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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of English Agriculture
+by W. H. R.  Curtler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Short History of English Agriculture
+
+Author: W. H. R.  Curtler
+
+Release Date: August 25, 2005 [EBook #16594]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH AGRICULTURE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Million Book Project, Juliet Sutherland, Tricia
+Gilbert and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE
+
+BY
+
+W.H.R. CURTLER
+
+
+  OXFORD
+  AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
+  1909
+
+
+  HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
+  PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
+  LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
+  TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+'A husbandman', said Markham, 'is the master of the earth, turning
+barrenness into fruitfulness, whereby all commonwealths are
+maintained and upheld. His labour giveth liberty to all vocations,
+arts, and trades to follow their several functions with peace and
+industrie. What can we say in this world is profitable where
+husbandry is wanting, it being the great nerve and sinew which
+holdeth together all the joints of a monarchy?' And he is confirmed
+by Young: 'Agriculture is, beyond all doubt, the foundation of every
+other art, business, and profession, and it has therefore been the
+ideal policy of every wise and prudent people to encourage it to the
+utmost.' Yet of this important industry, still the greatest in
+England, there is no history covering the whole period.
+
+It is to remedy this defect that this book is offered, with much
+diffidence, and with many thanks to Mr. C.R.L. Fletcher of Magdalen
+College, Oxford, for his valuable assistance in revising the proof
+sheets, and to the Rev. A.H. Johnson of All Souls for some very
+useful information.
+
+As the agriculture of the Middle Ages has often been ably described,
+I have devoted the greater part of this work to the agricultural
+history of the subsequent period, especially the seventeenth,
+eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.
+
+W.H.R. CURTLER.
+
+_May 22, 1909._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Communistic Farming.--Growth of the Manor.--Early Prices.--The
+Organization and Agriculture of the Manor
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The Thirteenth Century.--The Manor at its Zenith, with Seeds of Decay
+already visible.--Walter of Henley
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Fourteenth Century.--Decline of Agriculture.--The Black Death.--
+Statute of Labourers
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+How the Classes connected with the Land lived in the Middle Ages
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The Break-up of the Manor.--Spread of Leases.--The Peasants'
+Revolt.--Further Attempts to regulate Wages.--A Harvest
+Home.--Beginning of the Corn Laws.--Some Surrey Manors
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+1400-1540. The so-called 'Golden Age of the Labourer' in a Period of
+General Distress
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Enclosure
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Fitzherbert.--The Regulation of Hours and Wages
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+1540-1600. Progress at last--Hop-growing.--Progress of Enclosure.--
+Harrison's _Description_
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+1540-1600. Live Stock.--Flax.--Saffron.--The Potato.--The Assessment
+of Wages
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+1600-1700. Clover and Turnips.--Great Rise in Prices.--More
+Enclosure.--A Farming Calendar
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Great Agricultural Writers of the Seventeenth Century.--Fruit-growing.
+--A Seventeenth-century Orchard
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Evils of Common Fields.--Hops.--Implements.--Manures.--Gregory
+King.--Corn Laws
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+1700-65. General Characteristics of the Eighteenth Century.--Crops.
+--Cattle.--Dairying.--Poultry.--Tull and the New Husbandry.--Bad
+Times.--Fruit-growing
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+1700-65. Townshend.--Sheep-rot.--Cattle Plague.--Fruit-growing
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+1765-93. Arthur Young.--Crops and their Cost.--The Labourers'
+Wages and Diet.--The Prosperity of Farmers.--The Country
+Squire.--Elkington.--Bakewell.--The Roads.--Coke of Holkham
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+1793-1815. The Great French War.--The Board of Agriculture.--High
+Prices, and Heavy Taxation
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Enclosure.--The Small Owner
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+1816-37. Depression
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+1837-75. Revival of Agriculture.--The Royal Agricultural
+Society.--Corn Law Repeal.--A Temporary Set-back.--The Halcyon Days
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+1875-1908. Agricultural Distress again.--Foreign Competition.--
+Agricultural Holdings Act.--New Implements.--Agricultural
+Commissions.--The Situation in 1908
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Imports and Exports.--Live Stock
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Modern Farm Live Stock
+
+
+APPENDICES
+
+I. Average Prices from 1259 to 1700
+
+II. Exports and Imports of Wheat and Flour from and into England,
+unimportant years omitted
+
+III. Average Prices per Imperial Quarter of British Corn in England
+and Wales, in each year from 1771 to 1907 inclusive
+
+IV. Miscellaneous Information
+
+
+
+
+LANDMARKS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE
+
+
+1086. Domesday inquest, most cultivated land in tillage. Annual value
+of land about 2d. an acre.
+
+1216-72. Henry III. Assize of Bread and Ale.
+
+1272-1307. Edward I. General progress. Walter of Henley.
+
+1307. Edward II. Decline.
+
+1315. Great famine.
+
+1337. Export of wool prohibited.
+
+1348-9. Black Death. Heavy blow to manorial system. Many demesne
+lands let, and much land laid down to grass.
+
+1351. Statute of Labourers.
+
+1360. Export of corn forbidden.
+
+1381. Villeins' revolt.
+
+1393. Richard II allows export of corn under certain conditions.
+
+1463. Import of wheat under 6s. 8d. prohibited.
+
+End of fifteenth century. Increase of enclosure.
+
+1523. Fitzherbert's _Surveying and Husbandry_.
+
+1540. General rise in prices and rents begins.
+
+1549. Kett's rebellion. The last attempt of the English peasant to
+obtain redress by force.
+
+1586. Potatoes introduced.
+
+1601. Poor Law Act of Elizabeth.
+
+1645. Turnips and clover introduced as field crops.
+
+1662. Statute of Parochial Settlement.
+
+1664. Importation of cattle, sheep, and swine forbidden.
+
+1688. Bounty of 5s. per quarter on export of wheat, and high duty on
+import.
+
+1733. Tull publishes his _Horse-hoeing Husbandry_.
+
+1739. Great sheep-rot.
+
+1750. Exports of corn reached their maximum.
+
+1760. Bakewell began experimenting.
+
+1760 (about). Industrial and agrarian revolution, and great increase
+of enclosure.
+
+1764. Elkington's new drainage system.
+
+1773. Wheat allowed to be imported at a nominal duty of 6d. a quarter
+when over 48s.
+
+1777. Bath and West of England Society established, the first in
+England.
+
+1789. England definitely becomes a corn-importing country.
+
+1793. Board of Agriculture established.
+
+1795. Speenhamland Act.
+
+About same date swedes first grown.
+
+1815. Duty on wheat reached its maximum.
+
+1815-35. Agricultural distress.
+
+1825. Export of wool allowed.
+
+1835. Smith of Deanston, the father of modern drainage.
+
+1838. Foundation of Royal Agricultural Society.
+
+1846. Repeal of the Corn Laws.
+
+1855-75. Great agricultural prosperity.
+
+1875. English agriculture feels the full effect of unrestricted
+competition with disastrous results.
+
+  "   First Agricultural Holdings Act.
+
+1879-80. Excessive rainfall, sheep-rot, and general distress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+COMMUNISTIC FARMING.--GROWTH OF THE MANOR.--EARLY PRICES.--THE
+ORGANIZATION AND AGRICULTURE OF THE MANOR
+
+
+When the early bands of English invaders came over to take Britain
+from its Celtic owners, it is almost certain that the soil was held by
+groups and not by individuals, and as this was the practice of the
+conquerors also they readily fell in with the system they found.[1]
+These English, unlike their descendants of to day, were a race of
+countrymen and farmers and detested the towns, preferring the lands of
+the Britons to the towns of the Romans. Co-operation in agriculture
+was necessary because to each household were allotted separate strips
+of land, nearly equal in size, in each field set apart for tillage,
+and a share in the meadow and waste land. The strips of arable were
+unfenced and ploughed by common teams, to which each family would
+contribute.
