CHAPTER II

COKE OF NORFOLK: FATTIER OF EXPERIMENTAL FARMS

_"Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before Kings; he shall not stand before mean men."_

At the beginning of this article we have quoted a text taken from the Proverbs of Solomon, which we believe can be applied more truthfully to the subject of our paper than to any other name conspicuous in the annuals of agriculture. For he was a man diligent in his business and he stood before Kings.

Thomas William Coke, of Holkham (Holy Home), Earl of Leicester, was the eldest son of Robert Wenman. He was born in the year 1752, and educated at Eton, after which he travelled abroad. On the death of his father, Coke was elected in his place as member of Parliament for the County of Norfolk. He was then in his twenty-second year. He entered the youngest member; his political career extended over a period of fifty-seven years, and he finished up as "Father of the House of Commons." His domestic life was singularly happy--very different from the sad state of his great contemporary Arthur Young. In 1775 he married his cousin, Jane Dutton, by whom he had three daughters. After her death in 1800 he remained a widower for twenty-one years and then at the age of sixty-eight wedded a girl of eighteen, Lady Anne Keppel, by whom he had five sons and one daughter. Coke had the unique experience of being offered a Peerage seven times under six different Prime Ministers, and he was the first commoner raised to the Peerage by Queen Victoria on her accession to the Throne. In this connection an amusing story is told. In the year 1817 Coke was called on to present, at a Levee, a very forcible address to the Prince of Wales, who was then acting as Regent, praying him "to dismiss from his presence and Council those advisers, who, by their conduct, had proved themselves alike enemies to the Throne and the people." The Regent was warned of the proposal. Knowing that Coke valued his position as a Commoner above everything else, he declared with an oath that: "If Coke of Norfolk enters my presence, by God, I'll knight him." This speech was repeated to Coke. "If he dares," was the rejoinder, "by God I'll break his sword."

Part of the estate or Holkham was formerly a series of salt marshes on the coast of the North Sea. And when Coke came into his property in 1776--a fateful year in the history of the British Empire the surrounding district was little better than a rabbit-warren, with long stretches of shingle and sand. Soon after Coke's marriage, when his wife remarked that she was going down to Norfolk, the witty old Lady Townshend said, "Then, my dear, all you will see will be one blade of grass and two rabbits fighting for that." The story of how Coke came to be a practical farmer is told in the third volume of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, published in the year 1842. The article containing it was written by Earl Spencer, and is of special interest as he had it direct from the lips of Mr. Coke (then Lord Leicester) a short time before his death. When Coke entered into his heritage, he found that five leases were about to expire. These farms were held at a rental of 3s. 6d. an acre; and in the previous leases they had been valued at 1s. 6d. an acre. At that time the agriculture of Norfolk was of the poorest character; and we may judge of the quality of the Holkham land by comparing it with the average rent of 10s. an acre which Arthur Young says prevailed at this time. Coke sent for the two tenants, Mr. Brett and Mr. Tann, and offered to renew their leases at a slightly higher figure, namely 5s. an acre. Both refused; and Mr. Brett jeered at the suggestion, saying that the land was not worth even the 1s. 6d. an acre which had originally been paid for it. This curt refusal was enough for a man of Coke's temperament. He forthwith decided to farm the land himself. It was thus that a young man of twenty-two, possessor of a princely fortune, fresh from the salons of Europe, suddenly turned his back on a gay and fashionable world; and stung into action by the laughter of a lazy tenant, took up the management of a sterile farm, raised a parish from poverty to affluence, transformed a desolate county into a cornfield, and left a name renowned in the annals of English agriculture.

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In the history of agriculture, the name of Coke is chiefly remembered by those famous gatherings locally known as "Coke's Clippings." These wonderful meetings began in a simple way with the clipping or shearing of sheep, but soon came to embrace the whole realm of the rural industry. As might be imagined, when Coke took over the management of his farms, he had not the slightest knowledge of the science and practice of agriculture. So he called together his neighbours and frankly asked their advice.

