up in stooks of ten sheaves each. The stacks are mostly round; but some of the best farmers set up their barley and wheat in long narrow stacks, which keep the corn much better and drier. The excellent practice of placing corn upon stone or metal pillars, with a cap or cover over them, (to keep out the mice), and a frame of wood over all, is rapidly gaining ground. When the stacks are in danger of heating from wet harvest weather, they are ventilated by perpendicular and lateral funnels.

Old Grass Lands are usually manured on the surface every third or fourth year, and mown almost every year. When they cannot be conveniently dunged, they are depastured two years and mown the third. Lands that are intended for meadow are "freed" (from being depastured with any kind of stock) in the spring. The aftermath, or "fog," is mostly consumed in fattening oxen and cows. Natural pastures are most prevalent along the sea-coast.

The Cultivated Grasses most commonly raised in this county, are red clover, white clover, and ray-grass. With these some people mix rib-grass, and upon sandy soils hop-medic is sown with success. Ray grass is considered a very severe crop for the soil. Few of these grasses, except red clover, are ever grown alone. The average produce of clovers kept for hay is about two tons per acre. The second crop is generally depastured by cattle or sheep. A mixed stock is found most useful in grazing. The Hay Harvest is seldom begun before the middle of June. The mowers cut from half an acre to three quarters a day, and that very ill; the hay-makers are equally indolent and inactive. After the grass is cut, it is tedded, strewed, and repeatedly turned, till dry; but to preserve the leaves upon the clover, it is merely turned backwards and forwards upon the swath. The hay is next put into foot-cocks, and in a day or two after, if the weather keeps fair, it is put into larger cocks. When sufficiently dry, it is formed into ricklets (pikes), and after standing a few weeks is led home, and put into large stacks.

Live Stock. It is to their superior knowledge of breeding, and nice discrimination in selecting proper stock, as well as to their improved mode of cultivation, that the Northumberland farmers owe that celebrity of character which they have acquired for their proficiency in rural affairs.

By the exertions and attention of our enterprizing breeders, the short-horned cattle are improved so far as to be sold fat to the butchers at three years of age. Bulls are sometimes let for the season for an enormous sum, and five guineas are given for serving a cow; but the more common premium is a guinea, Breeding young cattle is practised in almost every part of the county. Cows are kept upon large farms principally for this purpose. Oxen are mostly grazed in the eastern part of the county. and a few in the vicinity of Whittingham; they are bought in May or June, and sold as they become ready, to supply the large fleets of colliers and other trading vessels belonging to Newcastle, Shields, Sunderland, Hartley, and Blyth.

Dairy. This county cannot boast of its dairies: those who live in the vicinity of Newcastle, and other populous places, make a handsome return by the sale of milk, fresh butter, &c. but upon most of the large farms in the county, dairies are not held in much estimation.

Sheep.-There are few or no sheep bred in those parts of the county called Castle Ward, Bedlingtonshire, and the south-east corner of Morpeth Ward. The stock of

this county has been so much improved within the last fifty years, that they now can be sold fatter at fifteen months old than they used to be at more than double that age. This advantage has been gained by the practice of hiring tups, at no inconsiderable prices; sometimes as high as five hundred guineas for the use of one tup for the season. This has cherished the spirit of emulation, by inducing a number of competitors to enter the lists.

The improved breed of long-woolled sheep is usually managed as follows:-The ewes generally lamb in March, when they are given a few turnips to encrease their milk. About the beginning of July the lambs are weaned, and sent to tolerable pasture. The ewes are milked two or three times, to ease their udders; and such as are not to be continued for breeding, are culled out and put to clover or turnips, and sold about Christmas to the butchers, very fat. The lambs, after being weaned, take the name of Hog's. They are generally kept on turnips through the winter and spring, after which the wether hogs are put on good pasture. The second winter they have turnips, until the clovers are grown. The fattening qualities of the Swedish turnip being now well known, they are always used for spring food. In the middle of May they are shorn, and by the end of June they are generally all sold. But shearling wethers have lately been sold tolerably fat in June or July, when only fifteen months old.

