TURNIP TOWNSHEND AND THE NORFOLK SYSTEM 43 



posting generation.' It was famous also for its dairy pro- 

 duce, especially its cheese, ' so hard that pigs grunt at it, 

 dogs bark at it, but none dare bite it.' The mystery of its 

 interior fired Bloomfield to sing of the Suffolk cheese which 



Mocks the weak effort of the bending blade, 

 Or in the hog-trough i-ests in perfect spite, 

 Too big to swallow and too hard to bite. 



The southern part of the county was chiefly held in small 

 farms, cultivated with the care and neatness of ' la petite 

 culture.' Hollow drainage was practised earlier in Suffolk 

 and Esses than elsewhere. The drains were wedge-shaped, 

 filled with hazel boughs, bullocks' horns, ropes of twisted 

 straw, stones, or peat. Bradley (1727) speaks of the Essex 

 practice of making drains two feet deep at close and 

 regular intervals throughout a whole field, filled with 

 rubble or bushes, and covered over with earth ; and he 

 derives the term ' thorough-drainage ' from an Essex word 

 ' thorow,' meaning a trench to carry off the water. Crag, 

 a calcareous shelly mixture of phosphates, was extensively 

 used in the eastern part of Suffolk to fertilise the soil. 

 The depth and size of the pits prove the antiquity of the 

 practice. Ploughing was economically conducted : two 

 horses only were used ; oxen were unknown : ' no groaning 

 ox is doomed to labour there ' is the evidence of Bloomfield. 

 The absence of oxen is an incidental proof of the early en- 

 closure of the county, and of the prevalence of farmers rather 

 than peasant proprietors. Yet, even in these favoured 

 counties, successive corn crops were raised till the land 

 ceased to bear, or weeds overpowered the cereals. Crabbe,. 

 himself a native of Suffolk, describes how 



Rank weeds, that every care and art defy, 

 Reign o'er the land and rob the blighted rye. 



