218 LARGE FARMS AND CAPITALIST FARMERS 



to be seen from Holkham to Lynn. The thin sandy soil produced 

 but a scanty yield of rye. Naturally wanting in richness, it was 

 still further impoverished by a barbarous system of cropping. No 

 manure was purchased ; a few Norfolk sheep with backs like 

 rabbits, and, here and there, a few half-starved milch cows were 

 the only live-stock ; the little muck that was produced was miser- 

 ably poor. Coke determined to grow wheat. He marled and 

 clayed the land, purchased large quantities of manure, drilled his 

 wheat and turnips, grew sainfoin and clover, trebled his live-stock. 

 On the light drifty land in his neighbourhood the Flemish maxim 

 held good : " Point de fourrage, point de bestiaux ; sans bestiaux, 

 aucun engrais ; sans engrais, nulle recolte." " No keep, no live- 

 stock ; without stock, no manure ; without manure, no crops." 

 It is, in fact, the Norfolk proverb, " Muck is the mother of money.'' 

 In the last quarter of the eighteenth century the value of bones 

 as fertilisers was realised. 1 The discovery has been attributed to 

 a Yorkshire fox-hunter who was cleaning out his kennels ; others 

 assign it to farmers in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, where refuse 

 heaps were formed of the bones which were not available for the 

 handles of cutlery. By the use of the new discovery Coke profited 

 largely. He also introduced into the county the use of artificial 

 foods like oil-cake, which, with roots, enabled Norfolk farms to 

 carry increased stock. Under his example and advice stall-feeding 

 was extensively practised. On Bullock's Hill near Norwich, during 

 the great fair of St. Faith's, drovers assembled from all parts of the 

 country, especially from Scotland, with herds of half -fed beasts 

 which were bought up by Norfolk farmers to be fattened for London 

 markets. The grass lands, on which the beef and mutton of our 

 ancestors were raised, were deserted for the sands of the eastern 

 counties, from which under the new farming practice, the metro- 

 polis drew its meat supplies. Numbers of animals fattened on 

 nutritious food gave farmers the command of the richest manure, 

 fertilised their land, and enabled them not only to grow wheat 

 but to verify the maxim " never to sow a crop unless there is con- 

 dition to grow it luxuriantly." 



In nine years Coke had succeeded in growing good crops of wheat 

 on the land which he farmed himself. He next set himself to 

 improve the live-stock. After patient trial of other breeds, and 



1 Bones were ground at a mill in Lancashire in 1794 by a local farmer who 

 sold his surplus to his neighbours. 



