coal and iron districts, which extend from the confines of Cheshire, through Flintshire and Denbighshire, to the confines of Merionethshire; and in those parts of Montgomeryshire, on the banks of the Severn, where flannel-weaving prevails. Formerly, the woollen cloths and flannels with which the people clothed themselves were manufactured throughout the country, at small mills or factories placed on the margin of mountain streams, which furnished the power or agency necessary for carrying on the process; but the growth of the large manufacturing establishments in the north of England and Scotland, and the substitution of cotton for wool in various articles of clothing, have uprooted many of the native factories, and reduced to very small dimensions the once important manufacture of homemade cloths and flannels. The larger portion of the industrial population of North Wales, and of the counties of Cardigan, Carmarthen, Radnor, and Pembroke, in South Wales, is engaged in agriculture. It consists, for the most part, of small farmers--a frugal and cautious race of men, employing but few labourers, and cultivating, by means of their own families and a few domestic servants, the lands on which they live. "In times of mining and manufacturing prosperity, the productions of the agricultural and pastoral districts find ready purchasers, at remunerating prices, at the mining and manufacturing establishments, to which they are conveyed from distant places; and the surplus labour of the agricultural districts finds profitable employment at the mines, factories, and shipping ports, where a heterogeneous population is collected from every part of the kingdom. The wages of labour are, nevertheless, very low, in the agricultural portions both of North and South Wales; and are probably lower in the western counties of South Wales, and in some districts of North Wales, than in any other part of South Britain. The Welsh farmer presents, however, a stronger contrast than even the Welsh labourer to the same class in England. He occupies a small farm, employs an inconsiderable amount of capital, and is but little removed, either in his mode of life, his laborious occupation, his dwelling, or his habits, from the day-labourers by whom he is surrounded; feeding on brown bread, often made of barley, and partaking but seldom of animal food. The agricultural and pastoral population is, for the most part, scattered in lone dwellings, or found in small hamlets, in passes amongst the hills, on the sides of lofty mountains, or the margin of a rugged sea-coast, or on lofty moors, or table-land; and oftentimes this population can be approached only along sheep-tracks or bridle-paths, by which these mountain solitudes are traversed.