50 to 60 acres of turnips, and a fair, liberal allowance of other
feeding stuffs at certain seasons to both ewes and hoggs, all the
lambs and drafts for sale could, I think, be easily brought out in
good condition. Also, having 100 acres or thereby of crop would
have maintained a goodly number of best stirks, letting them
run out during the day most of the winter, bringing them out
' for sale in early spring, the best of them in good condition
ready to finish off on grass, and either sell the smaller and
thinner sorts, or graze and sell them in autumn, buying in
younger cattle then, according to crop and prospects of keep.
There is no need for me to go into detail as to what fields to
crop because you have so much scope to select, whatever the man
on the spot in any given season should think would be most
suitable, and I would not bind him down even to take a white
crop after turnips in every year, as on some of the outlying land
a crop of turnips eaten on the ground and then sown out with a
suitable mixture of grasses, of which you are an acknowledged
expert, might very well be the most profitable.
Such would have been my lines of farming when you entered,
and I do not think that, for another period of 15 to 20 years,
it would need much, if any, variation.
