[List-Cumbria] Carlisle Patriot, 03 Feb 1816 - Cumberland and its Agriculture (2)

[Petra Mitchinson]

Saturday 03 Feb 1816   (p. 4, col. 3-4)

 

CUMBERLAND AND ITS AGRICULTURE. 

 

[continued] 

 

"The surface is beautifully diversified with level plains, and rising eminences: deep sequestered vales and stupendous mountains;
open, braky, heathy commons, and irregular inclosures, in some parts enriched with tufted groves and rising plantations; the whole
watered with innumerable streams and extensive lakes, abounding with fish of various denominations, which, with plenty of game, add
to the recreation and luxury of the inhabitants. It naturally divides into two districts; the mountainous, incapable of being
improved by the plough; and the cultivatable, or all such parts as have been, and can be improved by tillage. 

 

"From a map of Cumberland, published by Messrs. HODGKINSON and DONALD, laid down from a scale of two miles to an inch, we calculate
that the mountainous districts contain 342,000 acres; improvable common 150,000; old inclosures 470,000; lakes and waters 8,000;
total quantity of acres in the whole county 970,000. 

 

"There are probably few counties where property in land is divided into such small parcels as in Cumberland, and those small
properties so universally occupied by the owner. The rental of the largest estate in the county is said to amount to about £13,000
per annum. 

 

"By far the greater part of the county is held under lords of manors, by the species of vassalage called customary tenure; subject
to the payment of fine and heriots, on alienation, death of the lord, or death of tenant, and the payment of certain annual rents,
and performance of various services, called boon days; such as getting and leading the lord's peats, ploughing and harrowing his
land, reaping his corn, hay-making, carrying letters, &c. whenever summoned by the lord. We cannot pretend to be accurate, but
believe that two-thirds of the county are held by this kind of tenure. The remaining part is mostly freehold: copyhold and
leasehold, are rarely met with. 

 

"Through the greater part of this county the farm houses are remarkably well-built of stone; † and blue slate roofs and white-washed
walls give them a look of neatness that is peculiarly pleasing, and prepossesses a stranger with a favourable idea of the
cleanliness of the inhabitants; an idea which he finds well founded on further investigation. 

 

"Cumberland farmers may be divided into three classes: the occupiers of large farms; the small proprietors, (provincially 'lairds,'
or 'statesmen'); and the small farmers. It is to the first class, and the gentlemen farmers, that the district owes the introduction
of any of the modern improvements in agriculture; and we are glad to find a spirit of enterprise amongst them for the adoption of
new modes of culture, and improved breeds of stock. 

 

To the small proprietors, agriculture, we presume, is little indebted for its advancement: these 'statesmen' seem to inherit with
the estates of their ancestors, their notions of cultivating them, and are almost as much attached to the one as the other: they are
rarely aspiring, and seem content with their situation, nor is luxury in any shape an object of their desires; their little estates,
which they cultivate with their own hands, produce almost every necessary article of food; and clothing they in part manufacture
themselves; they have a high character for sincerity and honesty, and probably few people enjoy more ease and humble happiness. 

 

"The small farmer is obliged to raise such crops as will pay him best for the present, and avoid every expence of which he does not
receive the immediate advantage, by which means his farm, and himself are always kept in a state of poverty. 

 

(To be continued.) 

 

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† "Except a small district in the neighbourhood of Abbey-Holme, and the north-east extremity of the county, particularly in the
parishes of Bewcastle, Stapleton, Kirklinton, Kirkandrews, and Arthuret, where they are mostly built of mud or clay, and form a
miserable contrast to the buildings of the other part of the county." 

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