102 
Report on the Farming of the 
versus deep draining, or hazarding an opinion whether the 18-inch 
tile-drain may not in the long run follow the fate of the previously 
tried thorn-drain, it may be asserted that there are in other parts 
of Holderness thousands of acres condemned, as this farm was 
twenty years ago, as being poor, bad land, which are equally 
susceptible of improvement, and which would, if equally treated, 
produce the like results. 
The following communication from a practical farmer residing 
in South Holderness furnishes an accurate and intelligible report 
of the farming pursued in that district: — 
" Keyingham Marsh, Dec. 10, 1847. 
" The district of South Holderness varies considerably in its soil, and 
consequently the cultivation will vary much. There is a large quantity 
of land between Hull and Patrington, protected by embankments, and 
entirely composed of soil deposited by the waters of the Humber — not 
less than from 20,000 to 30,000 acres. My farm is upon this part, the 
only variation in which appears to be in the mechanical division of the 
soil, caused by the various currents in the Humber when the waters 
have been depositing the warp, where the coarser particles of soil are 
left, composed of silicious and calcareous sand, with broken shells : 
there the soil is freer, and very much superior for cultivation, but for 
grazing some of the other parts are quite as good. The rest of South 
Holderness is undulating, mostly good land, composed of gravel-hills 
and a reddish-brown clay soil, mixed with rounded stones and pieces of 
white marl or soft chalk. Nearly the whole of this land is under the 
plough — at least eight-tenths — wliile the warp-land, within the last few 
years, was nearly half of it in grass ; but the losses caused by the intro- 
duction of those epidemic diseases amongst cattle and sheep, by the 
importation of foreign stock, has been so great, that a large quantity of 
this grass is getting ploughed up every year. The size of the farms 
varies upon the warp-land — from 200 to 800 acres ; but upon tlie higher 
land there are a large number less than 200 acres. In tlie cultivation 
of my farm I have endeavoured to keep three objects in view, viz. to 
cross my crops as much as possible, to avoid dead fallows as long as I 
could keep my land clean without them, and never to sow a crop when 
the land was out of condition. Upon the freest, and what I consider 
ray best land, I have usually fallowed, with a plentiful dressing of 
manure, for rape, to stand for a crop, which is generally off the ground 
by tlie beginning of July. I immediately plough the land up and work 
it well with the drag, and, if it requires it, give a second ploughing for 
wheat : this is almost always my best wheat crop. The next year I sow 
beans, about 15 inches apart, in the drills, horse-hoe twice, and hand- 
weed twice ; indeed as long as we can get amongst them without doing 
harm. I give the bean-stul)ble a light dusting of newly -slaked lime, 
Avhile the dew is on, to kill the grey slug ; then plough for wheat; then 
afterwards fallow again. On another ])ortion of my farm I fallow for 
wheat, without any manure, as I commonly get far too much straw ; 
then clover-seeds, to pasture or mow ; then wheat. I manure the 
