Farming of Lincolnshire. 



389 



4. The management of the farm- yard, xmth the advantages and 

 disadvantages of putting up the ricks at one central homestead. 



Speaking of homesteads in the aggregate^ and considering the 

 number of small freeholds, it may be said that the Lincolnshire 

 farm-yards and buildings cannot boast of their convenience of 

 arrangement or superiority of construction. The barns are 

 generally small, the stables often uncomfortable or ill-ventilated, 

 the roofs unspouted, and the strawyard so situated as to lose 

 immense quantities of liquid manure by soakage and drainage 

 into brooks or ponds. But deficient as they are, compared with 

 what they might be. ^ye believe them to be of a better 

 class than those of most other counties. The yards have gene- 

 rally a bullock-hovel and barn, Sic, to shelter them on the 

 north, walls round the remaining sides, and divisions of bar- 

 fencino; or long: fagfofots. The beasts are bedded and fed with 

 straw carried daily or as required from the stack-yard, and it is 

 common, when thrashing from the barn, to stack the straw in a 

 corner of the vard. It is also usual during the winter to employ 

 one or two men in the barn, who thrash oats or beans by flail, and 

 fodder the cattle with the straw. The number of beasts fattened 

 on the li2:ht lands is comparatively small, and the feeding hovels 

 are not very extensive. Two animals tied (or rather chained) in 

 each stall, with low mangers for food, a trough or tubs for water^ 

 and a walk" or passage along the front of the stalls, is the 

 general order of the hovels. The back of the stalls consists of a 

 row of posts or pillars instead of a wall, a thorn fencing generally 

 dividing the hovel from the yard. The beasts here are supplied 

 with hay, oilcake, and turnips, and their excrement is daily 

 thrown over the fence into the yard. This will be most frequently 

 found to be the character of the farm-yards and hovels, this 

 county having so many on a small scale ; but upon visiting the 

 larger farmsteads are invariably seen open sheds around the 

 straw-yards, root, cake, and chaff houses, drinking troughs sup- 

 plied by pipes and cisterns, and yards divided by walls or sheds. 

 Many have a square space fenced off in the centre of the yards 

 for stacking straw, which is then conveniently placed for replen- 

 ishing them ; and occasionally a straw barn is to be met with in a 

 similar situation. In the northern parts of the county great 

 efforts have been made in the improvement of the homesteads, 

 and in providing better shelter for the cattle and protection to the 

 manure, but much yet remains to be done in this respect. Box- 

 feeding is very sparingly adopted in Lincolnshire, although 

 boiled linseed mixed with chaff is extensivelv used for food in 



keeping are taken at a valuation. ^Yithin the last few years it has become usual to 

 make a full allowance for all the labour expended upon a dead fallow. 



