JANUARY 63 



meadow on the heavy-land farm at Spexhall, belonging to this 

 property, which a few years ago was dotted thickly with thorn- 

 bushes. Also, when shooting in Hertfordshire last year over 

 fields from which a corn crop had been taken that autumn, 

 I noted thousands of bramble seedlings. Can it be doubted 

 that if this land were left unploughed for a few seasons it 

 would become nothing but a briar scrub spreading from the 

 hedgerows ? 



The sheep are now penned upon part of No. 42, the fourteen- 

 acre on Baker's Farm, which was layer last year. The land is 

 foul and poor, and as we have no manure to put on it, we are 

 folding it with the ewes before ploughing it for oats in order to 

 freshen it up as much as possible under the circumstances. 

 Fortunately I have still a fair supply of white turnips with 

 which to feed them. These are said to be a better food for ewes 

 in the lambing time than beet, which are supposed to make them 

 miscarry ; and indeed beet at this time of year are still very 

 lush. These white turnips were a catch crop grown on a portion 

 of the twelve-acre, No. 28, commonly known as the Thwaite 

 field. 



Last year, or rather the year before, the top part of this 

 Thwaite field was sown for winter wheat, but for some unexplained 

 reason, perhaps because of the bitter spring winds, which strike 

 this exposed situation with great force, the crop was the worst 

 that I ever grew. I drilled vetches in the spring into the greater 

 part of it, in the hope that it would give me a breadth of cheap 

 feed after such corn as there was had been cut, but these vetches 

 failed also, owing to the drought. Indeed, that part of the field 

 produced more poppies than anything else red weed we call it, 

 which, although picturesque in appearance, is not satisfactory to 

 the farmer. About three acres of the worst of it, however, we 

 folded off for sheep, which throve very well upon the young wheat 

 until, towards the end, the straw grew too tough for them. After 

 they had done with it the land was ploughed and drilled with 

 white turnips, and from these, although the season has been so dry, 



