212 PROGRESS OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 



mutton produced. Mr. Morgan states that twenty years ago the majority of 

 the sheep brought to Suiithfield Market were three and four years old, and it 

 was difficult to find a score under two. Now a three year old sheep is scarcely 

 to be met with, and fat sheep only a twelvemonth old are plentiful. Besides 

 the vast increase in the numbers kept, we have thus three generations got 

 ready for our tables in the same space of time as we had one in 1838. Bought 

 food would have been wasted on the former slow-growing species ; but applied 

 to the improved stock bred on Bakewell's principles, it created a demand not 

 only for tups from Sussex, steers from the Quantock hills, and oil-cako from 

 Germany, but for improved implements and maclnuery — the turnip-slicer, the 

 cake-crusher, the chaff-cutter, and the bone-mill, as well as the drill, horse- 

 hoe, heavy roller, and better contrived plows and harrows. 



The Leicester breed was for some time adopted by Mr. Coke. He after- 

 wards substituted tNe Southdowns as superior ; and the perfecting of these in 

 the present generation by Mr. Jonas Webb, may be said to have been due to 

 one of those trivial circumstances that are always influencing the events of the 

 world. His grandfather was a breeder of Norfolk rams, and it was the 

 amusement of the old gentleman at his annuaLsales, to set his grandsons to 

 ride on his tups, holding fast by their huge horns. It was during the races 

 on these sharp-backed animals that Jonas determined, as soon as he was a 

 man, to breed sheep with " better sarfrf/es of mutton." A lean, hurdle-backed, 

 black-faced Norfolk ram, and the beautiful firkin-bodied Southdown, for which 

 Mr. Webb refused live hundred guineas at the Paris Exhibition of 1856, are 

 the two extremes, the two mutton-marks between the boyhood and manhood 

 of the same individual. Nothing but the Norfolk sheep could have found a 

 living on the uncultivated Norfolk heaths; nothing but the " roots," artifi- 

 cial grasses, cake, and corn of modern days could have raised the Babraham 

 " Downs " to their marvellous perfection. 



Another instance of a different kind, and one in which extremes meet, marks 

 the contrast between the past and the present. Mr. Coke's first agricultural 

 adviser was ^Ir. Overman, of Dutch descent, whose sons are still tenant-farm- 

 ers on the Holkham estate, and prize winners at Koyal Agricultural and 

 Smithfield fat-stock shows. The heads of the covenants were drawn, at Mr. 

 Coke's request, by Overman, and only restrained tenants in obedience to the 

 famous Norfolk rotation, from growing two consecutive corn crops. Now, 

 after a lapse of eighty years, the second Earl of Leicester wisely encourages 

 his tenants to return to the once justly condemned system of two white crops 

 in succession, because the soil that in 1770 was exhausted, has, by a long 

 course of high-farming, been rendered almost too fertile. 



A complete history of English agriculture from 1750, would comprise names 

 worthy of record from almost every county, and the name of George IIL 

 would worthily appear at the head of the list. He had a considerable prac- 

 tical knowledge of the science, and contributed, under the denomination of 

 Ralph Kubinson, to Young's monthly periodical, " The Annals of Agricul- 

 ture." His devotion to the pursuit did much to recommend it to others, and 

 be was often fondly and proudly spoken of as " Farmer George." But no 

 sketch can do justice to so extensive a subject, and, for the sake of brevity 

 and simplicity, we have purposely confined ourselves to the tillage of Norfolk, 

 which long led the van in agricultural improvement, and wh(!re nearly all the 

 methods which stood the test of time were early adopted. The very laborers 

 seemed animated with the same spirit as their employers, for both Young and 

 Marshall remarked that in no part of England did the workman display an 

 equal activity. We now arrive at a period when Norfolk no longer occupies 

 its old position, not because it has dropped behind in the race, but because 

 other counties have pushed forward, and the course of events are tending to 

 equalize the arts of cultivation throughout the kingdom. This last epoch is 

 chiefly distinguished by the immense extension of drainage, by the discovery 

 of artificial manures, by the increased purchase of food for cattle, by the im- 



