Welsh Journals

the region 30 per 1,000 acres or about i to 61 acres of arable. Sheep were run at just under one to the acre and the cattle density compared favourably with other parts of the county. Total cattle in the northern part of the region (Hay) were in excess of any other region (101)* and in the south (Crickhowell) were about the same (74)* as in Brecon (Fig. 3). The number of dairy cattle in both Crickhowell (28) and Hay (26) was not much different from other comparable parts of the county. Of the two areas, Hay was markedly the most productive. Here there were more sheep, more cattle and most wheat, the latter taking up about a quarter of the arable land. This greater productivity was reflected also in the size of holdings, which on average were smaller units in this region than elsewhere. The average size of holding, for what it is worth, was 113 acres in the county at large, 86 acres in the case of Crickhowell, and 59 acres in Hay. To sum up the general view of land use in Brecknock in 1854, the chief features were the comparative barren nature of the northern, western and southern extremities of the county, the progressive decline in the number of sheep from north to south, the importance of the Old Red Sandstone outcrop as regards arable farming, and the general dominance of oats as the major cereal crop of the county, except in east Brecknock. Here wheat took first place in the rotation and the region, particularly the area between the Wye and the lower slopes of the Black Mountains, was by far the most intensively farmed and most productive part of the whole county. [J. Phillip Dodd has been engaged on research into Agrarian History for some years and has published various papers on Agrarian History, Archeology and Education. — Editor] Per 1,000 acres of total area.