president’s address. 
r» *2 7 
in a most husbandlike manner, richly manured, well peopled, and 
yielding an Hundred Times the produce that it did in its former 
state. . . . The Farms are all large, and the Kents low ; for the 
Farmers having been at great Expense in Improvements, they could 
not afford them without very long Leases ; so that most of the 
Farms are lett at present at Kents under their value : add to this, 
a considerable Part of the Country belongs to Landlords, who 
have a Vanity in not raising their Kents. . . . Altogether the 
Farmers have managed to raise considerable Fortunes,” &c. 
How true all this was of the tenants on such estates as 
llolkham, Houghton, Kaynham, and some others, who formed the 
aristocracy of their class, there are many still living who can 
testify. 
It must not be thought that before the “Spirit of Improvement” 
just spoken of entered into men’s minds, nothing but Kye and 
Sheep were produced in Norfolk ; then, as now, the highlands 
bordering the marshes which fringe the seaboard of the county, 
were exceedingly productive of corn of fine quality, especially of 
barley. Spelman says the Burnhams “ might be taken for the 
bower of Ceres,” and launches into a long disquisition on the 
excellent barley produced about Hunstanton and Holme, of which 
ho says “ they make a British wine [beer] equal to that made of 
the fruit of the vine.” We need not follow him in his learned 
remarks on the names and qualities of the beers produced both 
here and by the Greeks, of which the latter became so fond 
that they instituted a festival in its honour, which the Emperor 
A wistaria* found it convenient to abolish, but his remark that 
“all the Emperors in the world will never abolish the love of beer,” 
comes home to us as Englishmen. 
And thus the “ Breck District” became what it now is; but the 
planting of belts of fir trees on the light lands as a precaution 
against the wind, which even in the present day drifts the sand 
against the banks or hedgerows like driven snow, and cuts the 
young turnips as though a sharp frost had passed over them — the 
substitution of turnips and wheat for rye, together with closer 
cultivation, however much the agriculturist may glory in the 
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