100 
Rejwrt on the Farming of the 
then substituted for beans ; and occasionally, though more rarely, 
the three-fold course is protracted into a four-fold, by sowing a 
mixture of clover and rye-grass in the wheat crop in spring : this 
last is in effect a modification of the Essex system ; and it is 
desirable that it should be more extended. But there are serious 
obstacles in the way of such better farming; such as, small en- 
closures, fences of undue proportions largely interspersed with 
hedge-row timber, and lastly, want of drainage ; all these conspire 
to render a fallow once in three years absolutely indispensable, in 
order to keep down the weeds and to preserve the land in any- 
thing like heart. The farms of this district are not large, few of 
them exceeding 200 acres ; they more generally average 1 50 acres. 
The tract has been said to be generally level. From the foot of 
the Wolds, the rivers Derwent and Foulney, and other smaller 
streams, which traverse it and constitute its drainage, run in a 
south-westerly direction. The fall of these waters is very gradual, 
and the course of some of them extremely tortuous, so that after 
heavy rains the lowest levels are completely inundated ; and from 
want of a proper outfall the ditches during a great part of the 
winter are frequenll\r quite full. 
It cannot be denied that, of late years, under-draining has been 
carried on in this part of the Riding with laudable activity. 
Many proprietors have established tile-kilns on their estates, and 
have either done the whole work f(jr their tenants (charging them 
a percentage), or have furnished them with tiles; yet still the 
impediments above alluded to serve to confine these efforts to 
certain localities more favoured than others. 
Upon the sandy and gravelly beds which occur in the Vale of 
York, the four-shift husbandry, viz. turnips, barley, seeds, wheat, 
is practised. The sandy zone, previously described, would seem, 
from the nature of its surface, to be not ill adapted for the growth 
of turnips, potatoes, &c., but the first step in the process here, as 
elsewhere, must be drainage. In the instances previously pointed 
out where this has been effectually done, the results are very 
favourable to similar attempts being made in other parts of it. 
Mr. Denison, in a paper which he published in the 'Transactions 
of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society,' has shown the benefits 
which his estate has derived from draining, marling, and subsoil- 
ing. He calculates the expense of subsoiling at not more than 
2G5. per acre, and states that by these means land, which had two 
years previously been let for not more than 2s. 6rf. per acre, was 
made to produce" 10 quarters of oats per acre. All these improve- 
ments, however — viz. marling, which cannot be effectually done for 
less than .'3Z. per acre, under-draining at about the same amount, 
and subsoiling, costing as has been said about 2Gs. per acre — involve 
an outlay which it would neither be practicable^ nor if practicable 
