AUGUST 307 



only cost forty shillings apiece I cannot complain. The ewes, on 

 the other hand, were bought at fifty-one shillings a head. This is 

 twelve shillings apiece more than I gave two years ago for my 

 present lot of black-faced ewes, which are very much better bred 

 than these new additions to the flock. The fact is that black- 

 faced Suffolk sheep have recently become more popular, with the 

 result that their price has risen. Large sums are paid for the 

 best of them ; thus I hear that a gentleman in the neighbourhood 

 has just given fifty guineas for a ram of this breed. 



To-day we are cutting the All Hallows pease, for it is our first 

 of harvest, and, what is of good augury, very fine. These pease 

 are a poor crop, partly from the coldness of the spring and 

 partly because of the red-weed with which this land is infested. 

 At Bedingham they begin harvest to-morrow. To-day Moore is 

 horse-hoeing the white turnips which are drilled on No. 18, 

 where the fly took off the swedes. Oddly enough, it did not 

 touch the turnips, so there is a very good plant of them. 



Attgust 15. Last Saturday, the i3th, we cut the pease on 

 Baker's, which are a much better crop than those upon All 

 Hallows, probably because this field was manured, part of it, 

 with Bungay compost. Some authorities say, however, that pease 

 do best without the stimulus of manure, but I suppose that this 

 is only when the land is in good heart, which is not the case on 

 Baker's. The weather, both on Saturday, Sunday, and to-day, has 

 been lovely, and exceedingly hot. The barleys are now very white 

 and ' dying ' fast, too quickly, I fear, for the good of the sample. 

 The wheat also has turned a rich golden yellow, and is not so 

 much beaten down by the recent rains as might have been 

 expected. 



This morning we set the new reaper to work on the glebe 

 fields of oats, Nos. 39 and 40, which are bearing a good crop 

 for so scaldy a piece of land, owing doubtless to the wet of 

 the early summer. Before the machine can be put in a pathway 

 for it must be mown round the field with a scythe. Then the 



X 2 



