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DEVONSHIRE

THE South-western county of Devonshire, to which I travelled from Kent, has an area of about 1,667,000 acres, and is the third largest in England. It is a hilly and very well-watered county, remarkable for beautiful scenery, and, except upon the moors, for its mild, moist climate. A great deal of the moorland is still uncultivated, but the rest of the county is famous for its rich arable soils, and especially for its pasture land. With the exception of hops, almost every crop grows there. Apples are also cultivated, although for the most part in a somewhat careless fashion, and much cider is made. The red Devon cattle, of which there are several strains, have many excellent qualities. The majority of the population are of the old English stock, intermixed here and there with the Cornish blood. Such, in few words, are the main characteristics of the shire.

Even beneath the stormy skies of a wet, unseasonable April, perhaps no English county that I have seen is quite so lovely as this land of Devon. Nowhere else are the pastures so verdant, or, at any rate in South Devonshire where I began my investigations, the fresh-turned ploughs of so beautiful a red. The enclosures are small also, giving the idea that here the land is valuable-a desired possession-and surrounded, each of them, by sheltering banks of earth and stone, on which grow tall straggling hedges. Through these undulating fields run brooks of rapid water; indeed, in that time of rain water was everywhere—in the deep, narrow lanes, standing superfluous on the fallows, and in each hollow of the pastures.

Sometimes the gentle landswells are crowned by tree

clothed heights, beneath which lie slopes of gorse. Below these, perhaps, are orchards, very ill-cared for, it must be admitted, to the eye which has just studied those of Kent, but none the less picturesque because of the irregular, leaning trunks of the apples and matted boughs smothered in lichen. Between the orchards probably appears a farmstead, stone-built, and, in exposed positions, covered with a roof of slates cemented over; and round it some unpretentious buildings, at the gate of which, knee-deep in mud and water, stand the cows, waiting to be milked. In colour they are red as the soil that bred them. I wonder, by the way, if this similarity of hue is accidental or the effect of environment working through countless generations. Below the buildings again stretch the pastures-quite half the land seems to be pasture-dotted over with the Devon long-wool ewes and lambs, that contrive to frisk and look happy in spite of the tearing winds and bursts of rain.

A general characteristic of the county seems to be small farms indeed, really large holdings are rare, while many do not comprise more than from twenty to fifty acres. Often these farms have been rented by the same families for three or four generations; thus among those that I visited this proved to be so in several instances. In the Eastern Counties to-day, by way of contrast, it is not easy to find a sitting tenant-that is the term in Devonshire-whose father and grandfather wore their lives out on the same fields before him. The circumstance shows a curious love of the soil, but, alas! the hand of fate is prevailing against this hereditary instinct. Nearly every farmer I spoke with in Devon told me that he did not mean to bring up his son to follow the land. When I congratulated one of them on the appearance of his boy, his answer was, 'I will take good care he shall not be a farmer,' and many others said likewise. As a first instance of Devonshire farms I propose to describe one that I visited at no great distance from the ancient and interesting city of Exeter, whence I began my investigations. The farmer, a man of intelligence and, I

should say, exhaustless energy, held about 250 acres at the high rent of £550 a year-his land being very good and of the order known as 'accommodation.' It used to stand at £120 more in the best times, but even in 1901, when rates and other outgoings were added, averaged nearly £3 an acre.

The tenant, whose father and, I think, grandfather held the same farm, considered that £2 would be a fair rent, but at the same time acknowledged, the land being so good and so conveniently situated for markets, that if he were to give it up, there would be many applicants at the present price. He instanced a farm that was to let close by, to see which, he said, people were streaming all day long. When I asked how this came about in such times, he replied that many of them were folk who had given up their holdings in the poorer districts and poured down here thinking that it was honey land.' 'They don't stay long for the most part,' he added. Two or three years, and off they go.' He was of opinion that, good as are the neighbourhood and markets, the farmers about him were not prosperous-that plenty of them, indeed, were losing money.

