I 



COKE OF HOLKHAM ^125 



the rich pasture was wasted and the poor impoverished by 

 sheer ignorance, in Yorkshire luxuriant grass was understocked, 

 in Shropshire there were hardly any sheep ; in his own part of 

 Norfolk the usual rotation was three white straw crops and 

 then broadcast turnips.^ This Coke changed to two white 

 crops and two years pasture, and he dug up and brought to 

 the surface the rich marl which lay under the flint and sand, 

 so that clover and grasses began to grow. So successful was 

 he in this that in 1796 he cut nearly 400 tons of sainfoin from 

 104 acres of land previously valued at 12s. an acre. He in- 

 creased his flock of sheep from 800 worthless animals with 

 backs as narrow as rabbits, the description of the Norfolk 

 sheep of the day, to 2,500 good Southdowns. Encouraged 

 by the Duke of Bedford, another great agriculturist, he started 

 a herd of North Devons, and, fattening two Devons against one 

 Shorthorn, found the former weighed 140 stone, the latter no, 

 and the Shorthorn had eaten more food than the two Devons. 

 However, a single experiment of this kind is not very con- 

 clusive. 



The ploughs of Norfolk were, as in many other counties, 

 absurdly over-horsed, from three to five being used when 

 only two were necessary ; so Coke set the example of using 

 two whenever possible, and won a bet with Sir John Sebright 

 by ploughing an acre of stiff land in Hertfordshire in a day 

 with a pair of horses. He transformed the bleak bare country- 

 side by planting 50 acres of trees every year until he had 

 3,coo acres well covered, and in 1832 had probably the unique 

 experience of embarking in a ship which was built of oak 



^ But in other parts of it the cultivation of turnips was well understood, 

 for the Complete Farmer, s.v. Turnips (ed. 3), says that about 1750 

 Norfolk farmers boasted that turnips had doubled the value of their 

 holdings, and Norfolk men were famous for understanding hoeing and 

 thinning, which were little practised elsewhere. Further, Young, Southern 

 Tpur, p. 273, says : * the extensive use of turnips is known but little of 

 except in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. I found no farmers but in these 

 counties that understood anything of fatting cattle with them ; feeding 

 lean sheep being the only use they put them to.* 



