152 Agriculture 



A common practice in the cattle management is to buy stores in the 

 early spring, yard feed them for a few weeks before sending them to 

 summer grass on a "wash" pasture, and to bring them back to the yards in 

 October for fattening off during the winter. Where no cattle are fattened 

 pigs are usually kept to tread down the straw. Sheep are conspicuous by 

 their absence, and very little milk or poultry production is undertaken. 

 Although horse-breeding is associated with this district, sales of horses 

 amounted to only a litde over i per cent of gross incomes on the farms 

 covered by the survey. 



Considering the types of crops grown, the farmers are remarkably 

 independent of imported casual labour, as the wives and famdies of the 

 regular employees commonly assist with, seasonal operations. Beet 

 thinning, potato and celery planting, and the beet and potato harvests are 

 generally let out at piece rates, and individual famihes of workers may earn 

 substantial sums at certain times. 



Fenland farming depends, of course, on a complex system of artificial 

 drainage. On many farms, however, the drainage appears to be satis- 

 factory, the most usual complaint being that the water level is kept too 

 low during the summer months. Surface water-logging seems to be a 

 more serious difficulty to the farmers than any defect in the main drainage 

 system. Particularly on land where, owing to "wastage" of the peat,' the 

 underlying clay is now close to the surface, pools of water form after heavy 

 rain. The crop will quickly deteriorate in these patches unless the surface 

 water is removed, and this is generally done by ploughing or hand-digging 

 water furrows to the nearest ditch. 



The practice of " claying" the peat soUs^ is less frequently practised than 

 in the past owing to the high labour costs involved. In some cases wastage, 

 however, has proceeded so far that the clay is now being ploughed up and 

 mixed with the peat during the ordinary field cultivations. 



(4) The Silt Soils. These extraordinarily fertile alluvial deposits vary 

 from a light to a heavy consistency according to the percentage of clay. 

 The economic organisation of farms in the district is in many ways similar 

 to that on the peats, but production is even more intensive ; and capitahsa- 

 tion, output, and employment are generally higher. Rentals range from 

 ^3 to ^5 per acre. Compared with the black peats, less sugar beet is 

 grown, and potatoes (chiefly Majesties and King Edward's) are a relatively 

 more important crop ; further, the quality of the potatoes, and therefore 



' See p. 186 below. 



' See p. 120 above. It is generally carried out by digging narrow ditches across the 

 field down to the underlying clay, throwing the clay out and spreading it evenly over 

 the field, and then filhng up the excavations to make aU reasonably level. In 1936 the 

 operation cost firom ^,(^10 to j£is per acre. 



