A PILGRIMAGE OF BRITISH 

 FARMING 



i 



CHALK FARMING IN WILTSHIRE 



IT would perhaps be most appropriate to begin a 

 pilgrimage of British farming with Norfolk, for the 

 systematic pursuit of the industry along what we 

 might call modern lines is generally associated with 

 Townshend's turnips and the invention of the four- 

 course system. The writings of Arthur Young, 

 himself an East Anglian, did much to promulgate the 

 idea that Norfolk was the originating county, and 

 the long line of notable farmers it has produced has 

 only fixed the tradition. But in an industry so 

 ancient, so universal, and yet so localized as agri- 

 culture, in which the practitioners have rarely been 

 writers, the origin of any custom as a rule antedates 

 any individual to whom it is credited. The recorded 

 names usually belong to men conspicuous by their 

 station or their powers of writing, men who in one 

 way or other gave a general circulation to what had 

 hitherto been a local or occasional practice. Turnips 

 and rotation grasses were grown long before Townshend 



