112 
Report on the Farming of the 
winter-feetlino^ a few cattle has of late years prevailed ; and it is 
greatly to be desired that this most important means of adding to 
the resources of the farm were more generally adopted. It has 
frequently been adduced as an impeachment of the otherwise im- 
proved husbandry pursued throughout this district, that the Wold 
farmers do not appear to know how to convert their straw into 
manure. It is remarked that huge piles of straw may be seen, 
perhaps half a mile from the homestead, left for months on the 
very spot where a portable machine has thrashed it, in all the dis- 
order occasioned by that rather disorderly process : that even in 
the stack-yard no care is taken by slacking it, much being wasted 
by the wet, much by the wind. It is to be feared that these alle- 
gations are too just, and that great loss is really thus sustained. 
1'he benefits which are to be derived from a contrary course aie 
too obvious to need comment. It is therefore to be hoped that, as 
years pass on, and knowledge is extended, these cases of negli- 
gence may become rare, that economy of straw may be the rule, 
the waste of it the exception. 
In those large establishments where winter-feeding is carried 
on, it is never thought right to draw off for the cattle more than a 
certain proportion, perhaps one-sixth of the crop. The beasts are 
fed in yards loose, which yards are protected by shedding from 
the N. and E. winds, and the turnips are given them in square 
troughs or tumbrils. The great advantage of an additional allow- 
ance of 5 or 6 lbs. of oil-cake a-day to each beast has been recog- 
nised by several of the farmers ; and thus, within the last few 
years, many prime fat cattle have found their way from this for- 
merly barren waste to the fat-stock markets of Beverley and Drif- 
field. 
A fortnight fair has within the last two years been established 
at Driffield, and during the winter months it is well supplied with 
both beasts and sheep. 
If the weather should be dry enough, and there should be no 
impediment by frost or snow, the plough follows close upon the 
sheep-fold, preparatory for spring-corn sowing. 
It has become the practice, as has been observed, to sow wheat 
after turnips : upon the deep Wolds this may be said to be uni- 
versal. The reason why the earlier mode of wheat after seeds 
has been abandoned is this, that on these soils, and in this climate, 
the wheat-plant was found to be very apt to be turned out in the 
spring, if sown on clover- lea, and that no system of rolling or of 
treading with sheep could counteract this tendency. Upon these 
soils also wheat of a finer quality is obtained after rape or turnips 
than according to any other method. Upon the thin Wold soils 
the very converse of this takes place : wheat after turnips does not 