They in turn were doubtless glad to meet a young man so keen and so eager to learn. Soon they brought their friends and their relatives, and two years later these little country gatherings had assumed a more definite character, and were thereupon called "Coke's Clippings." Soon agriculturists from all parts of Great Britain wrote to ask if they might attend. Swiftly and steadily the fame of the "clippings" grew, till presently scientific and other celebrated men from the United States and the Continent travelled to England to take part in these meetings. Year by year they increased in numbers till at last they embraced every nationality, every profession, and every rank in life, from Royalty to the poorest peasant. Holkham had, in fact, become a great experimental farm--a private estate turned by the enterprise of its owner into a public institution. Nowadays, we are familiar with State experimental farms, which are visited by thousands of farmers once or twice a year. But a century ago such a thing was unheard of, and Coke may justly be termed the "Father of the Experimental Farm." At these shearings Coke presented many cups and prizes for the invention of any new agricultural implement, for suggestions with regard to improved systems of cropping, of irrigation, of enriching the soil, and for articles on agricultural subjects--in a word, to every one who contributed to advance any branch whatsoever of the agricultural industry. Moreover, we are told that at a meeting of 1803 sweepstakes were offered for guessing the correct weight of a wether. The winner was a certain Mr. Money Hill, who guessed the exact weight--130 lbs.; while a butcher named Rett was a good second, and he guessed the weights of four other sheep within one pound. It is said that, one year, there died on the Holkham estate a tenant who had won no less than £800 in prizes at the "clippings." Party politics were carefully excluded from these meetings, and any attempt to introduce a party spirit into the speeches at the annual dinners was at once silenced by Coke. As a politician he was a prominent Whig, but as an agriculturist he sank his politics and opened his doors to men of merit irrespective of their views. Thus he gave Sir John Sinclair a magnificent goblet as a token of his appreciation of Sinclair's "Code of Agriculture," in spite of the fact that Sir John was a strong supporter of the "vile Tories and their viler head, Mr. Pitt." Sir John was pleased beyond measure and remarked, with a true Highland courtesy, that hitherto the most priceless heirloom in his castle had been the drinking cup of Mary Queen of Scots, but henceforth he would look on the goblet of his Whig friend as his greatest treasure.

The last of "Coke's Clippings" took place in the year 1821. It was attended by seven thousand people, and lasted three whole days. There is something very pleasing in the account of this pastoral scene. A stately mansion in a splendid park, with a group of village maidens spinning flax, on a velvet lawn, in the midst of a vast concourse of people drawn from all parts of the earth. Punctually at ten o'clock in the morning, so we read, Miss Coke came on to the lawn, accompanied by her father, and the Duke of Sussex. Then after greetings taken and greetings given, the vast crowd proceeded, some riding, some driving, some walking, to inspect the different farms on the estate. The first day was given up to the study of the inoculated pasture, prize cattle, new implements, sheep-shearing amid farm crops. The second day was devoted to fresh fields, farm schools and cottage gardens. The third day was absorbed in the inspection of the carcases of animals that had been slaughtered, speech-making, and the distribution of prizes. On that day at 3 p.m., seven hundred guests sat down to dinner, a mid-day meal, which, with the speeches and prizes lasted for seven hours! The historian of this period has left us an account of the most popular toasts at these annual banquets, such as "A Fine Fleece and a Fat Carcase," "The Plough and a Good Use of It," while the tribute to Coke's efforts to enclose all waste lands always brought down the house, for it wittily ran: "The Enclosing of all Waists," and Coke's own toast "Live and Let Live," was invariably greeted with tumultuous applause. The two annalists who have left us unimpeachable accounts of those memorable meetings are both agreed that Coke himself was the central figure. Dr. Rigby, in "Holkham and its Agriculture" (1818) writes: "He is everywhere and with everyone. He solicits enquiry from everyone." At each halt in the ride little knots of people collected round him and listened with absorbed interest to all he said, while for hours he thus sustained the character of leader, lecturer, and host. And the American Ambassador of that day, His Excellency Mr. Richard Rush, writes in "A Residence at the Court of London," "No matter what the subsequent advance of English agriculture or its results, Mr. Coke will ever take honourable rank among the pioneers of the great work. Come what will in the future, the Holkham sheep-shearings' will live in English rural annals. Long will tradition speak of them as uniting improvements in agriculture to an abundant, cordial, and joyous hospitality."