+
+Apparently, as the land was cleared and broken up it was dealt out
+acre by acre to each cultivator; and supposing each group consisted of
+ten families, the typical holding of 120 acres was assigned to each
+family in acre strips, and these strips were not all contiguous but
+mixed up with those of other families. The reason for this mixture of
+strips is obvious to any one who knows how land even in the same field
+varies in quality; it was to give each family its share of both good
+and bad land, for the householders were all equal and the principle on
+which the original distribution of the land depended was that of
+equalizing the shares of the different members of the community.[2]
+
+In attributing ownership of lands to communities we must be careful
+not to confound communities with corporations. Maitland thinks the
+early land-owning communities blended the character of corporations
+and of co-owners, and co-ownership is ownership by individuals.[3] The
+vills or villages founded on their arrival in Britain by our English
+forefathers resembled those they left at home, and even there the
+strips into which the arable fields were divided were owned in
+severalty by the householders of the village. There was co-operation
+in working the fields but no communistic division of the crops, and
+the individual's hold upon his strips developed rapidly into an
+inheritable and partible ownership. 'At the opening of Anglo-Saxon
+history absolute ownership of land in severalty was established and
+becoming the rule.'[4]
+
+In the management of the meadow land communal features were much more
+clearly brought out; the arable was not reallotted,[5] but the meadow
+was, annually; while the woods and pastures, the right of using which
+belonged to the householders of the village, were owned by the village
+'community'. There may have been at the time of the English conquest
+Roman 'villas' with slaves and _coloni_ cultivating the owners'
+demesnes, which passed bodily to the new masters; but the former
+theory seems true of the greater part of the country.
+
+At first 'extensive' cultivation was practised; that is, every year a
+fresh arable field was broken up and the one cultivated last year
+abandoned, for a time at all events; but gradually 'intensive' culture
+superseded this, probably not till after the English had conquered the
+land, and the same field was cultivated year after year.[6] After the
+various families or households had finished cutting the grass in their
+allotted portions of meadow, and the corn on their strips of tillage,
+both grass and stubble became common land and were thrown open for the
+whole community to turn their stock upon.
+
+The size of the strips of land in the arable fields varied, but was
+generally an acre, in most places a furlong (furrow long) or 220 yards
+in length, and 22 yards broad; or in other words, 40 rods of 5-1/2
+yards in length and 4 in breadth. There was, however, little
+uniformity in measurement before the Norman Conquest, the rod by which
+the furlongs and acres were measured varying in length from 12 to 24
+feet, so that one acre might be four times as large as another.[7] The
+acre was, roughly speaking, the amount that a team could plough in a
+day, and seems to have been from early times the unit of measuring the
+area of land.[8] Of necessity the real acre and the ideal acre were
+also different, for the reason that the former had to contend with the
+inequalities of the earth's surface and varied much when no scientific
+measurement was possible. As late as 1820 the acre was of many
+different sizes in England. In Bedfordshire it was 2 roods, in Dorset
+134 perches instead of 160, in Lincolnshire 5 roods, in Staffordshire
+2-1/4 acres. To-day the Cheshire acre is 10,240 square yards. As,
+however, an acre was and is a day's ploughing for a team, we may
+assume that the most usual acre was the same area then as now. There
+were also half-acre strips, but whatever the size the strips were
+divided one from another by narrow grass paths generally called
+'balks', and at the end of a group of these strips was the 'headland'
+where the plough turned, the name being common to-day. Many of these
+common fields remained until well on in the nineteenth century; in
+1815 half the county of Huntingdon was in this condition, and a few
+still exist.[9] Cultivating the same field year after year naturally
+exhausted the soil, so that the two-field system came in, under which
+one was cultivated and the other left fallow; and this was followed by
+the three-field system, by which two were cropped in any one year and
+one lay fallow, the last-named becoming general as it yielded better
+results, though the former continued, especially in the North. Under
+the three-field plan the husbandman early in the autumn would plough
+the field that had been lying fallow during summer, and sow wheat or
+rye; in the spring he broke up the stubble of the field on which the
+last wheat crop had been grown and sowed barley or oats; in June he
+ploughed up the stubble of the last spring crop and fallowed the
+field.[10] As soon as the crops began to grow in the arable fields and
+the grass in the meadows to spring, they were carefully fenced to
+prevent trespass of man and beast; and, as soon as the crops came off,
+the fields became common for all the village to turn their stock upon,
+the arable fields being usually common from Lammas (August 1) to
+Candlemas (February 2) and the meadows from July 6, old Midsummer Day,
+to Candlemas[11]; but as in this climate the season both of hay and
+corn harvest varies considerably, these dates cannot have been fixed.
+
+The stock, therefore, besides the common pasture, had after harvest
+the grazing of the common arable fields and of the meadows. The common
+pasture was early 'stinted' or limited, the usual custom being that
+the villager could turn out as many stock as he could keep on his
+holding. The trouble of pulling up and taking down these fences every
+year must have been enormous, and we find legislation on this
+important matter at an early date. About 700 the laws of Ine, King of
+Wessex, provided that if 'churls have a common meadow or other
+partible land to fence, and some have fenced their part and some have
+not, and cattle stray in and eat up their common corn or grass; let
+those go who own the gap and compensate to the others who have fenced
+their part the damage which then may be done, and let them demand such
+justice on the cattle as may be right. But if there be a beast which
+breaks hedges and goes in everywhere, and he who owns it will not or
+cannot restrain it, let him who finds it in his field take it and slay
+it, and let the owner take its skin and flesh and forfeit the rest.'
+
+England was not given over to one particular type of settlement,
+although villages were more common than hamlets in the greater part of
+the country.[12] The vill or village answers to the modern civil
+parish, and the term may be applied to both the true or 'nucleated'
+village of clustered houses and the village of scattered hamlets, each
+of a few houses, existing chiefly on the Celtic fringe. The population
+of some of the villages at the time of the Norman Conquest was
+numerous, 100 households or 500 people; but the average townships
+contained from 10 to 20 households.[13] There was also the single
+farm, such as that at Eardisley in Herefordshire, described in
+Domesday, lying in the middle of a forest, perhaps, as in other
+similar cases, a pioneer settlement of some one more adventurous than
+his fellows.[14]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such was the early village community in England, a community of free
+landholders. But a change began early to come over it.[15] The king
+would grant to a church all the rights he had in the village,
+reserving only the _trinoda necessitas_, these rights including the
+feorm or farm, or provender rent which the king derived from the
+land--of cattle, sheep, swine, ale, honey, &c.--which he collected by
+visiting his villages, thus literally eating his rents. The churchmen
+did not continue these visits, they remained in their monasteries, and
+had the feorm brought them regularly; they had an overseer in the
+village to see to this, and so they tightened their hold on the
+village. Then the smaller people, the peasants, make gifts to the
+Church. They give their land, but they also want to keep it, for it is
+their livelihood; so they surrender the land and take it back as a
+lifelong loan. Probably on the death of the donor his heirs are
+suffered to hold the land. Then labour services are substituted for
+the old provender rents, and thus the Church acquires a demesne, and
+thus the foundations of the manorial system, still to be traced all
+over the country, were laid. Thegns, the predecessors of the Norman
+barons, become the recipients of grants from the churches and from
+kings, and householders 'commend' themselves and their land to them
+also, so that they acquired demesnes. This 'commendation' was
+furthered by the fact that during the long-drawn out conquest of
+Britain the old kindred groups of the English lost their corporate
+sense, and the central power being too weak to protect the ordinary
+householder, who could not stand alone, he had to seek the protection
+of an ecclesiastical corporation or of some thegn, first for himself
+and then for his land. The jurisdictional rights of the king also
+passed to the lord, whether church or thegn; then came the danegeld,
+the tax for buying off the Danes that subsequently became a fixed land
+tax, which was collected from the lord, as the peasants were too poor
+for the State to deal with them; the lord paid the geld for their
+land, consequently their land was his. In this way the free ceorl of
+Anglo-Saxon times gradually becomes the 'villanus' of Domesday.
