498 
Typical Farms in East Anglia. 
Cambridge Customs. 
Micliaelmas Entry. 
Annual tenancies, as a rule. 
Consuming value payable for Hay, Straw, and Roots. 
Dung valued over per cubic yard. 
Threshing of outgoing tenant’s crop done by incoming tenant under 
supervision, and grain carted to market. 
Norfolk Customs. 
Michaelmas Entry. 
Consuming value paid for Hay and Roots, Straw free. 
Dung valued over per cubic yard. 
Threshing of outgoing tenant’s crop done under supervision, and carted 
to market. 
Suffolk Customs. 
Michaelmas Entry. 
Consuming value paid for Hay. 
Dung valued per cubic yard, and in some cases outgoing tenant receives 
half value of dung spread the preceding year for beans and young layers. 
Roots free, but all labour, sometimes four or five ploughings, being 
payable. 
Straw free. 
Besides these local customs, outgoing tenants have claims 
for unexhausted manures and feeding-stuffs, either under the 
Agricultural Holdings Act, or by the agreement under which 
they farm. 
It will thus be seen that a considerable amount of capital is 
needed to take possession of a farm in either of the three 
counties. This is different from the state of affairs in some of 
the northern counties of England, where an almost free entry 
into a holding induces keen competition for farms, with all the 
attendant risks to landlords and tenants. 
With regard to the actual working of the land, the four- 
course system is very generally pursued, both on the heavy clays 
and on the light soils. On several farms where the soil is very 
light the present price of grain has driven tenants to make a 
departure from the ordinary four-course. Mr. Ellis in Norfolk, 
and Mr. Smith and others in Suffolk, have found that on their 
poorest sandy soils such grass as the land will carry is better than 
any crop they might attempt to grow, and they therefore plough 
less than they did. In Mr. Ellis’s case there has been a gradual 
change of system on his medium soils. Grasses and clovers 
have been sown, fed off with sheep, and manured with a coating 
of farm-yard manure. 
Treated in this fashion, a good thick sole of grass has been 
obtained, which is left down to be ploughed up as circumstances 
warrant. The working out of this departure from the ordinary 
four-course system enables the tenant to keep a large breeding 
stock, and at the same time it lessens the labour bill. 
