356 History of the English Landed Interest. 



profitable in the world, and that it was more useful to the 

 community and less injurious to his men, if they worked in 

 harvest time after morning church than if they brawled in the 

 public- houses. 1 Coke, however, probably did more good as 

 a landlord than as a farmer. Whatever practice he found to 

 answer in his own case he pressed on the attention of his 

 tenantry. He encouraged his farmers to consider themselves 

 secure in their holdings, and at least two years before a lease 

 expired he put the occupier upon a footing of certainty by 

 stating to him the terms upon which he might expect to 

 renew it. Though the advance of rent was often very great, 

 no single instance is on record of any tenant leaving his 

 holding. 



He attempted to grow wheat and succeeded ; his tenants 

 attempted to grow wheat and succeeded. He began to marl 

 and bone his land, and his tenants followed his example. He 

 top dressed the soil with Dutch oil cake, and they, seeing what 

 profitable results ensued, adopted the process on their own 

 holdings. He borrowed from Sir Henry L'Estrange his 

 method of cultivating sainfoin, obtained 265 loads, averaging 

 over a ton each of excellent hay off 104 acres, and induced his 

 neighbours to try it for themselves. He picked up hints on 

 turnip drilling at Rainham and scattered them broadcast 

 over his estates. No wonder then that though he doubled 

 and quadrupled his rents,^ he could, as Nathaniel Kent as- 

 serted, be justly styled one of the best landlords in the 

 country. Yet this was the man whose heart the Norwich 

 weavers, in 1815, would have burned on a gridiron because 

 he had consistently voted for " protection to agriculture." 

 Lord Albemarle graphically describes the scene as follows : — 

 Coke and a neighbour had attended a Cattle Show in the 

 Norwich Castle Ditches. The well-known Protectionist was 

 recognised b}- an Anti-Corn Law mob and attacked. A butcher, 

 named Kett (unlike in disposition to his rebellious namesake 

 of Tudor times), opened the door of a pen in which stood for 



' Annals of Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 382. 



2 Report to the Board o/Ayricullia-e, sub voc. " Norfolk." 



3 1(1., Ibid. 



