Agriculture of Norfolk. 
313 
"stetch," in the stubble fields, unplougbed, just as wide as the 
cart, that the wheels may pass along each furrow on a firm bottom, 
the horse walking in the centre of the part not ploughed. By 
this means the whole of the clay required is laid in heaps near 
where it is wanted, and with a saving of labour to the horses ; and, 
when there, the remainder of the land can be ploughed and made 
ready for the clay to be spread over it, so as to receive the bene- 
ficial effects of frost. 
A remarkable instance of improvement made in land by mixing 
the top soil with that below it may be seen at Stratton Strawless, 
the property of Mr. Marsham ; the part I allude to being cul- 
tivated under his direction. There is still sufficient left in its 
original state, to show that Gray's description of it, in his letter 
to Dr. Wharton — " on one side a barren black heath, on the other 
a light sandy loam '' — was probably very correct, as well as to 
justify us in supposing that it did not acquire so singular a name 
without reason. Yet, at Stratton Strawless, in August, 1843, I 
found the crops on the cultivated part of the land fully as good 
as any elsewhere ; and, in one field, observed turnips (a second 
crop, after a mixed crop of tares and rye, eaten off by sheep the 
same season) which then looked as well as any other turnips in 
the whole county. The first step towards this great improve- 
ment was a mixture of the soils, by trenching it deeply, thus : — 
A trench is opened 3 or 4 feet wide and 2 spades deep, the 
bottom of the trench then turned up with a spade or three-pronged 
fork. The flag (or surface growth, 6cc.) is then thrown in upon 
the last named, or bottom of the trench, and the second spade 
put to the top. 
Some may say this is an exchange of soils ; and so it is, but no 
such operations can be performed without some mixture of the 
two, from the succeeding ploughings and subsoil ploughings, 
although, in the first instance, the subsoil plough only breaks the 
lower soil. 
The land intended for turnips is subsoiled (the whole of one of 
these farms having now been done twice), even where the wheat 
stubble has been sown immediately after harvest, with rye for the 
ewes and their lambs in the spring ; yet time is taken to apply the 
subsoil plough to the whole, after the rye hais been fed on the 
land and before it is sown for turnips. 
MANURES. 
The farm-yard manure of Norfolk is almost invariably sa^wra^erf 
tcith the essence of linseed-cakes, these being given in abundance to 
the cattle. Whether made in open yards or under cover, linseed- 
cake is the great improver of their dung, although there are called 
to its aid many other manures, such as bones, soot, &c. Many 
