Norfolk Farming. 271 



high, the fields small and badly shaped, the fences crooked and 

 crowded with useless timber, and the pasture lands cold and 

 backward. These are the features of the worst districts ; some 

 of a more mixed-soil character present a pleasanter aspect, and 

 are much better farmed. The land naturally requires draining^, 

 yet sheep, with good management, are successfully bred and fed 

 on it, and excellent crops of all grain, including some of the best 

 barleys, are produced with wonderful certainty, provided only 

 that they are sown in good time and when the land is in good 

 order. 



No part of Norfolk is so wretchedly dreary, so barren and 

 uninteresting, as that sandy district which extends over the 

 greater part of the south-west of the county. Most people now 

 enter Norfolk by the rail, and a poor miserable entrance it 

 is. The railway first touches the county at Brandon, and from 

 thence to Thetford, and almost to Attleborough, the country 

 traversed is little else than a succession of desolate heaths, 

 rabbit-warrens, and sheep-walks. This is apt to give strangers 

 an unfavourable impression of the general quality of the soil 

 and farming of the county. Yet it is not possible to make 

 more of such land than is made ; the little it naturally produces 

 is turned to the best account. The sheep - walks, although 

 they look so barren and worthless, are useful appendages to 

 large arable farms, and afTord at certain times of the year, and 

 in certain favourable seasons, a great amount of hard but healthy 

 herbaofe for the larire flocks which are the slieet-anchor of the 

 occupiers of these lands. Although these intelligent farmers 

 grow a quantity of corn, their chief concern and the great aim of 

 their management is to supply a succession of provender for 

 their sheep. With the greatest care and clearest foresight this 

 cannot always be attained, and a cold backward spring, or a hot 

 dry summer, renders the cultivation of this district anything but 

 a desirable or enviable employment. 



Spring, in this locality, is not often the mild, balmy, enjoyable 

 season of which poets love to sing. The biting north-east winds 

 which mostly prevail forcibly remind one of Siberia, while the 

 horrid sand-drifts, which at times quite darken the air, force the 

 mind to travel southward, and dwell for a moment on the deserts 

 of Arabia. Such land is of course cheaply rented ; and during 

 the late depressing times the occupiers of this district fared 

 better than their neighbours on better and dearer soils. Sheep 

 sold well, notwithstanding the low price of corn ; and when 

 stock lambs at 5 months old fetch from 25^. to SO^., there is 

 no cause for the flockmaster to grumble ; yet the ewe flocks 

 have not increased, but rather the contrary. The farmers of 

 this county in former years sold all their lambs in the summer 