+Landlordship was well established in the two centuries before the
+Conquest, and the land of England more or less 'carved into
+territorial lordships'.[16] Therefore when the Normans brought their
+wonderful genius for organization to this country they found the
+material conditions of manorial life in full growth; it was their task
+to develop its legal and economic side.[17]
+
+As the manorial system thus superimposed upon the village community
+was the basis of English rural economy for centuries, there need be no
+apology for describing it at some length.
+
+The term 'manor', which came in with the Conquest,[18] has a technical
+meaning in Domesday, referring to the system of taxation, and did not
+always coincide with the vill or village, though it commonly did so,
+except in the eastern portion of England. The village was the agrarian
+unit, the manor the fiscal unit; so that where the manor comprised
+more than one village, as was frequently the case, there would be more
+than one village organization for working the common fields.[19]
+
+The manor then was the 'constitutive cell' of English mediaeval
+society.[20] The structure is always the same; under the headship of
+the lord we find two layers of population, the villeins and the
+freeholders; and the territory is divided into demesne land and
+tributary land of two classes, viz. that of the villeins and that of
+the freeholders. The cultivation of the demesne (which usually means
+the land directly occupied and cultivated by the lord, though legally
+it has a wider meaning and includes the villein tenements), depends to
+a certain extent on the work supplied by the tenants of the tributary
+land. Rents are collected, labour superintended, administrative
+business transacted by a set of manorial officers.
+
+We may divide the tillers of the soil at the time of Domesday into
+five great classes[21] in order of dignity and freedom:
+
+  1. Liberi homines, or freemen.
+  2. Socmen.
+  3. Villeins.
+  4. Bordarii, cotarii, buri or coliberti.
+  5. Slaves.
+
+The two first of these classes were to be found in large numbers in
+Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and
+Northamptonshire. It is not easy to draw the line between them, but
+the chief distinction lay in the latter being more burdened with
+service and customary dues and more especially subject to the
+jurisdictional authority of the lord.[22] They were both free, but
+both rendered services to the lord for their land. Both the freemen
+and the slaves by 1086 were rapidly decreasing in number.
+
+The most numerous class[23] on the manors was the third, that of the
+villeins or non-free tenants, who held their land by payment of
+services to the lord. The position of the villein under the feudal
+system is most complicated. He both was and was not a freeman. He was
+absolutely at the disposal of the lord, who could sell him with his
+tenement, and he could not leave his land without his lord's
+permission. He laboured under many disabilities, such as the merchet
+or fine for marrying his daughter, and fines for selling horse or ox.
+On the other hand, he was free against every one but his lord, and
+even against the lord was protected from the forfeiture of his
+'wainage' or instruments of labour and from injury to life and
+limb.[24]
+
+His usual holding was a virgate of 30 acres of arable, though the
+virgate differed in size even in the same manors; but in addition to
+this he would have his meadow land and his share in the common pasture
+and wood, altogether about 100 acres of land. For this he rendered the
+following services to the lord of the manor:
+
+1. Week work, or labour on the lord's demesne for two or three days a
+week during most of the year, and four or five days in summer. It was
+not always the villein himself, however, who rendered these services,
+he might send his son or even a hired labourer; and it was the holding
+and not the holder that was considered primarily responsible for the
+rendering of services.[25]
+
+2. Precarii or boon days: that is, work generally during harvest, at
+the lord's request, sometimes instead of week work, sometimes in
+addition.
+
+3. Gafol or tribute: fixed payments in money or kind, and such
+services as 'fold soke', which forced the tenants' sheep to lie on the
+lord's land for the sake of the manure; and suit of mill, by which the
+tenant was bound to grind his corn in the lord's mill.
+
+With regard to the 'boon days' in harvest, it should be remembered
+that harvest time in the Middle Ages was a most important event.
+Agriculture was the great industry, and when the corn was ripe the
+whole village turned out to gather it, the only exceptions being the
+housewives and sometimes the marriageable daughters. Even the larger
+towns suspended work that the townsmen might assist in the harvest,
+and our long vacation was probably intended originally to cover the
+whole work of gathering in the corn and hay. On the occasion of the
+'boon-day' work, the lord usually found food for the labourers which,
+the Inquisition of Ardley[26] tells us, might be of the following
+description: for two men, porridge of beans and peas and two loaves,
+one white, the other of 'mixtil' bread; that is, wheat, barley, and
+rye mixed together, with a piece of meat, and beer for their first
+meal. Then in the evening they had a small loaf of mixtil bread and
+two 'lescas' of cheese. While harvest work was going on the better-off
+tenants, usually the free ones, were sometimes employed to ride about,
+rod in hand, superintending the others.
+
+The services of the villeins were often very comprehensive, and even
+included such tasks as preparing the lord's bath; but on some manors
+their services were very light.[27] When the third of the above
+obligations, the gafol or tribute, was paid in kind it was most
+commonly made in corn; and next came honey, one of the most important
+articles of the Middle Ages, as it was used for both lighting and
+sweetening purposes. Ale was also common, and poultry and eggs, and
+sometimes the material for implements.
+
+These obligations were imposed for the most part on free and unfree
+tenants alike, though those of the free were much lighter than those
+of the unfree; the chief difference between the two, as far as tenure
+of the land went, lay in the fact that the former could exercise
+proprietary rights over his holding more or less freely, the latter
+had none.[28] It seems very curious to the modern mind that the
+villein, a man who farmed about 100 acres of land, should have been in
+such a servile condition.
+
+The amount of work due from each villein came to be fixed by the
+extent or survey of the manor, but the quality of it was not[29];
+that is, each one knew how many days he had to work, but not whether
+he was to plough, sow, or harrow, &c. It is surprising to find, that
+on the festival days of the Church, which were very numerous and
+observed as holy days, the lord lost by no work being done, and the
+same was the case in wet weather.
+
+One of the most important duties of the tenant was the 'averagium', or
+duty of carrying for the lord, especially necessary when his manors
+were often a long way apart. He would often have to carry corn to the
+nearest town for sale, the products of one manor to another, also to
+haul manure on to the demesne. If he owned neither horse nor ox, he
+would sometimes have to use his own back.[30]
+
+The holding of the villein did not admit of partition by sale or
+descent, it remained undivided and entire. When the holder died all
+the land went to one of the sons if there were several, often to the
+youngest. The others sought work on the manor as craftsmen or
+labourers, or remained on the family plot. The holding therefore might
+contain more than one family, but to the lord remained one and
+undivided.[31]
+
+In the fourth class came the bordarii, the cotarii, and the coliberti
+or buri; or, as we should say, the crofters, the cottagers, and the
+boors.
+
+The bordarii numbered 82,600 in Domesday, and were subject to the same
+kind of services as the villeins, but the amount of the service was
+considerably less.[32] Their usual holding was 5 acres, and they are
+very often found on the demesne of the manor, evidently in this case
+labourers on the demesne, settled in cottages and provided with a bit
+of land of their own. The name failed to take root in this country,
+and the bordarii seem to become villeins or cottiers.[33]
+
+The cotarii, cottiers or cottagers, were 6,800 in number, with small
+pieces of land sometimes reaching 5 acres.[34] Distinctly inferior to
+the villeins, bordarii, and cottars, but distinctly superior to the
+slaves, were the buri or coliberti who, with the bordars and cottars,
+would form a reserve of labour to supplement the ordinary working days
+at times when work was pressing, as in hay time and harvest. At the
+bottom of the social ladder in Domesday came the slaves, some 25,000
+in number, who in the main had no legal rights, a class which had
+apparently already diminished and was diminishing in numbers, so that
+for the cultivation of the demesne the lord was coming to rely more on
+the labour of his tenants, and consequently the labour services of the
+villeins were being augmented.[35] The agricultural labourer as we
+understand him, a landless man working solely for wages in cash, was
+almost unknown.
