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THE AGRICULTURE OF NORFOLK 77 
Meal organisation in England. The 14,000 acre collection of farms of 
Messrs. Parker & Proctor, the King’s Estate, and the flax-growing enterprise 
centring around His Majesty’s farms, are also in West Norfolk. The 
south-west of the district adjoins the Fens and towards them, for a few 
miles, the soils become stiffer ; in fact, a wide range of soils can be seen 
around Stoke Ferry. 
Mrp-NorFo_k. 
The soils of Mid-Norfolk are, perhaps, best described as heavy loams ; 
they are largely arable, growing excellent wheat, sugar beet and barley 
in dry seasons. The farming is not unlike that of East Norfolk, but the 
soils are different, being under-drained and the fields separated by deep 
ditches. Along the banks of the Wensum is a wide stretch of permanent 
grassland upon which dairy cattle in Norfolk were first developed on a 
large scale. Mid-Norfolk has become, in recent years, the chief milk- 
producing area of the county, and presumably because the new dairying 
interest coincided with a period of great Friesian popularity, that breed 
of dairy cow predominates, although there are some excellent herds of 
Red Polls in the area. In consequence of the dairying development 
there is less interest in the fattening of cattle, and a number of bullock 
yards have been turned into cowsheds. Recently, there has been a con- 
siderable development in the growing of vegetable crops in the Fakenham 
district on the borders of Mid- and West Norfolk. Carrots, brussels 
sprouts, cauliflowers, broccoli, and asparagus are all cultivated, not on 
market gardens but on farms often one thousand acres in size. On these 
farms the vegetable crop and sugar-beet have taken the place of the older 
sheep-feeding root crops, and it is usual on these farms to run a ewe flock 
throughout the year. This, however, would be impossible on some of 
the heavier soils of Mid- Norfolk, and these last remarks perhaps apply 
more particularly to a radius of about ten miles around Fakenham, which 
is the chief market town in that part of the county. 
SoutH NorRFOLK. 
South Norfolk, approximately bounded say by lines drawn from 
Norwich to Bungay, and along the south border to Diss, East Harling, 
Attleborough, Wymondham back to Norwich, is composed of heavy soils ; 
some, notably those immediately south of Norwich, on the way to the 
Suffolk border, are stiff clays, and a considerable acreage of arable land 
has recently been put down to permanent pasture. . 
The soils are similar, geologically, to the heavy clays of the Halesworth 
and Saxmundham district of the adjoining East Suffolk. They are often 
ploughed on ‘ ten-furrow work,’ and lie in consequence in high ridges for 
drainage purposes. Many of these soils are inadequately drained and 
ditches and fences have, to some extent, been neglected during the recent 
difficult times. The land is now mainly devoted to store raising, dairy 
farming and grassland sheep. Further west, in the direction of Wymond- 
ham and Diss, the soils are better but are still heavy, and mixed arable 
farming and dairying is carried out. Well-treated, the land in South 
Norfolk grows good wheat and beans. Excellent beet crops are grown 
