following year the layer is fed, then broken up for roots to be succeeded by wheat. Mr. Blake said that his experience proved that no manure is so valuable on these lands as an occasional coating of this clean straw. He added, what all agriculturists know, that those who sell their straw are, more than any others, those who fail as farmers.

To return to Mr. Dibben, although of necessity an arable farmer-since food must be provided for his flock -sheep were his stand-by. Of these he kept 800 breeding ewes, with 300 tegs or hoggets, to which in the season must be added a fall of over 1,000 lambs. In the year of 1901 the lambs, which under the rules of the Hampshire Down Association must not be dropped before January 1, had been rather disappointing in numbers, since the wet and stormy weather chilled the ewes and caused over 100 of them to cast their offspring. Of each year's fall about 250 are let out as stock rams, 100 of the best bringing in the good average price of £10 10s., and the remaining 150 averaging about £5 5s. Of the rest a picked proportion of the females are kept as tegs, to be used for breeding another year, and the remnant are sold off for what they will fetch.

As we trudged up the rain-soaked roads to the first lambing-pen we passed a pit newly dug and puddled with clay to make it hold water. Here Mr. Dibben showed us a beautiful specimen of the ancient British ring-money, which was found among the soil thrown from this pit, looking as bright to-day as it did when the old down-dweller dropped it thousands of years ago.

The lambs in the fold, all picked males, were a beautiful lot, bold-headed, thick-built, and very even. They were folded on rape and swedes mixed, with lamb hurdles set in the fold that allow the lambs to creep through to the next enclosure, so that they may get the forward bite,' but keep the ewes suffering the sorrows of Tantalus on the further side. Also they had hay in feeding crates, with cake and other delicacies, since no expense was spared in getting these

creatures up for market. Mr. Dibben's sheep, by the way, never suffered from foot-rot, which on this land, he said, was only caused by neglect. Leaving the lambs we walked on a mile or so to the teg pens, which were set on the crest of the rise overlooking the valley of the Fovant, low-lying land broken by wood-clad peaks; a lovely and peaceful scene, more especially in the rare rays of sunshine which shot athwart its spaces. These tegs, which were worth £3 3s. a head as they ran out, were folded with hurdles of wattle to break the wind-none others are used in this country-on as much swedes as could be covered by an oblong of sixteen hurdles by thirteen, the ground being changed every twentyfour hours. Also they were given all the unchopped oat straw that they could eat and one sack of mixed cake and corn among the 300 of them per diem.

The rotation followed by Mr. Dibben seemed to be wheat, barley; then two root crops in succession, and wheat or oats again. Of wheat he grew from 120 to 140 acres. His oats, Black Tartar and Abundance, gave an average yield of 8 quarters per acre, and his barley, Webb's Chevalier and Archer's Stiff Straw, about 6 quarters per acre. Most of this barley fetched 34s. a quarter at the previous thrashing, the worst bringing in 27s. 6d. The season of 1900 was not good for this grain here owing, he thought, to a summer frost which struck it before it came into ear, and to some extent to the subsequent scorching weather. Below the Downs line nearly all the land is good, much of it being a sound loam well worth the very moderate rent it fetches, the exact amount of which I do not, however, feel at liberty to state.

On our way up to the Down I saw an interesting pasture. For a number of years it was in sainfoin. Then grasses came and choked the sainfoin, but Mr. Dibben did not plough it up, as is the common custom. For several seasons he sheeped it heavily, with the result that the twitch and other bad grasses were killed out, only the good remaining. Now it is a very serviceable meadow. Here I may state

that my experience is that, even if land is never laid down with good seeds in the proper fashion, almost any class of it, except light sands or gravel, can in time be brought to produce fair grass with the aid of sheep and dressings of farm manure, basic slag, or even road scrapings. Certainly the above instance goes to prove that this is so, and I have seen others quite as striking.

Mr. Dibben grew swedes for his ewes and rape and kail for the lambs. The latter crop he did not hoe out much, since if this is done the stems become too thick for feed, and obstruct the subsequent tillage of the ground. The swedes he never, or rarely, pitted, taking the risk of damage from the weather. I think that he used to use steam tackle, but had abandoned it in favour of horses on account of the great expense of the up-keep of machinery. I might say more about this typical and interesting farm, had I the space. One adjoining it, of similar character, sold, by the way, not long before my visit, for the miserable sum of £6 an acre. So, wishing him and his beautiful flock all good fortune for many years to come, I bid farewell to Mr. Dibben.

