Norfolk Farming. 293 



and lodgers. The sanitary state of the village is as bad as possible ; 

 for it is a common opinion that a country parish nnist be healthy, 

 and can want no system of drainage. The parson, if he be resi- 

 dent, is generally a poor vicar, receiving a stipend at which an 

 engine-driver would turn up his nose. To have to live like a 

 gentleman without the means must ever remain an intricate 

 problem to solve ; and the charge of so refuse a flock must be 

 indeed a heavy burden. Unfortunately it too often happens with 

 men so situated that, as they can do so little good in such a 

 parish, they therefore do none. The farmers are kind enough to 

 their own folk, yet naturally care but little for the riffraff of other 

 parishes ; while the charities of the landed proprietors are fre- 

 quently withheld from lack of a proper medium through which to 

 distribute them. Ills like these, without any sound remedies 

 being applied, will produce their sad effects. Some of these 

 overgrown villages are indeed little colonies of vice, populated by 

 an ignorant, degraded, and idle set of beings. 



Norfolk always has been, and always will be, a great game 

 county. It is slack in hunting amusements ; and although the 

 Norfolk hounds have recently been re-established, pheasants will 

 always be more zealously preserved than foxes. It is the natural 

 soil for game, and affords a great amount of sport to the pro- 

 prietors. Tenants never object to winged game, but no man can 

 farm against an overplus of hares and rabbits. Happily the 

 amount of foot-game is very much less than in the days of tlie 

 last Report. Then it was no uncommon sight to see whole fields 

 of corn destroyed by hares and rabbits. The injustice of letting 

 land at its full value, and then stocking it with such game, was 

 so manifest that all reasonable landlords now keep the foot-game 

 within moderate limits. Yet there are still a few unfortunate 

 and exceptional estates, on which the game does an immense 

 amount of damage. On one small pioperty in the south-west 

 of the county the rabbits were let last autumn during three 

 months for 800/. ! 



There is one progression which cannot be regarded as an im- 

 provement, and that is the increased value recently put upon a 

 tenant's covenants. Covenants in Norfolk are understood to be 

 the hay, roots, &c., that one tenant leaves on a farm at Michael- 

 mas, and which his successor takes at a valuation. There is no 

 fault to find with the principle of these valuations ; it is the 

 simplest and best which is employed in any county. Tlie roots, 

 as well as the hay, are valued at what they are worth, not at what 

 they have cost for ploughings, manurlngs, and the like. The 

 incoming tenant pays for the thrashing of the corn crop, and 

 delivers it, taking the "straw, chaff, and cavings" (in Norfolk 