The mode of management amongst the sheep farmers of Cheviot is, to divide their flocks into different parcels, viz. lambs, hogs, gimmers, ewes and wethers, and each parcel kept on such pasturage as is thought most proper for them. Every parcel is attended by a shepherd, who is bound to return the number of sheep delivered to him, either alive or in his account of dead sheep, which are in general sold at different prices, according to their goodness. The ewes are two years and a half old before they are put to the tup, and are kept till five or six years old. The loss of lambs is sometimes very considerable, not only on being dropped, but also from the "milk ill," quarter ill," and other disorders. The sheep that are kept on the moorlands that skirt the river Coquet and Reedwater, are the most subject to the rot. The practice of salving is now almost totally disused; and that of milking ewes is also nearly abandoned. This last custom is considered as highly detrimental, as it keeps the ewes lean, and renders them the less capable of meeting the severities of winter.

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The zeal and unremitting attention of our breeders and graziers to the improvement of their live stock, have been productive of considerable profit to themselves and at the large butcher markets of Newcastle and Shields, such shows of fine, beautiful flesh are exhibited, as are not to be surpassed in any other part of England.

A few years ago an agricultural association, under the patronage of His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, called "The Tyneside Agricultural Society," was established at Ovingham; but at the annual meeting this year (1822) the members seemed convinced of the propriety of suspending their meetings. The present depressed state of agriculture has also, (as that distinguished agriculturist, Wm. Jobson, Esq. of Newton observes), “induced slovenly and careless habits of management, in order to lessen the expence of cultivation." The causes of this unfortunate change will, however,

A

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

OF THE

COUNTY OF NORTHUMBERLAND,

PART III.

TRADE, MANUFACTURES, AND COMMERCE.

M

ANY various branches of trade and manufacture are carried on in Northumberland, including the populous towns of Newcastle and Berwick, and which have conduced to encourage agriculture, and and to diffuse life and activity through every rank of society. All the principal manufactures are derived from, or connected with, the coal and lead mines: and though most of the attempts to establish works for the manufacture of woollen and cotton have miscarried, yet few parts of England are possessed of so many conveniences and advan tages for such establishments.

That amiable French philosopher, Faujas Saint Fond, on entering this county, expressed the agreeable astonishment he felt in examining the number and variety of our manufactures. "The soul," exclaims he, "feels a lively satisfaction in contemplating such a magnificent picture; and humanity rejoices to see so many men finding ease and happiness in a labour (the coal trade), which so extensively contributes at the same time to the enjoyments and comforts of others; and in the last result, to the aggrandizing and enriching of the government, which watches over the safety of

the whole."

In describing the produce and manufactures of this district, it is intended to notice such only as are remarkable for extent, or peculiar to the county. In this enumeration COAL claims the pre-eminence, as being the source of the immense trade and revenue which enriches Northumberland. "This chearful contributer to the comforts of human life" not only constitutes the basis of British manufacture, but is "also of the greatest consequence as a nursery for brave and hardy seamen."

Having in a preceding part given a sketch of the natural history of coal, and the practice of coal-mining, it now remains to describe the manner in which this invaluable fossil is conveyed from the pit's mouth.

Mode of raising Coals, and conveying them to the River.

When coals are brought to the pit bottom the corves or baskets are hooked on to a chain, and drawn to the surface by a rope attached to a machine. The species of engines called Gins, (probably a corruption of engine), are used only in landsale collieries, or in seams of moderate depth, since the invention of steam engines. One of them, engraved in Emerson's Mechanics, has the roller immediately over the shaft, which is also the centre of the horse track. In the whim gins the ropes run upon two pullies over the shaft, but the roller is at some distance, and the circular tract of the horses is at one side of the shaft, leaving the other free for the teeming or delivery of the coals*.

Steam Engines (originally called Fire Engines), are used in all the extensive coalworks in the neighbourhood of Newcastle. This wonderful machine is an invention highly creditable to human genius and industry, and exhibits the most valuable application of philosophical principles to the arts of life. The use of steam in mechanics was discovered when almost all the valuable mines in England were coming to a stand for want of more powerful and cheaper machines than were then known. This invention was therefore readily adopted in most collieries, and many were opened in situations where it would have been impossible before.

