INTKODUCTION. Ixix 



prices, caused by continued war, excited a general 

 eao'erness to enclose all available land, that the 

 improvement and extension of agriculture struck the 

 first blow at the feathered inhabitants of the waste." 

 *^Less than one hundred years ago (as stated by Mr. 

 Read), Norfolk did not produce enough wheat to feed 

 its scanty -population," and the whole district of the 

 broads, but imperfectly drained, and subject at times to 

 wide spread inundations, presented many of its normal 

 features. Decoys in every favourable locality were a 

 considerable source of profit, and "rye and rabbits" 

 were the chief products of the western division. 

 Assuming, moreover, that the statement in White's 

 Gazetteer that, "two hundred thousand acres of com- 

 mons and sandy heaths have been enclosed during the 

 last ninety years" is only approximately correct, there 

 can be no question as to the time when the former 

 denizens of the moor and the fen first experienced the 

 effects of a gradual but certain encroachment upon their 

 respective haunts. By the commencement of the reign 

 of George III., though East Norfolk, with the excep- 

 tion only of the great heaths and breck-lands towards 

 the north, had been, generally speaking, enclosed 

 throughout, yet in the western portions of the county 

 but little change had as yet been effected. Soon, 

 however, through the triumphs of scientific husbandry, 

 the comparatively poor soils of the west were about to 

 rival the kindlier lands of the east in productive qualities ; 

 and Holkham was to set an example to the county 

 at large. In other words, to quote once more from 

 our highest agricultural authority, " Mr. Coke was 

 successfully establishing those great improvements, and 

 introducing those liberal and salutary alterations in 

 farm practice, which soon placed Norfolk foremost in 

 the van of agricultural progress." 



It was then, only, that the turnip, introduced early 



