PROaRESS OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 209 



the world continues to reap tlie benefit at this hour. To marl and clay farms 

 was an old practice in England ; for Harrison, in his " Description of Bnt- 

 aine," in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Bays, " Besides the compost that is 

 carried out of the husbandmen's yards, ditches, and dove-houses, or out of 

 great towns, we have with us a kind of white marl, wliioh is of so groat force, 

 that, if it be cast over a piece of land but once in three-score years, it shall not 

 need of any further composting." Tlie usage seems, however, to have died 

 away, and its advantages were rediscovered by Lord Townshend and a Mr. 

 Allen, who applied it to the sands of Norfolk, and converted boundless wilds 

 of rabbit-warrens and sheep-walks into rich, grain-bearing soil. Young esti- 

 mated that before the close of the century " three or four hundred thousand 

 acres of wastes had been turned into gardens," and rents rose from sums be- 

 tween sixpence and two shillings an acre to fifteen shillings and twenty. Many 

 of the tenants realized a capital which amounted to more than the reputed 

 worth of the property. A Mr. Mallett made a fortune in thirty years on a 

 farm of 1500 acres, and bought land of his own of the value of 1700/. a year 

 — a more remarkable example even than that of the Scotch proprietor men- 

 tioned by Dr. Carcwright, who, being compelled to sell his estate, hired it on 

 a lease, and afterwards repurchased it with the profits he derived from his 

 tenancy. 



But marling would not of itself have reclaimed the Norfolk deserts. Tur- 

 nips, which are said by Young to have been brought into farm cultivation by 

 the celebrated Jethro TuU, found such a zealous advocate in Lord Townshend, 

 that he got the name of " Turnip Townshend." This crop he had the sagacity 

 to see was the parent of all the future crops. Without winter food little stock 

 could be kept, without stock there could be little manure, and with little 

 manure there could not be much of anything else. The turnips were, there- 

 fore, employed to secure a large dung-heap, and the dung-heap in turn was 

 mainly appropriated to securing the largest possible store of turnips. This 

 tillage in a circle was as productive as it was simple. The ground, cleaned 

 and enriched by the root-crop, afterwards yielded abundant harvests of corn ; 

 and, as we have already stated, the treading of the sheep upon the loose soil, 

 while they fed off a portion of the turnips, gave it the necessary firmness. 

 Thus through the agency of turnips a full fold and a full bullock-yard made 

 a full granary. Essex and Suffolk soon copied the method, but they did not 

 carry it so far as Norfolk ; and in many places the turnips were never thinned 

 or hoed, upon which their size and consequently nearly all their value de- 

 pended. 



The rotation of crops was, however, considered the especial characteristic 

 of the Norfolk husbandry. Until past the middle of the century no just 

 ideas prevailed upon the subject in any other portion of the kingdom. Sir 

 John Sinclair says that all courses were thought to be alike, and deserving 

 neither of praise nor censure. The grand rule of the Norfolk cultivators, to 

 which they steadily adhered, was never to be tempted to take two corn-crops 

 in succession. But, in truth, no one part of their system could be dispensed 

 with, and its value was as a whole. They had not only learnt the importance 

 of alternating grain with other products of the soil, but they had ascertained 

 the particular advantage of having the barley follow the turnips, the clover 

 the barley, and the wheat the clover ; for the fibrous roots of the latter 

 were the finest possible pabulum for the lucrative wheat, and nothing else 

 would have been equally efficacious. Young found this four-course system 

 widely prevalent in 1767. The principal variation, he says, was in the dura- 

 tion of the clover, which some persons allowed to remain for two or three 

 seasons before breaking it up for wheat. All these changes were brought 

 about in the thirty years, from 1730 to 1760, but they were confined, with 

 slight exceptions, to Norfolk itself; and it was not till after Young appeared 

 upon the scene that they began to penetrate into other districts. 



After a considerable interval, during part of which Francis, Duke of Bed* 



14 