On our way home that night we saw a sky and landscape of exceptional loveliness-one which I shall always remember. Behind us the enormous copper-coloured ball of the half-vanished sun burned upon the horizon. In front the sky was spread with a pall of cloud of intensest black framed in the giant arch of a perfect and resplendent rainbow. Before us lay a wide stretch of fresh-ploughed land, rose-purple in the conflicting lights and shadows, while in mid air, betwixt sun and storm, a countless flock of windblown plover wheeled and tumbled, their under-wings shining like silver discs in the rays of the sunset.

My investigations of Salisbury Plain and its neighbourhood came to an end with the day that I spent on Mr. Dibben's farm. In closing my remarks upon the district, I wish to express my thanks to Mr. Nightingale, the manager of the South-West Farmers' Association, a useful co

operative society, for his kindness in helping me to obtain the information which was necessary to my work.

The agricultural conditions of North Wiltshire, of which the little town of Wootton Bassett may be called the centre, vary considerably from those of South Wiltshire. Here the land is nearly all good pasture, fit for dairying purposes, whence it results that the hand of agricultural depression has fallen much more lightly upon the northern than upon the southern half of the county. The arable lands, it is true, have sunk 50 to 60 per cent. in their rental value, but then there is not much arable, and the grass lands have only dwindled 15 to 20 per cent. Here, as in most places, the trouble was one of labour. We are masters now. I would sooner go to penal servitude than work for a farmer,' was the remark made to one of my informants by a labourer of about thirty-five, when explaining his reasons for leaving the land. It seems to be typical of the general feeling among his class in this part of England, although wages run from 14s. to 15s. a week, and the farmers are, for the most part, considerate to their men.

The greater part of North Wiltshire is in the hands of about half a dozen owners of huge estates. Putting aside those who, like Lord Lansdowne, hold by ancient succession, these domains seem to have been formed during the past half-century by the buying out of the yeomen and small holders. So long as they would consent to stand no more between the wind and the nobility of the rich man who desired to found a family in a fashionable neighbourhood, these small owners were paid almost any price they liked to ask-as much, I am told, as forty years' purchase on the top rentals of the last century. Indeed, notwithstanding the agricultural depression which exists here, this process is still going on. A large land agent of my acquaintance informed me that he had in his office half a dozen applications for such estates from men who had made large sums of money. What they say is: I have a million or half a million, and I am prepared to spend 25 per cent. of it upon

a suitable landed property with the usual amenities. I care nothing whether it pays me or does not pay me, since for my income I look to my remaining fortune. All I want is sport, the right sort of society, and a place that will be pleasant to live at during the hunting and shooting seasons.

Such men, of course, are a blessing to a country or the reverse, according to the view which the student of landquestions may take of the matter. My own opinion is that they are very much the reverse, believing, as I do, that vast estates acquired and held merely for the purposes of pomp and pleasure, and not that the land or its population may be advantaged, are an actual source of evil. Better by far that the soil should still be in the hands of the bought-out yeomen. Nevertheless such proprietors have their advantages. Thus, their cottages are good, while their fine houses and park lands undoubtedly add to the picturesque charm of the country-side. Yet in North Wiltshire all these things do not keep the labourer on the land.

Among the many gentlemen whom I met in this district perhaps the most able and interesting is Mr. Herbert Smith, agent for Lord Lansdowne and Lord Crewe, and author of a well-known and valuable work, The Principles of Landed Estate Management.' He told me that the labour position was bad; that we cannot get half enough labour, and what we do get is very inferior.' Yet on these estates of 14,000 acres there is an ample supply of excellent cottages at a low rent-1s. to 2s. a week, I believe. Also, there are readingrooms and libraries, and the largest system of allotments in England, amounting in all to about 600 acres, though, with reference to them, he added: 'Alas! many of these, which formerly were well cultivated, are now going out of cultivation for lack of tenants.' Further, a system of sale of small plots of land to labouring men had been tried and failed in the village of Foxham. He thought, however, that this might be because the experiment was not properly managed by the land company who purchased the farm from Lord Lansdowne.