JUL Y 289 



than to stand in such a field watching the dry earth suck up 

 the bounteous downpour, and the green things gather life and 

 increase as they draw it into their tissues. What smell is there 

 half so good as the smell of the soil new-washed by rain ? People 

 who only go out walking in fine weather miss much ; the best 

 times to walk, in my opinion, are in the snow, the wet, and the 

 storm. 



Friday the 2 9th was cold and overcast, with occasional light 

 showers driven by a high north-east wind. On the farm we took 

 advantage of the welcome wet to plough the headlands and drill 

 maize on that part of the vetch field, No. 21, which was fed off 

 with sheep. Of course it is late to sow this crop even for the 

 only purpose to which we put it green fodder ; but the ground 

 has been so hard that we have been unable to get it in before. If 

 we have a warm August and September, however, which are surely 

 due to us after so cold a summer, I hope that it will still furnish 

 a good cut for the cows in autumn. There are few fodders that 

 they like better than the stalks of this Indian corn after they 

 have gone through the cutter. They are an excellent milk- 

 producing food, and, as I have learned in Africa, horses will grow 

 fat upon them. 



Yesterday we were sowing mustard broadcast and drilling white 

 turnips upon the headlands, which have been ploughed and 

 harrowed to receive them. Even if they never grow very large, 

 these headland white turnips make a welcome bite for the sheep 

 in autumn, while the mustard is always useful, especially to give a 

 flavour to chaff, or to be fed off by sheep. 



At Bedingham I find that in one of the fields, No. 6, the 

 wheat, which here is very tall and strong, is in places laid by 

 the wind and rain. The white turnips which were drilled there 

 when the swedes failed are a first-rate plant. Even if no more 

 rain falls for another month or so I think that they should now 

 make a crop, for this stiff Bedingham clay holds the moisture, 

 and here the saying that ' drought never yet made dearth ' is 

 certainly true. 



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