84 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NORWICH AND DISTRICT 
turnips, swedes and mangolds, and a very large increase in the acreage 
of sugar beet. 
Turnips and Mangolds. Sugar Beet. 
Swedes. 
1924 + + + 83,698 54,336 7,207 
L925: bs ; ee yee) 52,207 15,515 
1926 gp ‘ » ot Oa505 50,816 32,384 
19270 + 71,287 47,819 51,444 
1928. ; o11901735008 47,738 41,063 
1929s 66,431 47,554 53,438 
¥Q26-4i-c¢ ‘ myth 04023 46,117 74,027 
193 Bono vetted forested F202 44,448 41,980 
TOA sro : <i t-475233 37,228 66,135 
1933. + + + 39,093 35,059 99,834 
The turnip and swede acreage has been reduced approximately to half 
the acreage shown in the 1924 statistical return, and the mangold crop by 
nearly one-fifth. ‘The combined turnip, swede and mangold acreages in 
1933 were less than the acreages in 1924 by some 63,000 acres. In 1924. 
_ 7,207 acres of sugar beet were grown in the county; last year there were 
nearly 100,000 acres. At least 63,000 acres, therefore, of the increased 
90,000 acres of beet had been grown at the expense of the older root crops. 
As the reduction in arable acreage of the county would account on a 
four-course rotation for the disappearance of about 16,000 acres: of 
mangolds and swedes, it is obvious that the beet crop has to a great extent 
taken the place of the other root crops and has been fitted into the rotation 
farming of the county. An exception is the experience of the small-holders 
who have grown much beet instead of barley. There are beet factories 
at Cantley, King’s Lynn and Wissington in the county, and at Bury 
St. Edmunds, a few miles over the Suffolk border. Beet is extensively 
grown at all places in Norfolk except on the heaviest soils and some is 
even exported by sea to Selby in Yorkshire from the old port of Wells. 
Around the beet crop have arisen new methods of stock feeding. Just 
as Townshend’s turnips revolutionised the farming of Norfolk, and in 
particular the maintenance of livestock during the winter, so the sugar 
beet crop has become the pivot around which the whole system of Norfolk 
farming now turns, and the feeding of the beet bye-products—the leaves 
and crowns, and the pulp is now an essential part of the agriculture of the 
county. Sugar beet farming is highly developed in Norfolk and about 
one quarter of the British crop is grown in the county. 
Cereals—Barley and wheat are the chief cereals of the county. In 
1933, their acreages were approximately equal, but in 1930 there were 
100,000 more acres of barley than wheat. ‘This increase was due to the 
introduction of the wheat quota and the comparative uncertainty and 
lower prices for malting barley. In 1927 the acreage of barley in Norfolk 
was lower and the wheat acreage higher than at any other time in the 
previous ten years. Oats are an unimportant crop in Norfolk, for the 
climate is not ideally suited tothem. Despite this disadvantage, however, 
