32 AGRICULTURAL SURVEY

CHAPTER: BUILDINGS,

HERE are many ſplendid gentlemen?’s ſeats, orna- mented with extenfive plantations, in this diſtri; and the farm-houſes and cottages are for the moſt part commo- dious and comfortable—but on all the dairy farms, a ſhame- ful inattention prevails, in reſpeit to out-houſes and ſheds for their ſtock to retire to in the winter months. Cattle are almoſt univerſally ſerved with their provender in the field; and many a dairy farmer, with twenty cows, ſcarcely makes, in the whole winter, a quantity of dung ſufficient to manure one acre of land. Corn being generally ſtacked, the barns are ſmall, and principally thatched with wheat-ſtraw un- broken by the flail, which gives to the roof a very neat ap- pearance, and renders the building perfe(ly ſecure from rain. Ît has been of late too much the pradice for pariſh-officers to proſtrate cottages, and to leſſen as much as poſlible the number of inhabitants in their reſpeQive pariſhes; this ab- ſurd and narrow-minded ſyſtem has received vigour and extenſion from the prevailing cuſtom of making the tenant pay the poors levy. It is, however, a practice which cannot be too frongly reprobated; and the ill effes of it have been ſo maſterly depited by Mr. Kent and other authors, that L ſhall not fatigue the reader with a repetition of their argu- ments. On all the new incloſures(which for the moſt part are ſituated at 2 diſtance from the inhabited villages) the erection of cottages appears indiſpenſible, as without them, the waſte of time in going forward and backward to and from work amounts to nearly a quarter part of the day. It might alſo be added, that many of the cottages now in uſe are on too ſmall a ſcale. Few of them have more than one

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