+
+All the arrangements of the manor aimed at supplying labour for the
+cultivation of the lord's demesne, and he had three chief officers to
+superintend it:
+
+1. The seneschal, who answers to our modern steward or land agent, and
+where there were several manors supervised all of them. He attended to
+the legal business and held the manor courts. It was his duty to be
+acquainted with every particular of the manor, its cultivation,
+extent, number of teams, condition of the stock, &c. He was also the
+legal adviser of his lord; in fact, very much like his modern
+successor.
+
+2. The bailiff for each manor, who collected rents, went to market to
+buy and sell, surveyed the timber, superintended the ploughing,
+mowing, reaping, &c., that were due as services from the tenants on
+the lord's demesne; and according to _Fleta_ he was to prevent their
+'casting off before the work was done', and to measure it when
+done.[36] And considering that those he superintended were not paid
+for their work, but rendering more or less unwelcome services, his
+task could not have been easy.
+
+3. The praepositus or reeve, an office obligatory on every holder of a
+certain small quantity of land; a sort of foreman nominated from among
+the villeins, and to a certain extent representing their interests.
+His duties were supplementary to those of the bailiff: he looked after
+all the live and dead stock of the manor, saw to the manuring of the
+land, kept a tally of the day's work, had charge of the granary, and
+delivered therefrom corn to be baked and malt to be brewed.[37]
+Besides these three officers, on a large estate there would be a
+messor who took charge of the harvest, and many lesser officers, such
+as those of the akermanni, or leaders of the unwieldy plough teams;
+oxherds, shepherds, and swineherds to tend cattle, sheep, and pigs
+when they were turned on the common fields or wandered in the waste;
+also wardens of the woods and fences, often paid by a share in the
+profits connected with their charge; for instance, the swineherd of
+Glastonbury Abbey received a sucking-pig a year, the interior parts of
+the best pig, and the tails of all the others slaughtered.[38] On the
+great estates these offices tended to become hereditary, and many
+families did treat them as hereditary property, and were a great
+nuisance in consequence to their lords. At Glastonbury we find the
+chief shepherd so important a person that he was party to an agreement
+concerning a considerable quantity of land.[39] There were also on
+some manors 'cadaveratores', whose duty was to look into and report on
+the losses of cattle and sheep from murrain, a melancholy tale of the
+unhealthy conditions of agriculture.
+
+The supervision of the tenants was often incessant and minute.
+According to the Court Rolls of the Manor of Manydown in Hampshire,
+tenants were brought to book for all kinds of transgressions. The
+fines are so numerous that it almost appears that every person on the
+estate was amerced from time to time. In 1365 seven tenants were
+convicted of having pigs in their lord's crops, one let his horse run
+in the growing corn, two had cattle among the peas, four had cattle on
+the lord's pasture, three had made default in rent or service, four
+were convicted of assault, nine broke the assize of beer, two had
+failed to repair their houses or buildings. In all thirty-four were in
+trouble out of a population of some sixty families. The account is
+eloquent of the irritating restrictions of the manor, and of the
+inconveniences of common farming.[40]
+
+It is impossible to compare the receipts of the lord of the manor at
+this period with modern rents, or the position of the villein with the
+agricultural labourer; it may be said that the lord received a labour
+rent for the villein's holding, or that the villein received his
+holding as wages for the services done for the lord,[41] and part of
+the return due to the lord was for the use of the oxen with which he
+had stocked the villein's holding.
+
+Though in 1066 there were many free villages, yet by the time of
+Domesday they were fast disappearing and there were manors everywhere,
+usually coinciding with the village which we may picture to ourselves
+as self-sufficing estates, often isolated by stretches of dense
+woodland and moor from one another, and making each veritably a little
+world in itself. At the same time it is evident from the extent of
+arable land described in Domesday that many manors were not greatly
+isolated, and pasture ground was often common to two or more
+villages.[42]
+
+If we picture to ourselves the typical manor, we shall see a large
+part of the lord's demesne forming a compact area within which stood
+his house; this being in addition to the lord's strips in the open
+fields intermixed with those of his tenants. The mansion house was
+usually a very simple affair, built of wood and consisting chiefly of
+a hall; which even as late as the seventeenth century in some cases
+served as kitchen, dining room, parlour, and sleeping room for the
+men; and one or two other rooms.[43] It is probable that in early
+times the thegns possessed in most cases only one manor apiece,[44] so
+that the manor house was then nearly always inhabited by the lord, but
+after the Conquest, when manors were bestowed by scores and even
+hundreds by William on his successful soldiers, many of them can only
+have acted as the temporary lodging of the lord when he came to
+collect his rent, or as the house of the bailiff. According to the
+_Gerefa_, written about 1000--and there was very little alteration for
+a long time afterwards--the mansion was adjacent to a court or yard
+which the quadrangular homestead surrounded with its barns, horse and
+cattle stalls, sheep pens and fowlhouse. Within this court were ovens,
+kilns, salt-house, and malt-house, and perhaps the hayricks and wood
+piles. Outside and surrounding the homestead were the enclosed arable
+and grass fields of the portion of the demesne which may be called the
+home farm, a kitchen garden, and probably a vineyard, then common in
+England. The garden of the manor house would not have a large variety
+of vegetables; some onions, leeks, mustard, peas, perhaps cabbage; and
+apples, pears, cherries, probably damsons, plums,[45] strawberries,
+peaches, quinces, and mulberries. Not far off was the village or town
+of the tenants, the houses all clustering close together, each house
+standing in a toft or yard with some buildings, and built of wood,
+turf, clay, or wattles, with only one room which the tenant shared
+with his live stock, as in parts of Ireland to-day. Indeed, in some
+parts of Yorkshire at the beginning of the nineteenth century this
+primitive simplicity still prevailed, live stock were still kept in
+the house, the floors were of clay, and the family slept in boxes
+round the solitary room. Examples of farmhouses clustered together at
+some distance from their respective holdings still survive, though
+generally built of stone. Next the village, though not always, for
+they were sometimes at a distance by the banks of a stream, were the
+meadows, and right round stretched the three open arable fields,
+beyond which was the common pasture and wood,[46] and, encircling all,
+heath, forest, and swamp, often cutting off the manor from the rest of
+the world.
+
+The basis of the whole scheme of measurement in Domesday was the hide,
+usually of 120 acres, the amount of land that could be ploughed by a
+team of 8 oxen in a year; a quarter of this was the virgate, an eighth
+the bovate, which would therefore supply one ox to the common team.
+These teams, however, varied; on the manors of S. Paul's Cathedral in
+1222 they were sometimes composed of horses and oxen, or of 6 horses
+only, sometimes 10 oxen.[47]
+
+The farming year began at Michaelmas when, in addition to the sowing
+of wheat and rye, the cattle were carefully stalled and fed only on
+hay and straw, for roots were in the distant future, and the corn was
+threshed with the flail and winnowed by hand. In the spring, after the
+ploughing of the second arable field, the vineyard, where there was
+one, was set out, and the open ditches, apparently the only drainage
+then known, cleansed. In May it was time to set up the temporary
+fences round the meadows and arable fields, and to begin fallowing the
+third field.
