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."
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."[1] 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.
[1] 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.