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The major part of the five hundreds of Taunton Dean, consists 

 of customary lands of inheritance, held under the Lord Bishop of 

 Winchester, paying an annual rent. These customary lands pass by 

 surrender, paying to the Lord,, fines and heriots, on alienations; 

 there are also many singular customs, within the manor, difficult to 

 be understood, even by the tenants themselves. The descent is 

 that of Borough English, with variations. The wife is heir to her 

 husband ; and it is no uncommon thing, for a widow on the death 

 of her husband, having children by him, to marry again, and carry 

 the estate into her second family, to the disinheritance of her first. 



If the fine.;, heriots, and other incidental incomes within the 

 manor, were commuted with the Lord, for an increase of the annual 

 high rents ; the lands enfranchised by Act of Parliament, and to 

 pass in descent as other lands of inheritance by common law; the 

 income to the bishoprick would be more certain, and the present 

 inconveniencies avoided. In course of time, the proprietors would 

 enlarge their possessions, and the manor would be brought into farms 

 of sufficient extent for the employment of a team ; which is not the 

 case at present. 



The dry uplands are devoted to tillage, and the rich lowlands to 

 grazing or dairy. On the former wheat, beans, peas, and vetches 

 are the principal crops; and those lands which are capable of im- 

 provement by watering, (of which there is a considerable propor- 

 tion) are so min iged, as to produce excellent spring feed for ewes 

 and lambs, together with abundant crops both of hay and after grass, 

 but the water being frequently scarce, the water-courses are a per- 

 petual source of litigatioi . 



There are very few estates entirely in pasture. Every little far- 

 mer is fond of the plough ; but in most of these small farms, where 

 there is not sufficient employment for a team, the occupiers situa- 

 tion is not better than that of a day laborer. 



Much of the ir*ble land will spontaneously produce a variety of 

 excellent sorts of grass, and shortly become good pasture, if laid 

 down in an i. us Sandlike manner. The artificial grasses here sown 

 are broad and white clover, trefoil and ray grass, called here ever- 

 grass. Many farmers think the latter impoverishes the soil; but 

 they subacute no other perennial in its stead, 



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