2i6 The Breckland 



be maintained only by marling or by introducing humus to absorb the 

 artificial manures. Both mustard and lupins are often ploughed in for this 

 purpose. 



The tillage of poor land, like that of the Breck country, is lucrative only 

 when prices are high, and this factor has encouraged experimental crops in 

 what is, economically, a marginal area. In recent years, mature tobacco 

 has been grown on the deeper sands at Croxton, Icklingham and Meth- 

 wold, but the experiment failed, partly because the leaf could not be dried 

 without artificial means. The introduction of sugar beet has been more 

 successful as the sugar content is high, and beet is now the principal crop 

 on soils which have been matured. Quite recently, black currants and 

 asparagus for canning have been grown successfully on a large scale on the 

 Kilverstone estate, where the hght soils are fertilised with pig manure. 

 Among the older estabhshed crops, barley is of most importance, though 

 its yield is the lowest in East Anglia. Other crops are potatoes, lupins and 

 mustard for sheep feed, buckwheat for game, lucerne and rape, peas, 

 clovers, vetch and sainfoin, swedes, turnips and mangolds. Good pasture 

 is rare even in the small fertile valleys, and so the density of live stock is 

 only about half that of the adjacent districts. Cattle are few, though dairy 

 animals have increased since the war, while sheep are below the average, 

 being grazed usually on mere rough pasture. 



Significant as are recent attempts to increase the agricultural and horti- 

 cultural productivity of Breckland, they are less interesting than the post- 

 war afforestation. This is the most fundamental vegetational change in the 

 region in historic times, equalled only by the planting and enclosing of its 

 treeless, grassy steppes at the close of the eighteenth and the dawn of the 

 nineteenth centuries. To-day, the largest single forest area created in 

 Britain in modem times is growing to maturity, and has wrought a 

 revolution in the natural and economic equilibrium of the region. 



Breckland is now the least densely populated region of its size between 

 the Pennines and the New Forest. With the stimulus of enclosures, its 

 population rose during the early nineteenth century, and, despite agri- 

 cultural depression, this reached a total of over 40,000 in 1851. The sub- 

 sequent depressions helped to depopulate the countryside, though the 

 towns of Thetford, Brandon, Mildenhall, and Swaffham maintained the 

 position they gained in the earher part of the century. By 193 1, the total 

 population of the area was only just over 30,000; and, if the urban popula- 

 tion of about 12,000 is subtracted, the remaining 18,000 are scattered over 

 its heaths and valleys at about sixty to the square mile — less than one-tenth 

 the average density for England and Wales. 