+
+A valuable document, describing the duties of a reeve, gives many
+interesting details of eleventh-century farming:--
+
+     'In May, June, and July one may harrow, carry out manure, set
+     up sheep hurdles, shear sheep, do repairs, hedge, cut wood,
+     weed, and make folds. In harvest one may reap; in August,
+     September, and in October one may mow, set woad with a dibble,
+     gather home many crops, thatch them and cover them over,
+     cleanse the folds, prepare cattle sheds and shelters ere too
+     severe a winter come to the farm, and also diligently prepare
+     the soil. In winter one should plough and in severe frosts
+     cleave timber, make an orchard, and do many affairs indoors,
+     thresh, cleave wood, put the cattle in stalls and the swine in
+     pigstyes, and provide a hen roost. In spring one should plough
+     and graft, sow beans, set a vineyard, make ditches, hew wood
+     for a wild deer fence; and soon after that, if the weather
+     permit, set madder, sow flax seed and woad seed, plant a garden
+     and do many things which I cannot fully enumerate that a good
+     steward ought to provide.'[48]
+
+The methods of cultivation were simple. The plough, if we may judge by
+contemporary illustrations, had in the eleventh century a large wheel
+and very short handles.[49] In the twelfth century Neckham describes
+its parts: a beam, handles, tongue, mouldboard, coulter, and
+share.[50] Breaking up the clods was done by the mattock or beetle,
+and harrowing was done by hand with what looks like a large rake; the
+scythes of the haymakers and the sickles of the reapers were very like
+those that still linger on in some districts to-day.
+
+Here is a list of tools and implements for the homestead: an axe,
+adze, bill, awl, plane, saw, spokeshave, tie hook, auger, mattock,
+lever, share, coulter, goad-iron, scythe, sickle, weed-hook, spade,
+shovel, woad dibble, barrow, besom, beetle, rake, fork, ladder, horse
+comb, shears, fire tongs, weighing scales, and a long list of spinning
+implements necessary when farmers made their own clothes. The author
+wisely remarks that one ought to have coverings for wains, plough
+gear, harrowing tackle, &c.; and adds another list of instruments and
+utensils: a caldron, kettle, ladle, pan, crock, firedog, dishes, bowls
+with handles, tubs, buckets, a churn, cheese vat, baskets, crates,
+bushels, sieves, seed basket, wire sieve, hair sieve, winnowing fans,
+troughs, ashwood pails, hives, honey bins, beer barrels, bathing tub,
+dishes, cups, strainers, candlesticks, salt cellar, spoon case, pepper
+horn, footstools, chairs, basins, lamp, lantern, leathern bottles,
+comb, iron bin, fodder rack, meal ark or box, oil flask, oven rake,
+dung shovel; altogether a very complete list, the compiler of which
+ends by saying that the reeve ought to neglect nothing that should
+prove useful, not even a mousetrap, nor even, what is less, a peg for
+a hasp.
+
+Manors in 1086 were of all sizes, from one virgate to enormous
+organizations like Taunton or Leominster, containing villages by the
+score and hundreds of dependent holdings.[51] The ordinary size,
+however, of the Domesday manor was from four to ten hides of 120 acres
+each, or say from 500 to 1,200 acres,[52] and the Manor of Segenehou
+in Bedfordshire may be regarded as typical. Held by Walter brother of
+Seiher it had as much land as ten ploughs could work, four plough
+lands belonging to the demesne and six to the villeins, of whom there
+were twenty-four, with four bordarii and three serfs; thus the
+villeins had 30 acres each, the normal holding. The manorial system
+was in fact a combination of large farming by the lords, and small
+farming by the tenants. Nor must we compare it to an ordinary estate;
+for it was a dominion within which the lord had authority over
+subjects of various ranks; he was not only a proprietor but a prince
+with courts of his own, the arbiter of his tenants' rights as well as
+owner of the land.
+
+One of the most striking features of the Domesday survey is the large
+quantity of arable land and the small quantity of meadow, which
+usually was the only land whence they obtained their hay, for the
+common pasture cannot often have been mown.[53] Indeed, it is
+difficult to understand how they fed their stock in hard winters.
+
+According to the returns, in many counties more acres were ploughed in
+1086 than to-day; in some twice as much. In Somerset in 1086 there
+were 577,000 acres of arable; in 1907, 178,967. In Gloucestershire, in
+1086, 589,000 acres; in 1907, 238,456.[54] These are extreme
+instances; but the preponderance of arable is startling, even if we
+allow for the recent conversion of arable to pasture on account of the
+low price of corn. Between the eleventh century and the sixteenth, the
+laying down of land to grass must have proceeded on a gigantic scale,
+for Harrison tells us that in his day England was mainly a grazing
+country. No wonder Harrison's contemporaries complained of the decay
+of tillage.
+
+Mediaeval prices and statistics are, it is well known, to be taken
+with great caution; but we may assume that the normal annual value of
+land under cultivation in 1086 was about 2d. an acre.[55] Land indeed,
+apart from the stock upon it, was worth very little: in the tenth and
+eleventh centuries it appears that the hide, normally of 120 acres,
+was only worth £5 to buy, apparently with the stock upon it. In the
+time of Athelstan a horse was worth 120d., an ox 30d., a cow 20d., a
+sheep 5d., a hog 8d., a slave £1--so that a slave was worth 8
+oxen[56]; and these prices do not seem to have advanced by the
+Domesday period.
+
+According to the Pipe Roll of 1156, wheat was 1s. 6d. a quarter; but
+prices then depended entirely on seasons, and we do not know whether
+that was good or bad. However, many years later, in 1243 it was only
+2s. a quarter at Hawsted.[57] In dear years, nearly always the result
+of wet seasons, it went up enormously; in 1024 the English Chronicle
+tells us the acre seed of wheat, that is about 2 bushels, sold for
+4s.,[58] 3 bushels of barley for 6s. and 4 bushels of oats for 4s. In
+1190 Holinshed says that, owing to a great dearth, the quarter of
+wheat was 18s. 8d. The average price, however, in the twelfth century
+was probably about 4s. a quarter.
+
+In 1194 Roger of Hoveden[59] says an ox, a cow, and a plough horse
+were the same price, 4s.; a sheep with fine wool 10d., with coarse
+wool 6d.; a sow 12d., a boar 12d.
+
+Sometimes prices were kept down by imports; 1258 was a bad and dear
+year, 'most part of the corn rotted on the ground,' and was not all
+got in till after November 1, so excessive was the wet and rain. And
+upon the dearth a sore death and mortality followed for want of
+necessary food to sustain the pining bodies of the poor people, who
+died so thick that there were great pits made in churchyards to lay
+the dead bodies in. And corn had been dearer if great store had not
+come out of Almaine, but there came fifty great ships with wheat and
+barley, meal and bread out of Dutchland, which greatly relieved the
+poor.[60]
+
+Were the manors as isolated as some writers have asserted? Generally
+speaking, we may say the means of communication were bad and many an
+estate cut off almost completely from the outside world, yet the
+manors must often have been connected by waterways, and sometimes by
+good roads, with other manors and with the towns. Rivers in the Middle
+Ages were far more used as means of communication than to-day, and
+many streams now silted up and shallow were navigable according to
+Domesday. Water carriage was, as always, much cheaper than land
+carriage, and corn could be carried from Henley to London for 2d. or
+3d. a quarter. The roads left by the Romans, owing to the excellence
+of their construction, remained in use during the Middle Ages, and
+must have been a great advantage to those living near them; but the
+other roads can have been little better than mud tracks, except in the
+immediate vicinity of the few large towns. The keeping of the roads in
+repair, one part of the _trinoda necessitas_ was imposed on all lands;
+but the results often seem to have been very indifferent, and they
+appear largely to have depended on chance, or the goodwill or devotion
+of neighbouring landowners.[61] Perhaps they would, except in the case
+of the Roman roads, have been impassable but for the fact that the
+great lords and abbots were constantly visiting their scattered
+estates, and therefore were interested in keeping such roads in order.
