364. ARABLE SYSTEM. 



110 husbandry better adapted to a sheep-farm, than this of 

 pease or tares preceding the wheat crop. 



A great and a very important change has, however, 

 taken place in the application of crops to sheep instead of 

 bullocks and cows. Formerly the farmers consumed much 

 of their straw by cattle : now the best tread it all into 

 (lung. 



Sheep are the main grazing stock, and no more cattle 

 kept than for treading, not eating straw, while feeding on 

 oil-cake, &c. This is an important change, which has 

 had considerable efFe6l, and has depended not a little on 

 the introdu6tion of South Down sheep. 



The grand objedl in the whole system, is the singular 

 steadiness with which the farmers of West Norfolk have 

 adhered to the well-grounded antipathy to taking two crops 

 of white corn in succession: this is talked of elsewhere, 

 but no where so steadily adhered to as in this distridi. It 

 is this maxim which has preserved the efFedl of their marie, 

 on thin-skinned wheat lands, in such a manner that the 

 distridl continues highly produ6tive, under an almost re- 

 gularly increasing rent, for more than 60 years, or three 

 leases, each of 21 ; and by means of which great tradls 

 have been marled a second, and even a third time, with 

 much advantage. 



This system has been that to which the title of Norfolk 

 husbandry has been long, and is now peculiarly appro- 

 priated ; and by no means the management of the very 

 lich distridl of East Norfolk, where the soil is naturally 

 among the finest in the kingdom, and consequently where 

 the merit of the farmer must be of an inferior stamp : 

 barley there very generally follows wheat ; an incorrcdt 

 husbandry, deserving no praise. The celebrity of the 

 county in general was not heard of, till the vast improve- 

 ments of heaths, wastes, sheep-walks, aud warrens, by 



enclosure^ 



