96 A FARMER'S YEAR 



To-day I have begun drilling my own spring beans and pease on 

 the eight acres on Baker's, No. 43. This field has had a good 

 coat of the manure which I took over by valuation, supplemented, 

 as there was not enough available, by a few loads of Bungay 

 compost, road scrapings, See, in the far corner. Like the rest of 

 the farm, it is foul, and will, I fancy, give plenty of work to the 

 hoe, for the plough and harrows turn up docks like carrots, to say 

 nothing of countless minor weeds. The tilth, however, is very 

 good, and the beans, with as much of the pease as we could sow 

 to-day, went in beautifully, not a single seed being visible after the 

 drill had dropped them, for the soil ran in behind it almost like 

 dry sand. We only use six ' coulters ' on the drill, a seven-foot 

 instrument, in planting beans, as against twelve or thirteen for 

 pease, which are set much closer. Coulters, I may explain, in 

 case there should be any who do not know them, are the shares 

 connected with the body of the machine, whence the seed is lifted 

 and dropped by wheels set with cups through a number of flexible 

 funnels fitting one into the other. Down these funnels the seed 

 trickles at a given rate, to fall grain by grain into the trench cut 

 with the coulters. Preceding the drill, a rig or two ahead of it, 

 goes a set of iron harrows dragged by two horses, tearing down the 

 rough surface of the plough and breaking the clods into mould. 

 Next comes the drill itself, dragged by three horses, with two men 

 in charge of it. It is followed by the wood harrow, with a pair of 

 horses, which fills in the furrows made by the coulters of the 

 drill, burying the seed in the mould and completing the process. 



It is still early to drill spring beans and pease, but I think 

 it wise to get them in Avhile the soil is in such good order, as 

 in our uncertain climate it is impossible to say wliat kind of 

 weather awaits us. 



Some more lambs were born to-day, and my two Soutlidown 

 rams were sold at Bungay market, the large one for forty shillings, 

 and the smaller for twenty-five. I was sorry to part with the big 

 ram, as he is a good-looking pedigree animal, but these creatures 

 are a nuisance to keep through the summer; they cannot be 



