96 LINCOLN HEATH AND WOLD 



crops from practically half of the area under cultivation, 

 and, as our host was prepared to sell straw and even 

 his sainfoin hay when the price was good, the output 

 was considerable from such poor, thin-looking land. 

 Moreover, it received very little dung, the necessary 

 fertility being brought in by the artificial manure for 

 the peas and the roots, and the cake which is fed to 

 the sheep on the temporary pastures. The land 

 looked no better than, hardly perhaps as good as, the 

 Norfolk land for which farmyard manure in quantity 

 is regarded as the only possible means of securing 

 proper yields throughout the rotation. In this case 

 the pea crop appeared to be a factor in improving the 

 soil, and, coupled with the two years' ley, also con- 

 sisting largely of clovers, was enough to maintain the 

 land at a very fair pitch of production. This rotation, 

 with its utilization of the natural recuperative powers 

 of leguminous plants gathering nitrogen from the air, 

 costs very little, and is in instructive contrast with the 

 Norfolk system, which buys in its nitrogen through the 

 expensive medium of cake. The land was easy to 

 work, but, like all such light soils, much given to 

 weeds, especially as so many peas were grown, for 

 probably no other crop leaves the ground so foul. 

 The creeping-rooted bent grass is the local form of 

 couch, but it was not specially troublesome, wire grass, 

 and, above all others, poppies, being the chief weeds 

 in evidence. 



As already indicated, sheep form an essential feature 

 in the farming on Lincoln Heath, but the sheep we 

 saw were hardly what one would expect on the light 

 uplands, being the well-known heavy-fleeced and large 

 framed Lincoln long-wools, which are more at home 

 on the marshes and fat grass lands in the vales. The 

 Lincolns, which are generally accorded pride of place 



