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Farming on Brixk-land. 



[may, 



FARMING 

 ON BRECK-LAND IN NORFOLK. 



S. L. Bensusan. 



East Anglia holds some 20o,oco acres of what is known 

 in Norfolk as breck-land, Norfolk's own contribution being 

 some 80,000 acres or thereabout. It is part of the lightest 

 soil in the country, and commanded in pre-war times a merely 

 nominal rent — five, six or seven shillings per acre being deemed 

 sufficient for soil that could apparently raise little more than 

 gorse, bracken and rabbits. Men hired, but made little or no 

 attempt to farm it. Their rent and rates were covered by 

 the shooting rights, for, in addition to providing rabbits as 

 the sand upon the sea shore for multitude, there were very 

 many hares and a fairly good head of partridges. The writer 

 remembers taking part in a hare drive on Suffolk breck-land 

 a few years ago, when in the course of one day 585 hares fell 

 to 12 guns. There could be little incentive to farm land that> 

 if it could grow a crop, would be lil<:ely to yield it when young 

 and green to thousands of hungry intruders. 



One of the chief owners of this breck-land in Norfolk is the 

 Duchy of Lancaster, and in 1914, a fev/ months before the War, 

 the Development Commission took over some 200 acres from 

 the Duchy and started to reclaim it, thereby adding not only 

 to the fertility of England as a whole but to the amusement of 

 the East Anghan farmers as a class. Though the outlay on 

 reclamation was no more than £5 an acre, it came near to 

 doubling the cost of the land. The whole question then 

 remaining to be solved was whether scientific farming, applied 

 to a seemmgly hopeless proposition, could result in anything 

 better than a heavy loss. 



It is not necessary to be a practical famier to realise that 

 the breck-land, of which the Ministry of Agriculture's Experi-- 

 mental Farm at Methwold in Norfolk consists, is the poorest 

 of the poor. It absorbs instantly whatever moisture is forth- 

 coming, and if an hour after a heavy shower you kick the soil 

 it protests in a Lttle shower of sand. To make the farming 

 proposition still less productive a spring drought has often to 

 be expected ; some of the land bakes very readily, there are 

 many hot patches, and in places the plough limit is not more 

 than seven to eight inches. It is not surprising in these circum- 

 stances that land like Methwold has been left lightly farmed for 

 so long, or that its potentialities have not been realised. Yet 

 even before the War it was recognised that no good purpose can 



