302 Norfolk Farming. 



INorfolk; nor are its live stock and implements considered to be 

 pre-eminently good ; in no particular does it do more than repre- 

 sent a good average of the county. Aylsham Union contains 

 47,665 acres, and the value put on the live and dead farming- 

 stock, " at a moderate rate," was 2,400,000/. There are certain 

 parts of the county where the land is not so good, and the stock 

 not so numerous ; but after making a deduction fur these barren 

 parts, the value of the live and dead farmino;-stock in Norfolk 

 cannot, on this calculation, be less than 40,000,000Z. This is 

 exclusive of all the floating capital engaged in carrying on the 

 farms from one year to another, and of that vast amount of 

 tenants' property, which is invested in the permanent improve- 

 ment of the land. 



It is melancholy, in looking through the list of those Avho 

 contributed the practical materials of Mr. Bacon's Report, to see 

 what ravages death makes in fifteen years even in the ranks of 

 the stalwart farmer. Of those eighty men, the best agriculturists 

 Norfolk could produce, nearly one-fourth now mingle with the 

 dust they so long and so ably cultivated. There can be 

 little doubt that Norfolk farmers, as well as Norfolk farming, 

 have progressed within the last fifteen years. The superior 

 character they then bore they still continue to sustain ; and 

 as a description of them comes with more force from one 

 who is not connected with agriculture, the following eloquent 

 remarks with which Mr. Bacon concluded his Report are here 

 added. He had been reviewing the general advancement of the 

 agriculture of the county, and thus sums up his ideas of the 

 farmers : " The effect of this advance upon the tenantry them- 

 selves is what might justly be expected from the employment of 

 greater capital and enlarged minds and information. They are 

 generous, independent, hospitable, free, intelligent, and very 

 many have carried intellectual pursuits and acquirements far be- 

 yond the race of farmers of former times. They are Avisely 

 anxious to avail themselves of those opportunities which the 

 increasing intelligence demands of every man the important 

 business of whose life it is to provide for the wants of a power- 

 ful, intellectual, and extended empire." 



In writing a Report of this kind it is difficult to know where 

 to begin and when to finish. A regular essay on the agricul- 

 ture of a county should thoroughly ex])lain every branch of its 

 farming ; but in these few remarks on the improvements in 

 Norfolk agriculture within the last fifteen years nothing of the 

 kind has been attempted, and they have been strung together 

 just as the facts, one by one, happened to be noticed. Without 

 claiming the rare merit of strict accuracy, it is only right to 

 state that all these remarks are founded on evidence collected 



