262 A FARMER'S YEAR 



unmanured, except by the lambs which ran over it, its propor- 

 tionate bulk is less by quite a half than that of the rest of the 

 field. The same thing is observable on the little piece of old 

 pasture next to the three-acre. Here the sheep were penned for 

 one night and then taken away because a dog from Bungay came 

 and harried the lambs. On the spot where they lay that one 

 night there is certainly half as much grass again as elsewhere, and 

 this although the meadow was heavily fed last year. Certainly 

 my belief in the value of sheeping pastures, and especially those 

 of them which are young and only half established, seems so far to 

 be justified by the results. That of sheep, however, is, I believe, 

 among the hottest of manures, and if applied in quantity to light 

 land often causes it to burn, that is to scald and turn brown in 

 hot weather. With clay lands such as those under discussion it 

 is a different matter. 



We have also been cutting the new pasture, No. lo, which was, 

 I think, the third piece that I laid down. This has not been 

 sheeped, so the crop is nothing like that on No. 1 1, although on the 

 whole a good one. By much the heaviest cut is down a breadth 

 of it opposite the first gate, and this again is to be accounted for 

 by the action of manure, for true indeed is the old farming saying, 

 ' Muck is the mother of money.' Of course all the field has been 

 heavily fed by cows, but cows do not improve land in anything 

 like the same ratio as sheep, or cake-fed stock, or, I believe, even 

 horses, for the reason that the goodness of what they eat goes for 

 the most part into their milk. Lying as it does near to the cattle- 

 sheds, it has been our custom, whenever the trimmings from the 

 roots accumulate inconveniently, to cart them into this field and 

 scatter them there. As, however, it takes a great many root 

 trimmings to fill even one cart, of course all the field does not get 

 the benefit of the dose, and thus it happens that the hay is so 

 much thicker on the belt which has thus been dressed. 



During the last day or two Peachey has been ploughing and 

 harrowinj; that portion of the vetch field, No. 21, which has been 

 fed off by the sheep. Our original idea was to green-soil (that is 



