CHAPTER IV 



HOW TO CONQUER THE CLIMATE 



Reference has been already made to the difficulties 

 with which the tillage or would-be tillage farmer is 

 faced in connection with climate. It is now necessary 

 to deal more specifically with this factor of climate, 

 and for this purpose I must direct the readers' 

 attention to the fact that the system of tillage usually 

 followed in these countries is either the Norfolk Four 

 Course System, or some modification of it. 



Now, the Norfolk System first came into existence 

 in 1730, through the exertions of the second Viscount 

 Townshend, who in that year retired from political 

 life to Raynham, near Fakenham, in Norfolk, for 

 the purpose of taking up the study of agriculture. 

 The main feature of Lord Townshend' s system was 

 to combine animal husbandry with crop- growing, 

 two branches of husbandry which previously had 

 been found to be mutually antagonistic. 



Prior to his time, land was either left in permanent 

 pasture or doomed to continued corn-growing. For 

 the latter, in order to clean the land, it was left 

 fallow through the entire year at different intervals in 

 the rotation. In some places it was fallowed alternate 

 years. In other cases land, described in the quaint 

 language of the period as " not being by nature 

 foul," was fallowed every third or fourth year. 

 Indeed to-day, in many places still, in the Southern 

 and South-Eastern parts of England, so little progress 

 have we made that it is still considered necessary, 



