The Breckland 215 



of landscape. In many places we saw the sand even driven into ridges ; and the road 

 totally covered, which indeed was everywhere so deep and heavy, that four horses 

 which we were obhged to take could scarce in the slowest pace drag us through it. 

 It was a little surprising to find such a piece of absolute desert almost in the heart 

 of England.' 



It must be remembered, however, that casual travellers through the district 

 may have exaggerated its w^ild and barren character, for the main track- 

 ways crossed the heatlilands remote from the more fertile valleys. 



Even so, if this barren soil was ever to be cultivated it was essential to 

 plant trees. The enclosure movement, towards the close of the eighteenth 

 century, was accompanied by the planting of belts of dwarfed hedges of 

 conifers, especially of Scots pine, to shelter the fields from winds. But 

 tree-planting on a large scale only began about 1840. The incidence of 

 enclosure in Breckland varied with the soU, and its effects were more 

 marked in the border parishes. There, holdings were consolidated into 

 large estates, corn production was increased by more intensive cultivation, 

 and population expanded rapidly. Sheep manure and marl had helped to 

 feed the hungry sands of Breckland; the outfield rotation was a device for 

 concentrating upon a small area the "tathe" of a flock supported by the 

 grazing of the whole township.^ But the introduction of the four-course 

 shift of the new Norfolk husbandry brought changes. Under turnips and 

 artificial grasses, the sand produced more fodder than ever before; more 

 sheep could be carried to the acre; their "tathe" would consequently be 

 richer and the crops heavier. It was probably the introduction of the new 

 convertible husbandry that ousted the infield-outfield system from West 

 Wretham. 



But there were yet other changes to come. The agricultural crises of the 

 nineteenth century from 1813 to 1837, from 1874 to 1884, and during the 

 1890's, saw the decline of arable farming, and the acquisition of vast 

 estates by great landowners, a few of whom owned almost the whole of 

 Breckland. One estate covered 34 square miles, another 20 and a third 18. 

 Many tried to counteract their agricultural losses by developing the leasing 

 of the sporting rights, and, to facilitate their disposal, tree-planting was 

 encouraged as it provided cover for game. To-day, there is less land under 

 the plough than there was one hundred and fifty years ago. Tliis decline 

 is due primarily to economic causes, but it may well have been hastened 

 by soil impoverishment. Artificial manures on these poor soils are not 

 always productive of good crops, while ploughing breaks up the chalk 

 and assists its disappearance from the upper layers of soil. Fertility can then 



' W. Gilpin, Obseri'dtions on several parts of Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex... 

 made in ij6g (1805), p. 28. 



' J. Saltmarsh and H. C. Darby, art. cit. p. 43. 