+But in those days people were contented with very little, and though
+Edward I enforced the general improvement of roads in 1285, in the
+fourteenth century they were decaying. Parliament adjourned thrice
+between 1331 and 1380 because the state of the roads kept many of the
+members away. In 1353 the high road running from Temple Bar, then the
+western limit of London, to Westminster was 'so full of holes and
+bogs' that the traffic was dangerous for men and carriages; and a
+little later all the roads near London were so bad, that carriers 'are
+oftentimes In peril of losing what they bring.' What must remote
+country roads have been like when these important highways were in
+this state? If members of Parliament, rich men riding good horses,
+could not get to London, how did the clumsy wagons and carts of the
+day fare? The Church might well pity the traveller, and class him with
+the sick 'and the captive among the unfortunates whom she recommended
+to the daily prayers of pious souls.'[62] Rivers were mainly crossed
+by ford or ferry, though there were some excellent bridges, a few of
+which still remain, maintained by the _trinoda necessitas_, by gilds,
+by 'indulgences' promised to benefactors, and by toll, the right to
+levy which, called pontage, was often spent otherwise than on the
+repair of the bridge.
+
+A few of the old open fields still exist, and the best surviving example
+of an open-field parish is that of Laxton in Nottinghamshire.[63]
+Nearly half the area of the parish remains in the form of two great
+arable fields, and two smaller ones which are treated as two parts of
+the third field. The different holdings, freehold and leasehold,
+consist in part of strips of land scattered all over these fields. The
+three-course system is rigidly adhered to, first year wheat, second
+year spring corn, third year fallow.
+
+In a corner of the parish is Laxton Heath, a common covered with
+coarse grass where the sheep are grazed according to a 'stint'
+recently determined upon, for when it was unstinted the common was
+overstocked. The commonable meadows which the parish once had were
+enclosed at a date beyond anyone's recollection, though the
+neighbouring parish of Eakring still has some. There are other
+enclosures in the remote parts of the parish which apparently
+represent the old woodland. The inconvenience of the common-field
+system was extreme. South Luffenham in Rutland, not enclosed till
+1879, consisted of 1,074 acres divided among twenty-two owners into
+1,238 pieces. In some places furrows served to divide the lands
+instead of turf balks, which were of course always being altered.
+Another difficulty arose from there being no check to high winds,
+which would sometimes sweep the whole of the crops belonging to
+different farmers in an inextricable heap against the nearest
+obstruction.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 18; Medley, _Constitutional
+History_, p. 15.
+
+[2] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 257.
+
+[3] Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, pp. 341 et seq.
+
+[4] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_, §36.
+
+[5] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 282,
+says, 'As a rule it was not subject to redivision.'
+
+[6] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 42.
+
+[7] Maitland, _op. cit._ p. 368.
+
+[8] _Anonymous Treatise on Husbandry_, Royal Historical Society, pp.
+xli. and 68. About 1230, Smyth, in his _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i.
+113, says, 'At this time lay all lands in common fields, in one acre
+or ridge, one man's intermixt with another.'
+
+[9] See below.
+
+[10] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 74.
+Maitland thinks the two-field system was as common as the three-field,
+both in early and mediaeval times. _Domesday Book and Beyond_, p. 366.
+
+[11] Nasse, _Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages_, p. 5. To-day
+harvest generally commences about August 1, so that this, like the
+growth of grapes in mediaeval times, seems to show our climate has
+grown colder.
+
+[12] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 264.
+
+[13] Maitland, _op. cit._ p. 17.
+
+[14] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 265.
+
+[15] Maitland, _op. cit._ pp. 318 et seq.
+
+[16] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 345.
+
+[17] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 339.
+
+[18] Maitland, _Domesday Book_, p. 110
+
+[19] Vinogradoff, _op. cit._ p. 395.
+
+[20] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, pp. 225 et seq.
+
+[21] Maitland, _op. cit._ p. 23.
+
+[22] Vinogradoff, _op. cit._ p. 433.
+
+[23] In Domesday they number 108,500. Maitland, _Domesday Book_.
+
+[24] Maitland, _op. cit._.
+
+[25] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 300.
+
+[26] _Domesday of S. Paul_, p. lxviii.
+
+[27] Maitland, _Domesday Book_, p. 56.
+
+[28] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 166. In
+some manors free tenants could sell their lands without the lord's
+licence, in others not.
+
+[29] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 279.
+
+[30] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 285.
+
+[31] Ibid. p. 246; and _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p.
+448. At the end of the eighteenth century, in default of sons, lands
+in some manors in Shropshire descended to the youngest
+daughter.--Bishton, _General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire_,
+p. 178.
+
+[32] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 456.
+
+[33] Maitland, Domesday Book, p. 40.
+
+[34] Ibid.
+
+[35] Maitland, _Domesday Book_, p. 35.
+
+[36] _Fleta_, c. 73.
+
+[37] _Domesday of S. Paul_, xxxv. _Fleta_, 'an anonymous work drawn up
+in the thirteenth century to assist landowners in managing their
+estates' says, the reeve 'shall rise early, and have the ploughs
+yoked, and then walk in the fields to see that all is right and note
+if the men be idle, or if they knock off work before the day's task is
+fully done.'
+
+[38] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 321.
+
+[39] Ibid. p. 324.
+
+[40] _Manor of Manydown_, Hampshire Record Society, p. 17. Breaking
+the assize of beer meant selling it without a licence, or of bad
+quality. The village pound was the consequence of the perpetual
+straying of animals, and later on the vicar sometimes kept it. See
+ibid. p. 104.
+
+[41] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 106.
+
+[42] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 264.
+
+[43] Andrews, _Old English Manor_, p. 111.
+
+[44] _Domesday of S. Paul_, p. xxxvii.
+
+[45] Thorold Rogers, _Agriculture and Prices_, i. 17: Cunningham,
+_Industry and Commerce_, i. 55: Neckham, _De Natura Rerum_, Rolls
+Series, ch. clxvi. Rogers says there were no plums, but Neckham
+mentions them. See also Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p.
+64. Matthew Paris says the severe winter in 1257 destroyed cherries,
+plums and figs. _Chron. Maj._, Rolls Series, v. 660.
+
+[46] Woods were used as much for pasture as for cutting timber and
+underwood. Not only did the pigs feed there on the mast of oak, beech,
+and chestnut, but goats and horned cattle grazed on the grassy
+portions.
+
+[47] The illustrations of contemporary MSS. usually show teams in the
+plough of 2 or 4 oxen, and 4 was probably the team generally used,
+according to Vinogradoff, _op. cit._ p. 253. It must, of course, have
+varied according to the soil. Birch, in his _Domesday_, p. 219, says
+he has never found a team of 8 in contemporary illustrations. To-day
+oxen can be still seen ploughing in teams of two only. However, about
+a hundred years ago, when oxen were in common use, we find teams of 8,
+as in Shropshire, for a single-furrow plough, 'so as to work them
+easily.' Six hours a day was the usual day's work, and when more was
+required one team was worked in the morning, another in the
+afternoon.--_Victoria County History: Shropshire, Agriculture_. Walter
+of Henley says the team stopped work at three.
+
+[48] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 570.
+
+[49] See the excellent reproductions of the Calendar of the Cott. MSS.
+in Green's _Short History of the English People_, illustrated edition,
+i. 155.
+
+[50] _De Natura Rerum_, Rolls Series, p, 280.
+
+[51] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 307.
+
+[52] Ibid. p. 312. Perhaps one of the most interesting features of the
+smaller manors is that they were constantly being swallowed up by the
+larger.
+
+[53] As some of the common pasture was held in severalty, this may
+perhaps have been mown in scarce years. Walter of Henley mentions
+mowing the waste, see below, p. 34.
+
+[54] Maitland, _Domesday Book_, 436; _Board of Agriculture Returns_,
+1907.
+
+[55] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 310;
+Birch, _Domesday_, p. 183.
+
+[56] Maitland, _Domesday Book_. 44; Cunningham, _Growth of Industry
+and Commerce_, i. 171; _Domesday of S. Paul_, pp. xliii. and xci.
+
+[57] Cullum, _History of Hawsted_, p. 181.
+
+[58] Rolls Series, ii. 220. According to this, the price of a bushel
+of wheat reckoned in modern money was £3 in that year
+
+[59] Ibid. iii. 220.
