Norfolk Farming. 281 



are not above a dozen fixed agricultural steam-engines in Norfolk, 

 Wherever they are placed, other machinery, such as chaff-cutters, 

 mills, corn-bruisers, and the like, are driven by the engine. 



Norfolk is not a county that requires much art or great 

 strength to plough it. The old-fashioned plough, with its fore- 

 carriage and rampant beam, is still in general use, but improve- 

 ments have been effected in the shape of its mouldboard and 

 other wearing parts. Even into this light-land county, however, 

 the modern iron ploughs are finding tlieir way ; slowly perhaps, 

 but surely. Mr. Bacon supplied a list of the implement-makers 

 connected with the county, and of those who furnished it with 

 the best implements. The names of the great plough-makers of 

 Bedford were not in that list ; yet within the last fifteen years 

 that celebrated firm has sent into Norfolk more than 1200 

 ploughs. And it may be remarked that almost the whole of the 

 number have been supplied since 1848, The Royal Agricultural 

 Society held its meeting at Norwich, in 1849, and the prize for 

 light-land ploughs went to Bedford. This is one little proof of 

 the efficacy of the Society's itinerant encampments in introducing 

 good machines to a county, and shows the benefit derived by 

 successful exhibitors from having special attention directed to 

 their implements. 



Drills have long been in favour in Norfolk, and in no other 

 county is drilling better done. The men have a great deal of 

 practice, as all corn is now drilled ; and there is no mode of 

 steerage so perfect or so handy as the old back-steerage of the 

 Norfolk drills. Water-drills have not yet taken very extensively, 

 chiefly on account of the scarcity of water on the large farms. But 

 the Holkham experiments go far to prove that great benefit results 

 from its use, and no amount of ashes can distribute concentrated 

 manures so easily and well as does the water from Chandler's 

 drills, A great improvement in the water-drill has recently 

 been introduced by a West Norfolk farmer ; the water, seed, and 

 manure being dropped together in bunches, by which means all 

 are economised. The same individual is also the inventor and 

 patentee of the celebrated manure distributor which bears his 

 name, and almost every large farmer in West Norfolk, who uses 

 much artificial manure, has one of these machines. It is quite 

 impossible for any man to sow guano by hand with regularity, 

 and there are other valuable manures that require to be distri- 

 buted with great exactness, which this machine does to a nicety. 



During the last year some of M'Cormick's reaping machines 

 have appeared in Norfolk. Previously one or two of Hussey's 

 had been used, but their number did not increase. The former won 

 golden opinions last harvest, and the makers have in consequence 

 received extensive orders from our county, Norfolk farmers ap- 



VOL, XIX. U 



