APRIL 137 



to send over another horse with tlie drill to help to sow the beet 

 to-morrow. 



April \i.— On Saturday— that is the day before yesterday— 

 we had good showers of rain. Whitrup harrowed the wheat on 

 Baker's, No. 42, to drag out some of the small weeds which 

 swarm upon the surface of the land. This wheat, which was 

 rather thin in places, has improved greatly in strength and colour 

 since it received a special compound dressing of artificial manure 

 last month. 



Yesterday, Easter Sunday, came stormy, with sudden and very 

 violent tempests of rain and wind. In the course of my usual 

 Sunday afternoon's walk round the farm I noticed what great 

 progress everything has made during the last few days. Fields 

 that were bare and brown are now clothed in green. I hear from 

 Fairhead, who took over the horse and drill to Bedingham on 

 Saturday, that they only succeeded in getting in two acres of 

 beet. More, if not all of it, could have been drilled, but the land 

 was unrolled, and after a few showers this soil becomes too sticky 

 to admit of that operation. It is necessary to pass the roller over 

 the baulks in order to flatten their crests and break the clods into 

 mould before the drill goes down them ; but if this clay is at all 

 sticky it clings like wax and clogs the roller. Thus it often 

 happens that although such a small volume of wet has fallen that 

 drilling would be perfectly practicable, because the sharp coulters 

 of the machine cut through the top crust and drop the seed in 

 the dry soil beneath, yet, to the disappointment of the farmer, 

 who knows not when he will again find his fields in suitable con- 

 dition, it has to be given up because the roller cannot be used 

 upon the land. 



To-day I went down to the Bath Hills to watch the tree- 

 cutting, which is getting on well under the charge of the woodman 

 Reeve and an assistant. This timber-felling, where the trees are 

 at all crowded, is an operation that requires great skill and 

 judgment. The first thing the woodman must do is to decide in 