When Coke started to farm in Norfolk the value of rotation was unknown. Then, it was customary to grow three white straw crops in succession followed by broadcast turnips. It was not to be wondered at that soil which consisted mainly of drifting sand and sharp, flinty gravel should soon become worn out. Coke changed this practice and grew only two white crops in succession and then let the land lie in pasture for the next two years. He began to manure heavily; and used rape-cake as a top dressing with marked success. Moreover, he found that the soil of almost the whole district was composed of very light sand and underlaid with a stratum of rich marl. Pits were opened, the marl dug out, and scattered over the surface of the land. This not only promoted fertility, but gave to the soil that solidity which is so essential to the growth of wheat, It was Coke's proud boast that he turned West Norfolk from a rye-growing into a wheat-growing district. But it took him eleven years before he could get wheat to grow on the poor, sandy soil of his own estate. Nevertheless, before he died, these so-called "rabbit and rye" lands were yielding as much as thirty-two bushels to the acre. His main idea was to stock heavily; more for the sake of manure than for the sake of meat. He pinned his faith on the motto: "Muck is the mother of money." And we are told that he was accustomed to say to his tenants, "If you will keep an extra yard of bullocks, I will build you a yard and sheds free of expense." He was a patient man but he was once heard to remark: "It is difficult to teach anything to adult ignorance. I had to contend with prejudice, an ignorant impatience of change, and a rooted attachment to old methods." He referred to the fact that the farmers still persisted in the old system of sowing cereals broadcast, or else laboriously made holes with a dibbing-iron into which the grain was dropped, while another man followed with a rake and covered up the holes. Thus he used the drill for sixteen years before any of his neighbours could be induced to adopt it; and even when the farmers began at last to see the benefit of this rapid manner of sowing, he estimated that its spread was only a mile each year. By-and-by, however, he noticed that a quaint term for a good crop of barley had come into use at Holkham. His farmers spoke of "hat-barley" for the reason that if a man throws his hat into a crop of barley, the hat rests on the surface if the crop is good, but falls to the ground if the crop is bad. "All sir," said his tenants at length, "is 'hat-barley' since the drill came."

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Coke was never tired of experimenting with every kind of crop. Cocksfoot (orchard grass) was cultivated with great success and numbers of sheep were fattened on it. On land, once considered worthless, he cut four hundred tons of sainfoin from one hundred and four acres. He early recognised the merits of swedes, and was the first to grow them on a large scale. He made a special study of birds in relation to the eradication of grubs. Finding a field of turnips infested with a larva which caused black canker he turned four hundred ducks into the field which they cleared of this pest in five days. Early in his career Coke discarded the native sheep of Norfolk, with backs as narrow as rabbits, in favour of the Southdowns, and gradually became one of the largest sheep-breeders in England. Encouraged by the Duke of Bedford, another eminent agriculturist, he started a herd of North Devons, and thereafter bred them with much success. He also improved the Suffolk breed of pigs by crossing them with the Neapolitan, thereby obtaining a superior quality of pork. Afforestation was one of his special hobbies. He fully realised the truth of the old saying that a tree is growing while its planter is sleeping. Every year he planted fifty acres of timber, mostly oak, Spanish chestnut, and beech, till he had three thousand acres of bleak, wind-swept country well covered. He permitted the poor of the neighbourhood to plant potatoes among his young trees for two or three years; a practice which kept his land clean and saved the expense of hoeing. And in the year 1832 he embarked in a ship built of oak from the acorns which he himself had planted.

