100 



Farming of Northamptonshire, 



infested with weeds. Stoke Bruen has a waste, or common, never yet enclosed 

 or cultivated. 



" From Welford, through Naseby, the open field extensive, and in as back- 

 ward a state as it could be in Charles I.'s time, when the fatal battle was 

 fought. The lowest part a rough moist pasture, with furze, rushes, and fern 

 abounding. The rest a strong, brown, deep loam, in the usual bean and 

 wheat culture. This parish is as much in a state of Nature as anything I 

 have seen in the county." — p. 304. 



These extracts relating to heavy land will show that at the time 

 Mr. Pitt wrote those parishes were in a very neglected state. 

 Ellsworth is now inclosed, and divided into farms of from 150 to- 

 250 acres, and lodge farm homesteads have been erected on them. 

 Stoke Plain is now inclosed, and two large homesteads erected. 

 The land is much improved, particularly one farm of 400 acres^ 

 which has been occupied for some years past by Mr. W. Dunkley, 

 but not finding the land yield a profitable return for the capital 

 expended upon it, he has lately given up the occupation. Naseby 

 field has since the inclosure been much improved, and is now a 

 useful corn growing parish. The heavy land system of culti- 

 vation has been made more productive throughout the county. 

 The old system of laying the lands up high and trenching out the 

 furrows was not attended with much success ; it rendered a yard 

 on each side the furrow nearly unproductive by reason of an 

 excess of moisture, and it was no uncommon sight to see the 

 water standing halfway up the sides of the land after heavy rain. 

 Under the system of furrow -draining the furrows have become as 

 productive as the ridges ; it has also enabled the occupier to 

 grow a greater variety of crops, and the " dead fallow " has been 

 superseded by the growth of green crops. 



The converting of old worn-out pasture land into arable has 

 been attended with considerable success where it has been fairly 

 carried out. In some instances, by successive crops of white 

 grain, without any return of manure, this land has only been 

 changed from poor grass into impoverished arable land ; but, 

 under a more liberal treatment, it may be ranked amongst the 

 improvements. It has been done with advantage in the parishes 

 of Elkington and Yelvertoft, under the superior management of 

 Mr. Joseph Elkins, a tenant of Earl Spencer's. I had the plea- 

 sure of going over some of his land last harvest, and saw a very 

 splendid crop of oats carting from a field that I recollect in my 

 boyhood as very poor grass land, and in which I have often 

 bounded from ant-hill to ant-hill after the peewits, which are 

 found to frequent inferior pastures. Mr. Barringer, of Chapel 

 Brampton, has also been successfully adopting the same plan ; 

 and in another part of the same nobleman's estate, in the parish of 

 Strixton, some of the roughest and most unproductive pasture 

 land has been converted, by the skill and enterprise of his lord- 



