THE CATTLE, SHEEP, &C. OF CORNWALL. 567 
Under their direction the Cornish considerably extended their 
pasture grounds, by laying open the woods on the hills, and 
cleansing the low lands from their weeds and briars; so that soon, 
very soon, the “ shepherd and the huntsman, who had pastured 
their flocks and herds upon the heights, to whose songs th ejugum 
ocrinum had re-echoed, now descended to the vallies, to.meadows 
of luxuriant herbage/’ 
An employment of such importance to their well-being, and so 
honourable to the individual, it might have been supposed, would 
have been readily embraced by all those who aspired at honour 
and distinction; but the contrary happened. When the Romans 
returned to their own country, agriculture suffered a decline; the 
Cornish neglected their fruitful fields, and all their skill and 
industry were exerted in bringing from the bow 7 els of the earth 
“ The ores that speak the county’s sterling praise 
• • «i* ' i r i* •' 
and thus the arts most beneficial to society in a few years fell into 
such neglect that Cornwall w 7 as actually obliged to be indebted 
to Devon and Somerset for bread and cattle . 
“ The people,” says Carevv, “ devoting themselves entirely to 
tin, their neighbours in Devonshire and Somersetshire hired their 
pastures at a rent, and stored them with the cattle which they 
brought from their own homes, and made their profit of the 
Cornish by cattle fed at their own doors. The same persons also 
supplied them at their markets with many hundred quarters of 
corn and horse loads of bread.” 
But this state of things did not long continue: mines are very 
uncertain; and some of the principal ones failing, and the inha¬ 
bitants increasing, they were obliged to turn their attention to 
husbandry. Success crowned their endeavours ; for in the latter 
part of the reign of Elizabeth they were capable of not only sup¬ 
porting themselves, but were enabled to export a great quantity of 
corn, &c. to foreign countries. And as the arts of agriculture in¬ 
creased, and the blessings they afforded became more generally 
known, the inhabitants applied themselves assiduously to the 
cultivation of the earth, and to meliorate, and to bring to perfec¬ 
tion with the greatest possible care, all those valuable properties 
with which nature has endowed the inferior animals for the sub¬ 
sistence and comfort of man. 
“ Industry approach’d, 
And raised him from his miserable sloth: 
His faculties unfolded ; pointed out 
Where lavish Nature the directing hand 
Of Art demanded.” 
In Cornwall, as in most other places, there is found a pecu- 
