earthenware bowls and dried in the sun. The 1797 crop was the largest grown in England and was said to be purer than imported opium. The 24,000-acre estates in Yorkshire at Wressle and Leconfield in the East Riding, Catton and Seamer in the North Riding, and Spofforth and Tadcaster in the West Riding were also greatly improved with £26,000 spent on drainage and fencing alone between 1797 and 1812. As well as breeding horses and introducing improved machinery, the earl was keen to continue using draught-oxen when they were going out of favour elsewhere. Young records that by experiment traditional wooden yokes were found to be superior to horse-style collars. John Ellman, writing in The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex by Thomas Walker Horsfield (1835), writes of Wyndham: Horses—This county must not boast of their breed. The Earl of Egremont, with a spirit of liberality which pervades all his actions, gives to farmers, in the neighbourhood of Petworth, the opportunity of breeding from his valuable stud; his lordship also affords the eastern part of the county the same opportunity, by giving the use of one of his best bred horses to Mr. Brown, the venerable training groom at Lewes; his lordship also gives annual premiums to the breeders of the best colts, shewn at Egdean fair, near Petworth. In 1800, Wyndham bought land at Houghton, Sussex, where he developed chalk pits, which in 1808 Arthur Young reported as producing annually. A canal cut was dug from the River Arun to allow chalk to be moved by barge to lime kilns on higher reaches of the river system, including one at Haslingbourne, south of Petworth. Other enterprises Paper mills were established at Duncton, south of Petworth and at Iping, west of Midhurst. Near Northchapel a government factory was set up to produce high-quality charcoal for making gunpowder from alder wood in coal-heated iron cylinders. At Spofforth in North Yorkshire, the geologist William Smith was employed to search for coal and iron ore deposits. Between 1803-4 £1,000 was invested in sinking test wells, with the use of steam engines to pump out water. Six thin veins of coal were found but were insufficient to be of commercial value. Horse racing Wyndham maintained a racing stud near Lewes and had his first winner at Lewes in 1777. Assassin won the Derby in 1782, the first of his five Derby