on a
larger scale. Instead of small meadows shut in with hedges and trees, the
grazing farms often comprise fields of immense extent; sometimes a single
pasture is as large as a small dairy farm. The herds of cattle are also
more numerous; of course they are of a different class, but, in mere
numbers, a grazier often has three times as many bullocks as a dairy
farmer has cows. The mounds are quite as thickly timbered as in dairy
districts, but as they are much farther apart, the landscape appears more
open.

To a spectator looking down upon mile after mile of such pasture land in
summer from an elevation it resembles a park of illimitable extent. Great
fields after great fields roll away to the horizon--groups of trees and
small copses dot the slopes--roan and black cattle stand in the sheltering
shadows. A dreamy haze hangs over the distant woods--all is large, open,
noble. It suggests a life of freedom--the gun and the saddle--and, indeed,
it is here that hunting is enjoyed in its full perfection. The labourer
falls almost out of sight in these vast pastures. The population is sparse
and scattered, the hamlets are few and far apart; even many of the
farmhouses being only occupied by bailiffs. In comparison with a dairy
farm there is little work to do. Cows have to be milked as well as
foddered, and the milk when obtained gives employment to many hands in the
various processes it goes through. Here the bullocks have simply to be fed
and watched, the sheep in like manner have to be tended. Except in the
haymaking season, therefore, there is scarcely ever a press for labour.
Those who are employed have steady, continuous work the year through, and
are for the most part men of experience in attending upon cattle, as
indeed they need be, seeing the value of the herds under their charge.

Although little direct agitation has taken place in pasture countries, yet
wages have equally risen. Pasture districts almost drop out of the labour
dispute. On the one hand the men are few, on the other the rise of a
shilling or so scarcely affects the farmer (so far as his grass land is
concerned, if he has much corn as well it is different), because of the
small number of labourers he wants.

The great utility of pasture is, of course, the comparatively cheap
production of meat, which goes to feed the population in cities. Numbers
of bullocks are fattened on corn land in stalls, but of late it has been
stated that the cost of feeding