+
+[60] Holinshed, who is supported by William of Malmesbury in the
+assertion that in time of scarcity England imported corn. Matthew
+Paris, _Chron. Maj._, v. 673.
+
+[61] Jusserand, _English Wayfaring Life_, p. 79.
+
+[62] Jusserand, _English Wayfaring Life_, p. 89.
+
+[63] Gilbert Slater, _The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of
+Common Fields_, p. 8.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.--THE MANOR AT ITS ZENITH, WITH SEEDS OF DECAY
+ALREADY VISIBLE.--WALTER OF HENLEY
+
+
+In the thirteenth century the manorial system may be said to have been
+in its zenith; the description therefore of Cuxham Manor in
+Oxfordshire at that date is of special interest. According to
+Professor Thorold Rogers[64] there were two principal tenants, each
+holding the fourth part of a military fee. The prior of Holy Trinity,
+Wallingford, held a messuage, a mill, and 6 acres of land in free
+alms; i.e. under no obligation or liability other than offering
+prayers on behalf of the donor. A free tenant had a messuage and 3-3/4
+acres, the rent of which was 3s. a year. He also had another messuage
+and nine acres, for which he paid the annual rent of 1 lb. of pepper,
+worth about 1s. 3d. The rector of the parish had part of a furrow,
+i.e. one of the divisions of the common arable field, and paid 2d. a
+year for it. Another tenant held a cottage in the demesne under the
+obligation of keeping two lamps lighted in the church. Another person
+was tenant-at-will of the parish mill, at a rent of 40s. a year. The
+rest of the tenants were villeins or cottagers, thirteen of the former
+and eight of the latter. Each of the villeins had a messuage and half
+a virgate, 12 to 15 acres of arable land at least, for which his rent
+was chiefly corn and labour, though there were two money payments, a
+halfpenny on November 12 and a penny whenever he brewed. He had to pay
+a quarter of seed wheat at Michaelmas, a peck of wheat, 4 bushels of
+oats, and 3 hens on November 12, and at Christmas a cock, two hens,
+and two pennyworth of bread. His labour services were to plough, sow,
+and till half an acre of the lord's land, and give his work as
+directed by the bailiff except on Sundays and feast days. In harvest
+time he was to reap three days with one man at his own cost.
+
+Some of these tenants held, besides their half virgates, other plots
+of land for which each had to make hay for one day for the lord, with
+a comrade, and received a halfpenny; also to mow, with another, three
+days in harvest time, at their own charges, and another three days
+when the lord fed them. After harvest six pennyworth of beer was
+divided among them, each received a loaf of bread, and every evening
+when work was over each reaper might carry away the largest sheaf of
+corn he could lift on his sickle.
+
+The cottagers paid from 1s. 2d. to 2s. a year for their holdings, and
+were obliged to work a day or two in the hay-making, receiving
+therefor a halfpenny. They also had to do from one to four days'
+harvest work, during which they were fed at the lord's table. For the
+rest of the year they were free labourers, tending cattle or sheep on
+the common for wages or working at the various crafts usual in the
+village. This manor was a small one, and contained in all twenty-four
+households, numbering from sixty to seventy inhabitants.[65]
+
+On most manors, as in Forncett,[66] which contained about 2,700 acres,
+from the preponderance of arable, the chief source of income to the
+lord was from the grain crops; other sources may be seen from the
+following table of the lord's receipts and expenses in 1272-3:
+
+  RECEIPTS.
+                              £    s.    d.
+  Fixed rents                18    3    7-3/4
+  Farm of market              0    2    6
+  Chevage[67]                 0    8    6
+  Foldage                     0    3    9-1/2
+  Sale of works               5   13    2-3/4
+  Herbage                     1    0    4
+  Hay                         2   12   11
+  Turf, &c.                   1   13    6-1/2
+  Underwood                   5   10    2
+  Grain                      61   12    3-1/4
+  Cider                       1    1   11-1/4
+  Stock                       5    3    0
+  Dairy                       4    3    0-3/4
+  Pleas                      14    0    0
+  Tallage                    16   13    4
+                           ------------------
+                           £128    2    2-3/4
+
+ EXPENSES.
+                              £    s.    d.
+
+  Rents paid and allowed      0    3    2-1/2
+  Ploughs and carts           2   17    4
+  Buildings and walls         4    5   10-1/2
+  Small necessaries           0    7   10-3/4
+  Dairy                       0    4    3-1/4
+  Threshing                   1   15    5-1/2
+  Meadow and autumn expenses  0    1    4
+  Stock                       0   16    7
+  Bailiff                     1   19    0
+  Steward                     1    6    9-1/2
+  Grain                       8    2    4-1/2
+  Expenses of acct.           1    0    8-1/2
+                            ------------------
+                            £23    0    9-3/4
+
+The manor was almost entirely self-sufficing; of necessity, for towns
+were few and distant, and the roads to them bad. Each would have its
+smith, millwright, thatcher, &c., paid generally in kind for their
+services. There was little trade with the outside world, except for
+salt--an invaluable article when meat had to be salted down every
+autumn for winter use, since there were no roots to keep the cattle
+on--and iron for some of the implements. Nearly everything was made in
+the village.
+
+The mediaeval system of tillage was compulsory; even the freeholders
+could not manage their plots as they wished, because all the soil of
+the township formed one whole and was managed by the entire village.
+Even the lord[68] had to conform to the customs of the community. Any
+other system than this, which must have been galling to the more
+enterprising, was impossible, for as the various holdings lay in
+unfenced strips all over the great common fields, individual
+initiative was out of the question. As may be imagined, the great
+number of strips all mixed together often led to great confusion,
+sometimes 2 or 3 acres could not be found at all, and disputes owing
+to careless measurement were frequent.
+
+It is not surprising that the services by which the villeins paid rent
+for their holdings to the lord very early began to be commuted for
+money; it was much more convenient to both parties; and with this
+change from a 'natural economy' to a 'money economy' the destruction
+of the manorial system commenced, though it was to take centuries to
+effect it.
+
+The first money payments apparently date from as early as 900,[69]
+but must then have been very few, and services were the rule in the
+thirteenth and earlier centuries, though at the beginning of the
+twelfth we find a great number of rent-paying tenants.[70] In the
+fourteenth century money began to be more generally available, and the
+process of commutation grew steadily; a process greatly accelerated by
+the destruction of large numbers of tenants who paid rent in services
+by the Black Death of 1348-9, which forced lords of manors to let
+their lands for money or work them themselves with hired labour.
+Before that visitation, however, it appears that commutation of labour
+services for fixed annual payments had made very little progress.[71]
+
+When these services were commuted for money in the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries they were put at 1d. a day in winter, and 2d. a
+day in summer, and rather more in harvest[72]; and we may put the
+ordinary agricultural labourers' wages from 1250-1350 all the year
+round at 2d. a day, and from 1350-1400 at 3d., but few were paid in
+this way. Many were paid by the year, with allowances of food besides
+and sometimes clothes, and many were in harvest at all events paid by
+the piece. At Crondal in Hampshire in 1248 a carter by the year
+received 4s., a herdsman 2s. 3d., a day a or dairymaid, 2s.[73] The
+change to money payments was beneficial to both parties; it stopped
+many of the dishonest practices of the lord's bailiff, apart from the
+fact that farming by officials was an expensive method. It meant, too,
+that religious festivals and bad weather would no longer diminish the
+lord's profits; on the other hand, the tenant could devote himself
+entirely to his holding free from annoying labour services.[74]
+
+The state of agriculture at the time of Domesday was apparently very
+low, judging by the small returns of manors,[75] but by the time of
+Edward I it had made considerable progress. During the reign of Henry
+III England had grown in opulence, and continued to do so under his
+great son, who found time from his manifold tasks to encourage
+agriculture and horticulture. Fruit and forest trees, shrubs and
+flowers, were introduced from the continent, and we are told that the
+hop flourished in the royal gardens.[76] At his death England was
+prosperous, the people progressing in comfort, the population
+advancing, the agricultural labourers were increasing in numbers, the
+value of the land had risen and was rising. Then came a reaction from
+which England did not recover for two centuries, and Harrison, who
+wrote his description of England at the end of the sixteenth century,
+says that many of the improvements began to be neglected in process of
+time, so that from Henry IV till the latter end of Henry VII there was
+little or no use for them in England, 'but they remained unknown.'
