Typical Farms in Fast Anglia. 
499 
While there are symptoms of changes being made from the 
ordinary four-course on the lighter lands, I was unable to learn 
from any of the strong land farmers that they had any idea of 
altering their system. It is indeed difficult to see how such 
perfect, clean, strong land-farming, as I had the pleasure to 
inspect, can be maintained with grain at the present prices. 
Freedom of sale of straw and hay may in some instances help 
much, but the railway rates and other expenses operate to such 
an extent as to make a privilege like this of little value in 
ordinary years. 
Several of the crops grown were new to me, as a North- 
country farmer. On the very light soils lupin and cole-seed, 
and on others mustard, trifolium, lucerne, sainfoin, and kohl- 
rabi were everywhere grown. 
Sainfoin struck me as a most valuable crop, and its culti- 
vation might, in my opinion, be extended to districts where at 
present it is not grown. 
All know the difficulty of growing a full crop of clovers every 
fourth, or even fifth, year, and such a crop as sainfoin to alter- 
nate with clover would be of immense value. 
On all the farms I visited the work was well done, and all 
through there was a thoroughness in every department which is 
unfortunately absent on too many farms. The ploughing, 
whether done by the high- wheeled Norfolk, the ordinary, or the 
one-handled Suffolk plough, was always straight and level ; and 
no one from the North looking at the beautifully straight-round 
furrows in a Suffolk field could fancy they were the work of one- 
handled ploughs. 
The amount of horse-hoeing and other land cleaning opera- 
tions necessitates straight, regular drilling, and on every farm 
the drilling and sowing were perfect. 
The labour questiou is one which cannot be gone into, but 
it may be stated that 10s., 11s., or 12s. a week, which is given 
as the wages paid, by no means represents the money earned 
by the farm labourers. After careful inquiry into all the com- 
plications connected with the labourer’s pay in the counties visited, 
itt seemed to me that the average weekly earnings of an average 
farm hand must be put at 15s. to 16s. The difficulty of getting 
at the exact amount of weekly pay arises through the great 
amount of contract work which is done. 
Taking 16s. a week as the average wage earned by an able- 
bodied man, and deducting from this his house rent, say Is. 3d., 
North-country farmers will see that the wages are lower than 
with them. If, however, they care to compare their wages rate, 
per acre, with those of the several farms as given in the tables 
