Coke's big improvements came in two areas; grasses and husbandry. He pioneered the use of cocksfoot and lucerne as grass and feed respectively, with the result that by 1793 he was claiming to have 2,400 sheep in Holkham, as opposed to the 700 kept when he inherited the estates. The husbandry involved the milking comparisons of various types of cow, along with the first planting of Scottish turnips, which are "a good table vegetable being more palatable and nutritious and not so watery as the Norfolk variety". His prime area of experimentation was on the selective breeding for sheep. The most common sheep in the area was the Norfolk Horn, which was long-legged and slow to mature. Coke became a promoter of the English Leicester, a breed noted as fast-maturing and excellent when fed turnips. Coke cross-bred the two, with the resulting sheep being highly tame and superior to the pure Norfolk breed. Coke also bred cattle and used oxen for ploughing rather than horse, being the first to use them harnessed rather than yoked and winning a prize for his oxen in 1837.