The Year Round: Time for a well-deserved holiday

On this warpland arable next to the Ouse we had very keen frosts but only a few inches of snow, and even that did not blow about.

We have neither cattle or sheep and the staff all took a fortnight's holiday over the festive season. This suits both parties, especially as no land work has been possible since Christmas.

Our lorry driver kept his vehicle going to deliver potatoes.

Call for them was steady and the price most unsensational, but no loads were returned on grounds of alleged poor quality.

Sugar beet is stored in a clamp which is only one third of its former size.

We don't usually start to sell wheat until our transporter has finished with the potatoes and sugar beet, though the latter may be around for some time.

The beet season has been prolonged as the factory was frozen up for a short time.

Our poultry comprises 12,000 laying birds in one large free-range house. There were more losses to start with than we would like but the birds are still laying very well.

Free-range poultry have a good reputation but these sites do not remain healthy for very long. The first two or three crops are usually all right but then diseases and troubles of one sort or another build up. This resulted in cages as an effort to get the birds off the land.

Drainage here depends on a criss-cross of smooth-sided open dykes. These dykes grow over, except for one little area which formed a magnet for a host of wild birds.

I saw a snipe – black with shades of buff and grey wings. It favours marshy ground and wet moors and like so many others, had found sanctuary on these lowland acres.