He himself, I gathered, made his rent and a living, and in addition added to the value of his stock. But he worked as few men would work, killing his own pigs and sheep, doctoring his own bullocks, milking his own cows, toiling in short from dawn to dark. Most of his earnings also came more from dealing than from legitimate farming. Thus between the previous October and the April of my visit, 200 bullocks had passed through his yards, coming in thin, but not so thin that they would not answer at once to high feeding, and going out fat. If he averaged 10s. profit a head on these animals he was pleased, for, considering the risks of sickness and the bad 'doers,' this trade is hazardous. In addition he had a good flock of sheep, and by the help of manure dragged everything out of the land that it would grow.

Labour was his greatest difficulty. All the boys went, he

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said. He had but one lad left, who wanted a man's wage. The rest were old men, very good hands. When they go,' he added, I hope that I shall go too.' The wages were nominally 14s., but, with all the extras and privileges, such as ten pounds of beef at Christmas, straw, cider, potato ground, and 3s. a day in harvest, they amounted to nearly £1 a week. Still Sunday labour was almost unobtainable; indeed, I gathered that, with the help of some aged servants who had been with him and his father for over thirty years, he had to do it himself. On this point he considered the outlook hopeless. 'We get the leavings,' he said, 'and you must not say a word; you must bridle your tongue, or they are off.'

Wheat, he thought, was quite an unremunerative crop, although he sowed broadcast because it was quicker-2 bushels of seed to the acre, from which his average return was 4 quarters per acre. From barley he looked for a return of 6 quarters to the acre. As wheat had only the value of 'pig's food,' he was ceasing to grow it in favour of oats and barley. On this farm all the land was heavily manured, and a great deal of cake used. The tenant grew catch-crops wherever possible, and in addition bought straw and mangolds to help him to feed the five or six hundred cattle that he turned over in the course of the year. Also he dealt in horses whenever he found a chance, although he had been obliged to give up his hunting, of which he was fond. He said that he had proved that there was no profit to be made out of general farming, so he had to look to cattle and dealing for a livelihood, his principle being never to keep anything, but to turn it into cash so soon as he saw a profit, however small. Thus he did not breed from his cows, but fattened them as they milked, selling them out for beef at £16 or £17 when they went dry. As he bought in at from £10 to £13, by this method-after deducting the price of their food -he made £3 or £4 on each animal, in addition to the milk it yielded.

Generally, the cows stayed with him from six to twelve

months, according to their value as milkers. They were fed with chaff, hay, mangold, and oat straw pulped and mixed, an allowance of cotton cake being spread upon the top of the ration. His cows were milked by contract, the dairyman living rent free as part of the bargain. The fatting bullocks were fed with barley and maize meal, our host being of opinion that maize, of which he bought about 200 quarters a year, lifts a bullock' better than any other food. Half the land on this farm was pasture, and its tenant said he was prepared to lay down most of the rest, as it went well to grass.

Of mangold he grew 14 acres, in addition to the 200 tons that he bought, gathering about 40 tons to the acre. We saw some of these mangolds stored in a cave,' or earthedup heap, which answers to our Eastern Counties hale,' but is made much wider. Of hay he had secured a good crop in the previous year: it averaged a ton and a half to the acre, and the sample was very clean and bright. The land on this farm, over which I walked, seemed excellent. Field was divided from field by 'banks' of stone, that, although they are costly to keep up, have the merit of giving good shelter to stock. Indeed, our host said that he would not care to be without them. Some of the pasture was particularly good, and one field that was pointed out to us was declared to be the earliest bit of grass in Devonshire. A flock of a hundred ewes, which had produced 120 lambs, was kept upon the farm. During the previous week fifty tegs had been sold off it at 45s. a head.

This gentleman informed us that the cottages in the neighbourhood were bad, insufficient, and the cause of general complaint. Most of them had only two rooms upstairs and one below, and were places in which respectable people ought not to be asked to live. Summing up, he said he hardly knew a farmer who was holding his own, and that although he was better off than many, he wished he could get a good berth as a steward, and have the spending of somebody else's money. 'I've got four boys. I only hope