From Buckland Abbey to Moreton Hampstead, the road lies across Dartmoor, which we were very glad to have an opportunity of closely inspecting. The soil is every where excellent, and in but few places is in want of draining; and we consequently conjecture that it forms a covering to an immense accumulation of granite boulders. There is not an acre of surface that we saw which does not admit of as high a degree of cultivation as any part of Peeblesshire or Selkirkshire. The only drawback to Dartmoor is the expense that would be incurred in removing the stones that now protrude through the surface, or exist a few inches beneath it. As shelter is the great object that is wanted, many of these stones might be collected into ridges, and trees planted among them; or they might be formed into walls. We repeat that the soil is uniformly excellent, and would grow turnips and wheat as well as any soil in the Scotch counties mentioned. From the frequency of streams of water, the necessary farm buildings, if the farms were of large size, might be so placed as to have water-wheels for their threshing-machines; and there might be a great many acres of water meadow. The prison buildings at Dartmoor afford a specimen of the mean and the melancholy combined. Moreton Hampstead is a small place, with a very indifferent inn.
