Amateur Farming. 355 



who has permitted him to have her picture." But over one of 

 the chimney-pieces at Holkham is Gainsborough's portrait of 

 Coke the farmer. Here he is depicted in the act of loading 

 a gun, a sporting dog Kes at his feet, and he wears the long 

 boots, broad-brimmed hat, and shooting jacket of the country 

 gentleman of a century ago. 



Coke, after his return from Rome in 1774, became not only 

 the Father of the House of Commons but the Father of his 

 Norfolk tenantry. "With httle or no previous experience, but 

 with the greatest enthusiasm, he took up in 1778 the profession 

 of husbandry on a vacated and impoverished holding of his own. 

 In one or other of the magnificent rooms at Holkham, possibly 

 in the great saloon, periodical discussions between himself and 

 his farmers occurred. We can imagine the latter wide-eyed 

 and open-mouthed studying the sheep in Lorraine's land- 

 scapes, whilst their owner picked up hints about the real 

 animals outside. 



He next took in hand a portion of his estate, containing some 

 3,000 acres of indifferent soil, and in spite his outlay and labour 

 bills not only put aside some £2,000 as rent, but attempted to 

 make an annual profit besides. As a farmer Mr. Coke, so 

 Young tells us, had three objects in view : (1) To discover the 

 means of securing food for sheep in the spring when turnips 

 fail. (2) To discover the best substitute for common clover 

 upon lands surfeited by its repeated sowing. (3) To make 

 certain experiments on objects not sufficiently attended to, 

 but inferior to the preceding in importance. The first he 

 found in sainfoin hay, which served him in good stead when- 

 ever the snow or frost prevented him getting at his turnip 

 crop. The second he found in a mixture of burnet, white 

 clover and rib grass ; and the third led him into numerous 

 experiments out of which he derived the following facts : 

 That the best preparation for wheat was a clover ley, ploughed 

 once at the time of sowing ; that, if not at the plough at any 

 rate between shafts, oxen were preferable to horses ; that 

 ducks got rid of the black canker in the turnip crop ; that oil 

 cake was a more forcing fertiliser than either farmyard dung 

 or the fold ; that Bakewell's breed of sheep was the most 



