All have constant employment. During the war this manufacture was more brisk than ever, very dull after the peace, and has continued but indifferent ever fince. Their, third branch of manufacture is the linfey woolfey, made chiefly for home confumption, of Westmoreland, Lancashire, and Cumberland wool; the hands are chiefly weavers and fpinners. The firft earn 9 s. or 10 s. a week; the fecond (women) 4 s. 6 d. or 5 s. The farmers and labourers fpin their own wool, and bring the yarn to market every week There are about five hundred weavers employed, and from a thousand to thirteen hundred fpinners in town and country. The business during the war was better than it has been finçe, but is now better than after the peace, Their fourth manufacture is the tannery, which employs near a hundred hands, who earn from 75. to 7 s. 6 d. a week. They tan many hides from Ireland. They have likewise a small manufactory of cards, for carding cloth. Another alfo of filk: They receive the waste silk from London, boil it in foap, which they call scowering, then it is combed by women (there are about thirty or forty of them,) and fpun, which article employs about an hundred hands; after this it is doubled and dreffed, and fent back again to London. This branch is upon the increase. PROVISIONS, &c. Bread-oatmeal baked in thin hard cakes, called clap-bread, costs 1 d. per lb. Cheese, 3 d. Butter, 6 d. 16 oz. Mutton, 2 d. to 2 d. Beef, 2 d. to 3 d. Veal, 2 d. Pork, 4 d. Bacon, 6 d. Milk, d. a pint. Potatoes, 10 d. four gallons. firing, 45s. to 50s. -- Kendal is a very plentiful and cheap place; fat ftubble geefe are fold at Is. 4d. each. This is fo cheap, that a living I heard of is not a very fat one, 4% a year, a pair of wooden shoes, and a goofegate. Alas, poor Rector! Rector! A goofe-gate is the right of keeping a goose on the common. All the poor in this country wear wooden fhoes.-Fat fowls at 1 s. a couplè; fat ducks the fame price; wild fowl and game in great plenty; woodcocks often at 2 d. a piece; partridges are fold common in the market, and very cheap: Fish in great plenty; trout oftentimes at a penny a pound, befides befides any other forts. It is a neat well built town*. As I next refume intelligence of husbandry with the county of Lancaster, I fhall here conclude this letter, I am, Sir, &c. From hence we viewed the famous lake 'called Winander Meer, ten miles weft of Kendal; by much the largest water of the kind in England. It is fifteen miles long, and from two miles to half a mile broad. It gives gentle bends, fo as to prefen to the eye feveral fheets of water; and is in many places fcattered with islands: The shores are varied, confisting in fome places of ridges of hills, in others of craggy rocks; in fome of waving inclosures, and in others of the finest hanging woods; feveral villages and one market town are fituated on, its banks, and a ferry croffes it at another; there is fome business carried on upon it, fo that it is not uncommon to fee barges with fpreading fails: All these circumstances give it a very chearful appearance, at the fame time that they add to its beauty. I would advise those who view this lake, not to take the common road down to the village of Bonus*, where the boats are kept, but (for reafons which I fhall hereafter add) to go thither round almoft by the ferry. The landlord at the inn at that village keeps a boat, and can always *I am fenfible throughout this Tour of mifspelt names ; but many of the places I mention are not to be found in maps, I am obliged, therefore, to write from the ear. provide LETTER XVIII. RETURNING to Kendal I took the road to Burton, paffing through a country various in refpect of culture: Around that town, particularly about Holme, their foil is a light loam on a lime stone, with fome of fand, letts from 6s. 8d. to 31. an acre; average about a guinea. Farms from 20 l. to 80l. a year. provide rowers for any company that comes; the extreme beauty of the lake induced me to explore every part of it with attention; but as I have already troubled you with feveral recitals of thefe water expeditions, I fhall only mention a few of the principal points of view, and to which I fhould particularly recommend any traveller to row if he had not time to view the whole lake; but no scheme of this fort can be more amusing than two or three days spent here in rowing, failing, fishing, and wild duck fhooting, all which are here to be had in great perfection; and I fhould add, that the end of May, or the beginning of June, is the proper time for fuch an expedition. Taking boat at the village, you row first to The Iland, fo called by way of pre-eminence, being by much the largest in the lake; it contains between thirty and forty acres of land, and I cannot but think it the sweetest spot, and full of the greatest capabilities, of any forty acres in the king's dominions. The view from the fouth end As to their courses they did not use to fallow at all, but now they are, 4. Oats; and then let it lie to graze itself. then lie as before; for this these flovens deferve to be hanged. end is very fine; the lake prefents a most noble sheet of water stretching away for feveral miles, and bounded in front by distant mountains; the shoars beautifully indented by promontories covered with wood, and jetting into the water in the most picturefque ftile imaginable, particularly the ferry points on both fides; it is broke by Berkshire Island, an elegant spot, finely wooded in one part, and by Craw Island, almoft covered with wood, in another, and just hides a house on the main land. The eastern shore is spread forth with the most beautiful variety. In fome places waving inclofures of corn and grafs rife one above another, and prefent to the eye a fcenery beyond the brightest ideas of painting itself. In others, shrubby spots and pendent woods hang down to the very water's edge: In fome places thefe woods are broken by a few small grass inclosures, of the sweetest verdure; and in others run around large circuits of them, and, rifing to the higher grounds, lofe themselves in the wilds above. Here |