12 A FARMER'S YEAR 



opposite page, has in all an area of about 104 acres, whereof 

 twenty-five acres or thereabouts were permanent pasture in 1894, 

 Of this grass, however, fourteen acres (No. 20 in the accompanying 

 map) is land cleared by the stubbing up of a covert known as 

 Websdill Wood. This appears to have been done within the last 

 fifty years, for old men still living in the parish remember it, but the 

 ground was left thickly covered with oaks, rather small in size, 

 owing to the poverty of the sub-soil. Indeed, I am told that they 

 have scarcely altered in girth for a generation, although their timber 

 is of good quality. Of these oaks I have cut down about seventy 

 within the last few years, and used them in farm repairs. Under- 

 neath them many brambles still cumber the soil in little clumps. 

 These are now removed annually, and the surface-drains having 

 been reopened, the pasture is improving, for last year a consider- 

 able head of young things, about ten in all, together with two colts, 

 found a living on this fourteen acres during the summer months. 

 That it cannot have been a bad one was evident from their con- 

 dition in the autumn, the colts especially showing as fat as butter. 



The rest of the old pasture is good, and produces excellent hay. 

 All the land round the wood is heavy, cold, and very flat, especially 

 the pieces numbered respectively 19, 15, 16, 21, and 22. When 

 negotiations were going on for the reletting of this farm, the tenant 

 would offer no rent at all for them, alleging them to be worthless. 

 I was of a different opinion ; and I hope to be able to bring the 

 reader to my way of thinking. The land, it is true, had many 

 disadvantages. Indeed, however carefully it was cultivated, it is 

 doubtful whether one root crop in four, on the pieces in question, 

 would repay the trouble and expense of tillage. Either the 

 roots suffered from a ' wet stunt ' in rainy weather, or the soil would 

 ' set hard,' or, for some reason unexplained, the seedlings received 

 a * check ' from which they never could recover. In good seasons, 

 which at Bedingham mean very dry seasons, corn did fairly upon 

 these lands, but the crop could scarcely be ensured. 



Now, from the first, I had seen that if a farm of this character 

 is to be made to pay in these days, it would be necessary to keep 



