THE AGRICULTURE OF NORFOLK 83 
decade. The permanent grass of the county has increased by 31,000 acres. 
There has obviously been less incentive to be committed to the heavy 
labour and other charges of arable land and an effort has been made to 
reduce them by turning less suitable arable soils into permanent grazings. 
This tendency has been largely confined to the heavy intractible clays 
and the lighter sands and gravels, the first named being too difficult and 
expensive to cultivate under the existing conditions of fixed wages and 
low prices of farm produce, and the latter too uncertain in its cropping 
to withstand the same combination of economic forces. 
Actually, there are now 249,782 acres of permanent grass not for hay, 
and 78,927 acres of rough grazings in the county. The reduction in the 
acreage of the arable land of any district is to be deplored, for it has grave 
effects upon the social structure of an agricultural county, each section 
of which is dependent upon the others for its living. Arable land employs 
very appreciably more labour than the rough grazings produced by the 
light lands of Norfolk or the pastures established on the heavy clays ; in 
consequence not only is the food output of the land reduced, but the 
agricultural labourer finds less employment. Some of the light West 
Norfolk farms have been grassed down and now, unfortunately, carry 
about one sheep to the acre, employing one or two shepherds and their 
dogs on 1,000 acres, whereas in former times there were between thirty 
to forty labourers on the same land. 
On adjoining land in the hands of farmers with greater capital resources, 
hopefully carrying in until the depression has passed, are to be seen as 
many as thirty to forty workmen on a field of carrots or sugar beet. Such 
enterprise is only possible with considerable capital, but the contrast 
directs attention to incongruity of a nation that permits its suitable arable 
districts to be turned into inferior pasture land, and at the same time 
maintain its unemployed industrial workers on State resources. 
Normally, the Norfolk four-course farm employs 3:5 to 4 men per 
roo acres of arable land. One of the alternatives to the four-course shift, 
namely, continuous corn growing by power methods, substitutes one 
man per 200-acre farm for the seven to eight that used to work the same 
land on the traditional system; farmers on the last-named system, 
however, have often gone out of business or been forced to seek fresh 
and smaller fields to conquer ; the power farmer continuously growing 
corn, however, safeguards his own interests by the comparative safety of 
his machines and comparatively negligent wages bill. 
Crops and Grass —To lose 33,318 acres of cropped land during ten 
years is a serious encroachment upon the capital reserves of the county. 
Nearly half (14,085 acres) have been lost since 1929, and 10,000 acres 
of the lost land appears as rough grazings and 4,000 as permanent 
pasture. 
There has, however, been greater agricultural confidence during the 
last three years and it is hoped that the deplorable losses of arable land 
have now been checked. Much, however, will depend upon the agricultural 
policy of the Government. 
Root Crops—The statistics for the root crops since 1924 make interest- 
ing reading, ‘They show the gradual reduction in the acreages of 
