OF NORFOLK. 33 



parts, as in the Flegg, Tunflead, and Blofield 

 hundreds, fome tenants carry on only a four-courfe 

 fhift: thus, wheat, turnips, barley, and clover* 

 This laft, is fimilar to the practice of great part of 

 Flanders, where the invariable method is, to carry 

 an alternate crop for man and beaft, but as land, 

 though ever fo good, will grow tired of a too fre- 

 quent repetition of turnips and clover (a) t fome 

 inconvenience is occafionally fuftained ; to remedy 

 which, they will do well to change the former of 

 thefe, now and then, for a vetch crop, and the lat- 

 ter for trefoil or lucern. — No courfe of hufbandry 

 can be more profitable than this, where the foil 

 will allow it; and there are many parts of this 

 county where it may be carried on without doing 

 any injury to the land. I confider the five-courfe 

 fhift to be more unfair than the four ; becaufe, in 

 this cafe, there are three crops of corn, to two 

 crops for the animal. This mode of cropping 

 would be better, if the barley crop, after wheat, was 

 fometimes changed for buck wheat, or potatoes, 

 which would neither be an unprofitable or exhauft- 

 ing crop j and thus a little varied, the practice of a 

 five-courfe cropping might be allowed, in the parts 

 where the foil is good in quality ; or where any extra- 

 quantity of manure can be procured, which is fome- 

 times the cafe in the vicinity of towns, or near lea 

 or river navigations, or where a gentleman occupies 

 a park with a farm, or a farmer a large portion of 

 down ; but in the great weftern parts of the county, 



E the 