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Steam was first employed to produce motion by Brancas, a philosopher of Rome, about the year 1628. But the first real steam engine for raising water is described in a small pamphlet published in the reign of Charles II. and in the year 1663, entitled, "A Century of the Names and Scantlings of the Marquis of Worcester's Inventions, written in the year 1655." No use was made of this invaluable hint, until Captain Savary, in 1698, obtained a patent for an engine which operated both by the expansive and condensive force of steam, to be employed in "draining mines, serving towns with water, and for working all sorts of millst." Though these engines were erected

* Many curious machines and contrivances have been used in working coal mines. James VI. of Scotland, about the year 1600, granted a patent to a predecessor of the first earl of Balcarras, for inventing an engine for drawing water out of coal mines.-Arnot's Hist. of Edin. p. 66. In Rymer's Fœdera we find an exclusive grant given in 1630, to one David Ramsay, for raising water by a new method out of deep mines. Master Beaumont brought with him (says Grey in his Chorographia), "rare engines to draw water out of the pits." In the life of Lord Keeper North, dated 1676, are the following curious notices. "The coal mines in Lumley Park are the greatest in the north, and produce the best coal. These collieries had but one drain of water for two engines, one of three stories, the other of two, all the pits for two or three miles together were drained into these drains. The engines are placed in the lowest places, that there may be the less way for the water to rise; and if there be a running stream to work the engines, it is happy."

+ This useful projector, according to Dr. Harris, in the same year invented another machine "for rowing a ship in a calm by paddle wheels placed at the vessel sides." Dr. Desaguliers has not done justice to the memory of this truly ingenious man.

about gentlemen's gardens and pleasure grounds, the attempt to render them applicable to mining purposes failed. Thomas Newcomen, ironmonger, and John Cowley, glazier, of Dartmouth, in the county of Southampton, obtained a patent in 1705, for improvements made in the steam engine, and in which Captain Savary was admitted to participate. About 1712, the patentees succeeded in rendering their invention useful in mechanics. Mr. Henry Beighton erected an improved Newcomen engine at Newcastle, in 1718. He was the first that reduced the operations of steam engines to calculation; and was a mathematician as well as an engineer. He conducted the Ladies' Diary from 1714 to 1744.

The first steam engine erected in the north was at Oxclose, near Washington; the next at Norwood, near Ravensworth. About the year 1713, or 1714, the first steam engine in Northumberland was erected at Byker colliery, the property of Richard Ridley, Esq. The engineer was the reputed son of a Swedish nobleman, who taught mathematics in Newcastle*.

Many of the collieries are situated at a considerable distance from the river, to which the coals are conveyed in a manner equally simple and ingenious. Way-leaves, or slips of ground, are set out and hired on leases, or purchased by the different coalowners, of the proprietors of land lying between their pits and the river, and this in such a direction as gives the most easy and regular descent. The inequalities of this slip of ground are levelled, and square wooden rails laid in two right parallel lines, and firmly pegged down on wooden sleepers. The tops of the rail are plained smooth and round, and sometimes covered with plates of wrought iront. About the year

* That able and candid engineer, Smeaton, added several new and ingenious contrivances to Newcomen's engine. In 1774, he built a powerful engine at Long Benton colliery, which had a 52-inch cylinder, stroke 7 feet. In 1769, Mr. James Watt, a mathematical instrument maker at Glasgow, obtained a patent for his great invention of performing condensation in a separate vessel from the cylinder. Many inventions have since that time been made for effecting a saving and better application of steam. In 1815, it was found, taking the average of 33 engines, that 21,500,000lb. of water was raised one foot high for every bushel of coals consumed. But Mr. Woolf, by one of his engines, has raised 56,917,312lbs.! (See Phil. Mag. vol. 46, and 47.) We have some steam-engines calculated at 130 horse power; but one is now building at Friar's Goose, on the south side of the Tyne, calculated to be equal to 200 horse power.

+ The origin of waggon-ways cannot be precisely ascertained. In the year 1600, among other regulations made "at a Courte" of the hostmen's company, wains were ordered to be all measured and marked, for it appeared," that from tyme out of mynd yt hath been accustomed that all cole waynes did usuallie cary and bring eighte boulls of coles to all the staythes upon the ryver of Tyne," but of late several had brought only or scarce seven bolls. The same record mentions "two small maunds or pannyers holdinge two or three pecks a-piece." From which passages it plainly appears that coals at this time were not only led in carts along the ordinary roads, but that a practice then prevailed of conveying them on horse-back. Among the rest of the "rare engines" introduced by master Beaumont into the coal trade, one was " Waggons with one horse, to carry down coales from the pits to the staiths to the river." Lord Keeper Guilford, in 1676, thus describes them: "The manner of the carriage is by laying rails of timber from the colliery down to the river, exactly straight and parallel; and bulky carts are made with four rowlers, fitting these rails, whereby the carriage is so easy, that one horse will draw down four or five chaldron of coals, and is an immense benefit to the coal merchants." From a staith bill, dated 1691, in the books at Ravensworth Castle, and quoted in