BEDINGHAM, DITCHINGHAM & THE FARMS 35 



also a very considerable tonnage of hay may be reckoned on, and 

 if the tenant has not found it necessary to muck his fields for the 

 last twelve or fifteen months, there are piles of manure, most of 

 it mere dirty rain-washed straw, which will add up satisfactorily. 

 For instance, on this farm of about two hundred acres, when I took 

 it over, the valuations paid in cash amounted to 382^ I suggest 

 that it would be equitable if the docks and other dis-improve- 

 ments had been valued per contra, 



When I had farmed about one hundred and thirty to one 

 hundred and forty acres of my own land for some five years I hired 

 the small farm of forty-three acres known as All Hallows, which 

 runs into mine. This land, belonging as it does to an institution 

 in the parish which had been working it, was in good heart and 

 order ; for which reason, and because from its position it was con- 

 venient to me to take it, I consented to pay for it the high rent, 

 as things are here, of yo/. Of this sum, however, about IQ/. comes 

 back from the rent of the farmhouse, which I let off as a dwelling, 

 and of two cottages that go with it. So the net rent of the 

 land is about 235-. 6d. per acre. At the same time I hired 

 about fourteen and a half acres of glebe, very light and gravelly 

 soil, though not unproductive in a wet season. This land, which 

 for years had been farmed by a poor old gentleman who had not 

 the means to work it, was in an awful condition ; indeed, it is 

 only just beginning to recover heart. I think that I am now 

 paying for it a rent of 1 2/. 



Also, last autumn I hired from a neighbour, a gentleman 

 who bought it on the double bankruptcy of its former owner 

 and of the tenant who worked it, another small farm in the 

 parish known as * Baker's.' This farm on the whole is very fair 

 land, with good buildings, but it has been sadly dealt by for the 

 last few years ; therefore docks and other weeds are many, and its 

 general condition is low, with scarcely a sound gate or a holding 

 fence in it. On every acre of it, indeed, is written the old story of 

 borrowed capital and insufficient stock and labour. Yet I remember 

 that six or seven years ago, when a former owner, now dead, had it in 

 hand, this land used to be some of the best farmed and most pro- 



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