THE AGRICULTURE OF NORFOLK 75 
entrusted entirely to the marshmen, many of whom employ additional 
labour to assist them ; they are responsible for the cutting of the reeds 
and the ‘ bottomfying’ of the dykes during winter, when there are no 
cattle on the grass. 
Many of the marshes are let by public auction each year, a system that 
is not conducive to improvement schemes. Some, however, have been 
bought, and are farmed by the owners. Rents vary according to the 
prospects of the beef trade. The marshes have been let at a somewhat 
higher rate this year, due possibly to the fact that Canadian cattle are not 
coming into the country and the graziers, in consequence, hope for a 
better winter trade. 
Each occupier of the land pays a drainage rate, and the marshmen are 
left to control the grazing and to consult with owners of the cattle, perhaps 
weekly or later in the year when they meet to draw cattle out for the 
market. There are cattle markets at Yarmouth and Acle, which are situ- 
ated on opposite sides of the marshes, where some very fine specimens of 
grass-fed beef animals are sold each year. Shorthorns, Aberdeen Angus, 
and crosses between the two breeds, are the most common cattle, but in 
recent years the North Devon has become quite popular. 
West NORFOLK. 
West Norfolk is usually regarded as the country west of an imaginary 
line drawn from Wells-next-the-Sea, Fakenham, Swaffham, to Downham 
Market. Thus defined, it includes the rich area west of King’s Lynn and 
the river Ouse, known as the Marshlands, including the Fen country on 
Isle of Ely borders. ‘The Marshlands are arable and are not to be confused 
with the grassland stretch of country some sixty miles away known as the 
Acle Marshes mentioned above. For the purposes of agricultural 
description, however, West Norfolk must be divided into two, and the 
Marshlands with their entirely different agricultural character separated 
from the land immediately east of King’s Lynn. It is to the last named 
that the remainder of this section applies. 
The soils in the area are rather variable, but the majority of them are 
light. In the south-west they become so light that they may truly be 
described as blowing sands, especially from Swaffham to Thetford in the 
direction of Brandon in the neighbouring county of Suffolk. ‘Those areas 
are in the Norfolk Brecklands, which despite its many other attractions, 
is the worst soil in Norfolk, and one of the least fertile in England. The 
soils of North-West Norfolk are much better, except the coastal ridge near 
Sheringham and Cromer, but they are still light gravels overlying the 
chalk, which in a few places is near enough to the surface to influence the 
character of the soil. 
At Denver, and from West Bilney and East Winch a band of Green- 
sand runs through to Snettisham, producing a soil superficially different 
from anything else in the county of Norfolk. It is, however, still light soil 
and is farmed almost precisely as the remainder of North-West Norfolk. 
Along the North Norfolk coast are mud flats and grazing lands of 
variable value devoted to the grazing of livestock. Holkham Marshes, 
on Lord Leicester’s estate, are in this area and are, of course, well known. 
