360 A FARMER'S YEAR 



is alleged to bend whenever they pass over a spot where a spring 

 lies hid. The experiment was tried here at Upp Hall, in 1894, in 

 the presence of witnesses and with the following results. A noted 

 dowser was retained and dowsed about the house. In the moat 

 garden the twig tilted upwards so violently that it broke, indicating, 

 so said the prophet, that a very strong spring existed near to the 

 surface. On the faith of his guarantee a well was sunk, but, when 

 it had reached a depth of sixty feet, as no spring either strong or 

 weak was met with, the pit was filled in again. This authenticated 

 story is instructive, and suggests that the supernatural powers of 

 dowsers are not beyond question. 



Compared with those which we see in our part of Norfolk, 

 the fields here are enormous, measuring from twenty up to a 

 hundred acres in extent. As a consequence, steam ploughs that 

 are practically useless on much of our Norfolk and Suffolk land, 

 because of the great amount of room which they occupy at the 

 sides of the fields and their inability to deal with angles and 

 corners, can in this district be used to extraordinary advantage. 

 Just now, when the land is too hard for horses to be able to break 

 it, these cultivators are in great demand. A pair of them were at 

 work on one of the fields of this farm, and, seated on the drag, I 

 made the journey from one steamer to the other, a distance of 

 several hundred yards. It cannot be recommended as a luxurious 

 method of locomotion, especially when the wire rope slips on the 

 drum and when the cultivator starts forward with a sudden plunge ; 

 but it is extraordinary to see the great hooks, dragged by a strength 

 equivalent to that of fourteen horses, tearing up the iron soil to a 

 depth of seven inches. The drag in use to-day is made on the 

 same principle as our ordinary three-horse cultivator, but in addi- 

 tion to this the engines work a plough, or rather a bit of machinery, 

 to the frame of which are attached five ploughshares arranged side 

 by side, each one of them a little in front of the last However, 

 the land is too hard even for these giant ploughs, for in the next 

 field lies the instrument, broken in the attempt to use it. I under- 

 stand that under favourable conditions a pair of these steamers 



