( 370 ) 

 CHAP. VIII. 



GRASS. 



NO person can have been in Norfolk without quickly 

 perceiving, that in this branch of rural economy the 

 county has very little to boast. No where are meadows 

 and pastures worse managed : in all parts of the county wc 

 see them over-run with all sorts of spontaneous rubbish, 

 bushes, briars, rushes: the water stagnant: aat-hills nu- 

 merous: in a word, left in a state of nature, by men who 

 willingly make all sorts of exertions to render tlieir arable 

 land clean, rich and produftive. To make many notes 

 would be useless, for through nine-tenths of the county, 

 they would consist of disgusting repetitions — the same 

 objeds continually recurring, to be condemned in the same 

 terms. 



Improvement. — It is, however, witli great pleasure that I 

 have It in mv power to mention under this head, one of the 

 roost original discoveries (for such I esteem it, in common 

 with many excellent cultivators) that 1 have any where met 

 with in the improvement of grass-land. Mr. Salter, of 

 Winborough, near Dereham, upon his large farm o 

 above 800 acres, found 3 or 400 acres of old meadows en» 

 tirely poisoned by springs, which, from every sort of im- 

 pediment that negle6l could cause, had formed bogs and 

 raoory bottoms, famous for rotting sheep and miring cows; 

 with blackthorns and other rubbish spread over large tradls. 

 His first operations were, to grub and clear the land, and 

 open all ditches to the depth of four or five feet, and 

 to cut open drains in almost every diredtion for laying 

 them dry ; burning the earth, and spreading the ashes 



on 



