58 Improvements in Farming 



men, and Townshend by his success proved the truth of this 

 view. The rotation which he chose still holds its place, and is 

 known as the Norfolk or four-course system. The order of the 

 crops is (i) turnips, (2) barley or oats, (3) clover and ryegrass, 

 (4) wheat. Under turnips the land is cleaned, while clover extracts 

 nitrogen from the air, and leaves it in the soil to feed the following 

 crops. On the light soils of his estate he revived the old custom 

 of marling heavily, and got fine yields of corn. 



About 1776 another Norfolk landowner, Coke of Holkham, 

 took up the work of farming on his estate. Where he farmed 

 himself he did it on the same progressive lines as Townshend. 

 He went further and made his work an educational thing not 

 only for his tenants but for men who came to his sheep-shearings 

 from any place at home or abroad. He made his shearings the 

 occasions for discussing the best methods of farming with all the 

 men who attended them. Big and magnanimous in his nature 

 he treated his tenants well, won their confidence, and in turn 

 received increased rents from them. 



There were farmers in all parts of the country making similar 

 progress in a smaller way. Many of them, led by their tasks or by 

 the conditions under which they farmed, devoted themselves to 

 the improvement of live stock. We have seen that some of the 

 monks were great breeders of cattle, and the value of wool always 

 made it worth the large sheep-farmers' while to improve the 

 quality of their flocks. The opinion of what a good beast was in 

 those days differed from ours. William Harrison writing in 

 The Description of Britain about 1580 said : * The cattle which 

 are bred are commonly such as for greatness of bone, sweetness of 

 flesh, and other benefits to be reaped by the same, give place 

 to none other ; as may appear first by our oxen whose largeness, 

 height, weight, tallow, hides, and horns are such as none of any 

 other nation do commonly or may easily exceed them. Our 

 sheep likewise, for good taste of flesh, quantity of limbs,"fineness 