He always maintained that the interests of landlord and tenant were identical. In order, therefore, to encourage his tenants to exert themselves to the utmost, he let out his farms on long leases of twenty-one years at a moderate rental and burdened with but few restrictions. He soon saw, however, that in the case of an indolent tenant a long lease would mean the rapid deterioration of the property. It happened at this time that a certain farmer named Mr. Overman, who had been foremost in furthering the new agricultural schemes, applied for a farm on the Holkham estate. Coke allowed him, as an experiment, to draw up the covenants of his own lease. Overman straightway inserted a clause making the improved course of cropping compulsory. Coke was so pleased that he at once made this lease the model for all his other tenants with a few slight modifications. And so the land was fully protected from any possible injury through a long period of bad farming. By such improved methods Coke is said to have raised the annual rental of his estate from £2,200 to £20,000; while the yearly fall of timber and underwood averaged £2,700--a sum which exceeded the whole of his old rent roll. During his sixty-six years at Holkham he spent over half a million pounds sterling on improvements alone, without taking into account the large sums spent on his house, domain, and home-farm buildings. Yet it is averred that this vast outlay was all regained in due course. At that period the Holkham estate consisted of 4,300 acres in a ring fence, with a park of 3,500 acres surrounded by a ten-mile wall close to the sea. In a volume entitled "Agricultural Writers" (1200-1800) by Donald McDonald, the name of Coke does not appear. And it would seem that all he ever wrote were some papers for the "Annals of Agriculture" (Arthur Young), and a pamphlet on "An Address to the Freeholders of Norfolk."

The biography of this remarkable man has recently been written in two brightly bound and lavishly illustrated volumes by Mrs. A. M. W. Stirling, under the title of "Coke and his Friends."[3] His memory well deserved the laborious and loving tribute of his enthusiastic great grand-child. But to be of any practical value to the agriculturist, the book must be greatly condensed. Out of thirty-five chapters we can find only five which tell of his services to the agricultural industry. Out of a thousand odd pages we can find only one hundred and sixteen which bear on the science and practice of farming. Out of sixty-four carefully executed illustrations we can only find four which have anything whatsoever to do with rural affairs. It may be affirmed that Coke was much more than a mere agriculturist. That is very true; but surely his fame rests far more on his services to rural progress than on his reputation as a politician, a society leader, or a landlord. We therefore hope that at no distant date the same flowing pen which has produced the bulkier volumes will compile a handier life dealing altogether with Coke's agricultural doings. Coke died in 1842 at the age of eighty-eight, and was buried in the family mausoleum attached to the Tittleshall Church, Norfolk.

[3] Published by Mr. John Lane, London.

In a life drama so vivid and forceful there are yet two vivid scenes we cannot fail to recall. It was Coke who brought forward the motion in the House of Commons to recognise the independence of the American Colonies. All night long the House sat. At 8.30 a.m., the end came. Amid breathless silence the result was announced 177 Noes, 178 Ayes. It was Coke who announced to the obstinate, discomfited King the result of that great debate, whereby the disastrous fratricidal war was forever ended and the independence of the United States acknowledged by the Parliament of the Mother Country, after nine bitter years, by a majority of one vote. The Parish of Burnham lies next to the Parish of Holkham. And the son of the rector of the former village, a fragile, delicate lad, used sometimes to join Mr. Coke's hounds when they were out coursing. But he was never asked to shoot, as only once had he been known to hit a partridge. One day this poor young man, returning from a two years' cruise paid a visit to his wealthy neighbour and stayed overnight. The great-uncle of his host built the mansion house of Holkham, and Thomas William Coke spent all his life and a large fortune in developing the family estate. But the British people placed Nelson, the frail and nervous guest, who slept that night in the humble turret-room, on the top of the Column in the centre of Trafalgar Square.