ii4 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



spread of the cultivation of turnips, clover and other 

 grasses for which Townshend, nicknamed "Turnip 

 Townshend," was largely responsible. His land was 

 thus kept under permanent cultivation, since instead 

 of fallowing he alternated roots and corn, thus creating 

 the Norfolk four-course system. Wheat is followed in 

 this course by turnips or other roots ; then comes 

 barley or oats, followed by clover or other grasses. 

 Townshend found that the green crops fed off by 

 sheep, or stored for winter food for stock, resulted in 

 improved sheep and stock. At the same time the 

 ground, being fertilized by the sheep's droppings or by 

 the farmyard manure, produced better corn crops. 

 This method of treatment of the land helped in every 

 way. It meant better crops, better sheep and better 

 stock. This system could not be carried out on the 

 old-fashioned open fields, so long as it was the custom 

 for everyone's cattle to stray over the land after the 

 crops were off, since, if any one farmer had been so 

 enterprising as to produce a crop of turnips or clover, 

 the flocks and herds would all be found browsing on 

 his land until the crop had been devoured. But on 

 enclosed farms the system was adopted with great 

 success, and not only Townshend, a great advocate of 

 enclosures, but many of the farmers who followed him 

 made fortunes. Landowners as well as farmers bene- 

 fited, for rents increased rapidly. 



What Townshend did for field cultivation, Bakewell 

 (1725-94) did for sheep. Bakewell, who belonged to 

 a later generation than Tull and Townshend, was a 

 typical John Bull, a big, burly, rosy-faced man, with 

 breeches, boots, red waistcoat and loose coat. He lived 

 at Dishley, near Loughborough, in simple style, and the 

 celebrities and nonentities, from home and abroad who 



