276 Norfolk Farming. 



good clover-ley. It is an expensive seed, as from 3 to 4 bushels 

 of sainfoin are drilled to the acre, and frequently a quarter of a 

 peck of trefoil is sown broadcast in addition. So its cost is 

 hardly ever less than \l. per acre. When sainfoin is to remain 

 only one year the giant is considered the best variety ; it comes 

 quicker and throws out more food in the first season than the 

 common sort. 



By substituting sainfoin for trefoil, surer crops of red clover 

 are grown. One reason for this may be the total absence of 

 any sort of clover for eight years. Wlien trefoil was sown it 

 was the invariable custom, in addition to the peck of that seed, 

 to add 4 lbs. of white or Dutch clover, which produced nice 

 sheep feed after the trefoil had expended itself, and also con- 

 tributed to make a good flag for the wheat. But white clover 

 is of the same family as the red, so it eats up that mysterious 

 morsel which an eight years' rest should have husbanded for its 

 more fastidious brother. 



The yield of barley has not perceptibly increased ; the 

 maximum amount appears to have been grown some years ago ; 

 sheep were then cake fed, and turnips sliced for them ; and as 

 much of the farm manure, with which the roots were grown, 

 remained unexhausted, very great crops of barley were pro- 

 duced : but this grain will not bear more forcing ; even now too 

 much stimulant is frequently applied, the crop lodges, destroys 

 its own quality, and kills the grass seeds. An enormous 

 amount of artificial manure is used in this part of the county for 

 growing roots and grain ; not unfrequently the manure agent's 

 " little bill " is more than the landlord's rent. In the time of 

 Mr. Bacon's Report, rape-cake, bones, and the newly discovered 

 guano were almost the only artificials known ; since then super- 

 phosphate has superseded all these in the production of turnips. 

 For mangold the favourite dressing in addition to yard manure 

 is guano and salt, and some still prefer guano for swedes ; but by 

 far the greater portion of the farmers of West Norfolk use super- 

 phosphate. The common mode of growing swedes is to apply 

 six or eight loads of good farmyard dung per acre, and drill 

 2 or 3 cwt. of superphosphate with the seed. Almost all roots 

 are planted on balks or ridges 27 inches wide. Very few white 

 turnips are sown, but the growth of mangold-wurtzel has wonder- 

 fully increased. 



In the live-stock department the most prominent change of 

 this district appears to be in the breeding flocks ; almost all 

 have been sensibly diminished, and on very many farms they 

 have been entirely given up : this cannot be on the score that 

 rearing lambs is unproductive, but there is great difficulty in pro- 

 viding spring provender for the ewes and their offspring, and late 



