438 



The Country Gcntlcviaiis Illagazine 



NORFOL K FA RMING. 



NORFOLK affords an admirable illus- 

 tration of what the patient industry 

 of man is capable of accomplishing, even 

 under great natural disadvantages. Xot 

 more than fifty years ago large tracts in that 

 part of England were only fit to support 

 rabbits, or, when cultivated, to produce merely 

 poor crops of rye. This has all become 

 changed, and those semi-sterile tracts are now 

 converted into a rich corn- and meat-produc- 

 ing country, through the influence of capital 

 judiciously expended, and of patient persever- 

 ance in a system of farm management well 

 calculated to promote a steady increase in the 

 fertility of the soil. To other districts, pos- 

 sessing much greater natural advantages, 

 Norfolk has long since set an example which 

 has been followed in many instances with 

 good effect ; but there still remain not a few 

 j)ortions of the British Islands which even 

 yet may derive from Norfolk lessons of en- 

 couragement, and incitements to agricultural 

 progress, which is still but imperfectly de- 

 veloped in those parts of the kingdom to 

 which we refer. Norfolk graziers have not 

 rich meadow and pasture lands to fall 

 back upon, and meat production by them 

 is the result of a large expenditure in arti- 

 ficial manures and artificial feeding stuffs. 

 Yet, in spite of these drawbacks, which to 

 many would appear insurmountable, the 

 metropolis, that great consumer of all kinds 

 of agricultural produce, derives, during a 

 considerable part of the year, a large pro- 

 portion of its supplies of meat from the 

 once sterile rye-and-rabbit producing lands 

 of Norfolk. 



The four-course rotation of cropping origi- 

 nated in Norfolk, and is still, as Mr Read 

 informs us, rigidly adhered to in the majority 

 of farms. " No better rotation has yet been 

 devised for friable soils of fair quality than 



the well-known four-field or Norfolk system." 

 Such is the opinion expressed of it by that 

 eminent agricultural authority, Mr John 

 Wilson, Edington Mains, and it has the 

 advantage of permitting the introduction of 

 several variations into its details without 

 interfering with the principles upon which it 

 is based. When rigidly adhered to for a long 

 series of years it has, no doubt, its disadvan- 

 tages, among which is a tendency of the 

 straw to lodge, and the failure of certain crops 

 from too frequent repetition. Rankness in a 

 growing crop of barley is a serious matter 

 when heavy rains cause it to go down, for 

 not only is the yield affected thereby, but the 

 quality of the grain becomes so much de- 

 teriorated that it is rendered unfit for malting 

 purposes, Avhich is the great object of 

 its cultivation. Such complaints, however, 

 are not peculiar to Norfolk ; they exist more 

 or less wherever the land is in high condition 

 and closely cultivated. This subject formed 

 part of a discussion by the Central Farmers 

 Club, which took place in 1859, and Mr 

 Owen W^allis, of Northamptonshire, who 

 opened the discussion by reading a most sug- 

 gestive paper, stated that in his experience 

 the barley crop, when grown in the four-course 

 rotation, had fallen off nearly one-third in 

 quantity, while the quality had also become 

 inferior, although the land was in a much 

 higher condition than formerly. Instead of 

 being strong and reedy in the straw, standing 

 up until ripe, it is now no sooner a few inches 

 high than it tumbles about in all directions ; 

 and though in appearance a great crop, it was 

 in reality nothing but a lot of soft, weak 

 straw, and about two-thirds of a crop of in- 

 ferior corn. The remedy suggested was jjre- 

 cisely that which Mr Read informs us is fol- 

 lowed in some instances in Norfolk, and 

 which we saw followed before the subject 



