brought home to them to feed 
on; in addition, they have bran from the mills, 
brewers grains, and occasionally beans. They 
are also turned into the grain fields after harvest¬ 
ing to glean them, and in the fall and winter, 
the fatting process is finished with oats, peas, 
and barley meal. The cows generally run to 
•o pasture, and all the work stock and frequent¬ 
ly the fatting and other animals, are kept up in 
yards and stables and soiled; the teams return- 
ing from the work fields at night, stopping to 
take loads of fresh cut clover, vetches, or grass 
for this purpose. 
Besides the manure that is made from the 
farm, large quantities of peat ashes are* manu¬ 
factured in this county; and they import crushed 
bones, rape dust, guano and other manures, 
sometimes at the cost of ten to twenty-five dollars 
per acre. This last outlay per acre is rarely 
made for manure, and only for particular im¬ 
portant improvements. Manure, however, is 
the English farmer’s main dependence to pro¬ 
duce good crops, and to obtain it, he is lavish 
in labor and expense, but in nothing does he 
more judiciously invest his capital, and from 
nothing can he look for so sure and profitable a 
return. 
Land lets from five shillings up to five pounds 
per acre, according to the soil and eligibility 
of situation. Good average farms command 
about twenty-five shillings the acre, and the 
tenant pays the taxes, which run from five to 
fifteen shillings more, (about ten dollars per 
acre.) It may be asked how farmers in Eng¬ 
land can live and pay such enormous rents and 
taxes—it is easily answered by saying, that all 
the land they hire is arable, and not as in 
America one-half or one-fourth wild forest; the 
great crops they get from a given quantity, and 
the high prices that they obtain in return for 
meat, grain, and indeed every thing else they 
may have for sale. When we were in Eng¬ 
land, wheat was about two dollars per bushel, 
and other grain in proportion; while beef, 
mutton, and pork, commanded from twelve to 
fourteen cents per pound—so if a tenant hired 
three hundred acres of land at two guineas per 
acre, (say ten dollars,) his rent is $5,000. His 
labor and other expenses may be $2,000 more, 
making $7,000. He will have at least one 
hundred acres of wheat, averaging twenty-five 
bushels per acre, which at two dollars is $5,000. 
Then his other grain, meat, wool, dairy pro¬ 
ducts, and growth of different kinds of stock 
are perhaps nearly as much more, leaving him 
the handsome profit of $3,000. Out of this, 
he has some family expenses to meet, and in¬ 
terest on his capital employed, for no man can 
be a tenant in England as a rent farmer to any 
extent without considerable capital. The above 
calculation is based upon a fair farm well 
managed, and a good season. 
We frequently saw wheat in Berkshire in 
large fields, that would average thirty to forty 
bushels per acre, oats sixty to eighty bushels, 
and other crops in proportion. Other fields 
of wheat would not be over fifteen or twenty 
bushels per acre, but when this was the case, 
