i16 
Farming of Yorhshire. 
dry, that the damage done in 1860 can be recovered in 1861 ; 
and yet this county might be made perfectly dry. The under- 
taking is a great national work and a pressing necessity, which 
no private enterprise can grapple widi. This difficulty, how- 
ever, is not confined to Howdcnshire, but, for many miles beyond, 
the country rec^uires relief by efficient trunk-drainage with im- 
proved doughs or flood-gates. 
Some works have been commenced in the Rye and Dervvent, 
but with inadequate means, and they remain consequently un- 
finished. The past season has caused the most sceptical to 
believe in the necessity for vigorous measures to carry off the 
surplus Avater more directly to the sea, and afford a better outfall 
to some of the richest land now laid under water. Trunk- 
drainage has been carried out in Holderness in a most spirited 
manner. The example, however, has not been followed in dis- 
tricts equally requiring it. 
Following upon drainage is the enlargement of fields and stub- 
bing up of old and useless hedgerows. In a farm of 450 acres in 
this district of Howdenshire a direct saving of about 17 acres, 
and an equal benefit from the saving a like extent of headlands 
when under root cultivation, was the result of reducing 51 fields 
into 17 ; by these means the rays of the sun and the current of 
air were enabled to act with greater effect, — so as to increase the 
evaporation, raise the temperature of the soil, check blight and 
mildew, forward the ripening of the grain before harvest, and 
diminish the risk of sprouted sheaves, and accelerate the work 
of carting after it has been cut. The gain derived from 
ploughing without short turnings is worthy of special notice. A 
short examination into the number of hours spent in ploughing 
say 1 acre, the distance traversed with a 9-inch furrow, and the 
rate at which horses when in motion can step without difficulty, 
will show how vei"y large a portion thfe day is spent in these 
convenient occasions for loitering. 
The saving which will be effected by no longer keeping in 
repair those useless encumbrances the hedgerows, which are from 
3 to 4 feet high for arable, and from 6 to 7 feet for cattle-grazing 
lands, will probably suffice for the supply of those hurdles which 
may be required under the new arrangement. 
The effect of good drainage is to encourage clean farming, 
which, though well understood, was seldom carried out prior 
to the period under our notice. It has paved the way for the 
excellent practice of working cultivators on the stubbles in the 
autumn — the greatest improvement in the husbandry of modern 
times. 
The tenure of land throughout the county is almost universally 
upon lease from year to year ; the long lease is quite the excep- 
