74 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NORWICH AND DISTRICT 
East Norfolk than at any other place in the county. Large numbers of 
store cattle are offered for sale on Norwich Hill every Saturday ; from 
3,000 to 4,000 are commonly to be seen awaiting sale by private treaty, 
between the Irishmen who bring them over and Norfolk farmers. 
A number of store cattle are also brought in from the north and west of 
England, but Irish stores largely predominate. They are dehorned, 
therefore polled and less troublesome in the yards than the horned cattle 
supplied from other districts in England. 
The four-course rotation is no longer practised in East Norfolk, for 
great difficulty is experienced in growing first quality samples of malting 
barley, as the land is usually in too high condition for the best barleys to 
be grown. In consequence many farmers turn their rotation into five or 
six courses, taking barley or oats after the wheat and sometimes two barley 
crops after sugar-beet, mangolds or swedes. A one-year ley cut for hay 
and broken up for wheat completes the rotation. Black currants are an 
important crop in East Norfolk and there are a number of well-managed 
fruit farms mainly growing apples, black currants, strawberries, and at 
Westwick cherries have been most successfully established. 
East Norfolk includes the famous Broadlands, and as the rivers con- 
tributing to the Broads pass towards the sea, they reach a flat alluvial area 
of reclaimed land, which is farmed entirely as permanent pasture. These 
are the Acle and Yarmouth marshes, and start as rather inferior grassland 
around Horsey on the sea-coast, but improve so much towards Yarmouth 
that they have every right to be classed amongst the best permanent 
grassland in England. ‘They are entirely devoted to the summer fattening 
of mature bullocks, and in this respect are similar to the better-known 
Midland pastures. ‘The Norfolk marshes, however, carry no sheep and 
the management of the grassland is not of the same high order as that of, 
say, the Market Harborough district of Leicestershire. It is possible, 
however, that an improvement in the grazing methods of the Norfolk 
marshes would make them capable of as heavy stocking as the Midland 
pastures, and there is plenty of experience to show that the beef produced 
is just as good, although the cattle do not fatten quite so quickly. It may 
seem rather paradoxical to write of first-class grazing in a county where 
it is supposed to be impossible to establish good permanent grassland. 
This last mentioned is a fallacy, but on the upland pastures drought is 
a serious factor in the permanent grassland management of the county. 
In the Norfolk marshes drought is rarely a serious factor, for the land is 
situated below sea-level and is drained by means of dykes, the water being 
moved towards the sea by means of a very well-organised system of drains 
and pumps worked by windmills. ‘Thus the Norfolk marshland grazier 
can and does control the water table and appreciably reduces the ill-effects 
of continued drought. ‘The system of management adopted on the 
marshes is peculiar and interesting. There are no farmhouses on the 
Norfolk marshlands ; a few isolated cottages, situated in apparent desola- 
tion, mark the place where the Norfolk marshman lives. The marshmen 
are responsible persons, who undertake to ‘ look ’ the cattle for a number 
of different owners on the marshes. The owners of the cattle usually 
farm some of the adjoining upland and care of their grazing cattle is 