+
+The Hundred Rolls of Edward I, which embody the results of the labours
+of a commission appointed by that monarch to inquire into encroachments
+on royal lands and royal jurisdiction, show clearly that there had
+been since the Domesday Survey a very great growth in the rural
+population, a sure sign that agriculture was flourishing; and on some
+estates the number of free tenants had increased largely, but the
+burdens of the villeins were not less onerous than they had been.
+
+It was in the thirteenth century that the practice of keeping strict
+and minute accounts became general, and the accounts of the bailiff of
+those days would be a revelation to the bailiff of these.
+
+At the same time we must not forget that the earliest improvements in
+English agriculture were largely due to the monks, who from their
+constant journeys abroad were able to bring back new plants and seeds;
+while it is well known that many of the religious houses, the
+Cistercians especially, who always settled in the remote country, were
+most energetic farmers, their energy being materially assisted by
+their wealth. It is said that the great Becket when he visited a
+monastery did not disdain to labour in the field.
+
+Among other benefits that the landed interest gained at this time was
+the more easy transference of land provided, _inter alia_, by the
+statute of _Quia Emptores_, which led to many tenants selling their
+lands, provided the rights of the lord were preserved, and to a great
+increase consequently of free tenants, many of whom had quite small
+holdings.[77] The amalgamation of holdings by the more industrious and
+skilful has, as we should expect, been a well-marked tendency all
+through the history of English agriculture, and began early. For
+instance, according to the records of S. Paul's Cathedral, John
+Durant, whose ancestor in 1222 held only one virgate in 'Cadendon',
+had in 1279 eight or ten at least. At 'Belchamp', Martin de Suthmere,
+one of the free tenants, held 245 acres by himself and his tenants,
+twenty-two in number, who rendered service to him; one of them being
+de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who held 17 acres under Martin. To such a
+position had the abler of the small holders of a century or so before
+already pushed their way, in spite of the heavy hand of feudalism,
+which did much to hinder individual initiative. At this period and
+until Tudor times England, as regards the cultivated land, was
+essentially a corn-growing country; the greater part of the lord's
+demesne was arable, and the tillage fields of the villeins largely
+exceeded their meadows. For instance, in 1285 the cultivated lands at
+Hawsted in Suffolk were nearly all under the plough; in seven holdings
+there were 968 acres of arable and only 40 of meadow, a proportion of
+24 to 1. No doubt there was plenty of common pasture, but we cannot
+call this cultivated land. The seven holdings were as follows:[78]
+
+                                                   Acres.
+
+                                         Arable.    Meadow.    Wood.
+
+  Thomas Fitzeustace, lord of the manor    240        10        10
+  William Tallemache                       280        12        24
+  Philip Noel                              120         4         7
+  Robert de Ros                             56         3         5
+  Walter de Stanton                         80         3         1
+  William de Camaville                     140         6         8
+  John Beylham                              52         2         3
+                                           ---        --        --
+                                           968        40        58
+
+These were the larger tenants; among the smaller several had no meadow
+at all.
+
+We must not forget that the grazing of the tillage fields after the
+crops were off was of great assistance to those who kept stock; for
+there was plenty to eat on the stubbles. The wheat was cut high, the
+straw often apparently left standing 18 inches or 2 feet high; weeds
+of all kinds abounded, for the land was badly cleaned; and often only
+the upper part of the high ridges, into which the land was thrown for
+purposes of drainage, was cultivated, the lower parts being left to
+natural grass.[79]
+
+The greatest authority for the farming of the thirteenth century is
+Walter of Henley, who wrote, about the middle of it, a work which held
+the field as an agricultural textbook until Fitzherbert wrote in the
+sixteenth century, and much of his advice is valuable to-day. There
+was from his time until the days of William Marshall, who wrote five
+centuries afterwards, a controversy as to the respective merits of
+horses and oxen as draught animals, and it is a curious fact that the
+later writer agreed with the earlier as to the superiority of oxen. 'A
+plough of oxen', says Walter, 'will go as far in the year as a plough
+of horses, because the malice of the ploughman will not allow the
+plough of horses to go beyond their pace, no more than the plough of
+oxen. Further, in very hard ground where the plough of horses will
+stop, the plough of oxen will pass. And the horse costs more than the
+ox, for he is obliged to have the sixth part of a bushel of oats every
+night, worth a halfpenny at least, and twelve pennyworth of grass in
+the summer. Besides, each week he costs more or less a penny a week in
+shoeing, if he must be shod on all four feet;' which was not the
+universal custom.
+
+'But the ox has only to have 3-1/2 sheaves of oats per week (ten
+sheaves yielding a bushel of oats), worth a penny, and the same amount
+of grass as the horse.[80] And when the horse is old and worn out
+there is nothing but his skin, but when the ox is old with ten
+pennyworth of grass he shall be fit for the larder.'[81]
+
+The labourer of the Middle Ages could not complain of lack of
+holidays; Walter of Henley tells us that, besides Sundays, eight weeks
+were lost in the year from holidays and other hindrances.[82]
+
+He advises the sowing of spring seed on clay or on stony land early,
+because if it is dry in March the ground will harden too much and the
+stony ground become dry and open; therefore fore sow early that corn
+may be nourished by winter moisture. Chalky and sandy ground need not
+be sown early. At sowing, moreover, do not plough large furrows, but
+little and well laid together, that the seed may fall evenly. Let your
+land be cleaned and weeded after S. John's Day, June 24, for before
+that is not a good time; and if thistles are cut before S. John's Day
+'for every one will come two or three.' Do not sell your straw; if you
+take away the least you lose much; words which many a landlord to-day
+doubtless wishes were fixed in the minds of his tenants.
+
+Manure should be mixed with earth, for it lasts only two or three
+years by itself, but with earth it will last twice as long; for when
+the manure and the earth are harrowed together the earth shall keep
+the manure so that it cannot waste by descending in the soil, which it
+is apt to do.
+
+'Feed your working oxen before some one, and with chaff. Why? I will
+tell you. Because it often happens that the oxherd steals the
+provender.'
+
+The oxen were also to be bathed, and curried when dry with a wisp of
+straw, which would cause them to lick themselves.
+
+'Change your seed every year at Michaelmas; for seed grown on other
+ground will bring more profit than that which is grown on your own.'
+
+Apparently the only drainage then practised was that of furrow and
+open ditch; and we find him saying that to free your lands from too
+much water, let the marshy ground be well ridged, and the water made
+to run, and so the ground may be freed from water.
+
+Here is his estimate of the cost of wheat growing[83]:
+
+     'You know surely that an acre sown with wheat takes three
+     ploughings, except lands which are sown yearly; and that each
+     ploughing is worth 6d. and the harrowing 1d., and on the acre
+     it is necessary to sow at least two bushels. Now two bushels at
+     Michaelmas are worth at least 12d., and weeding 1/2d., and
+     reaping 5d., and carrying in August 1d., and the straw will pay
+     for the threshing.'[83]
+
+The return was wretched: 'at three times your sowing you ought to have
+6 bushels, worth 3s.' The total cost is thus 3s. 1-1/2d.; and without
+debiting anything for rent and manure, the loss would be 1-1/2d. an
+acre.
+
+The anonymous _Treatise on Husbandry_ of about the same date says,
+however, that 'wheat ought to yield to the fifth grain, oats to the
+fourth, barley to the eighth, beans and peas to the sixth.'[84] In the
+years 1243-8 the average yield of wheat at Combe, Oxfordshire, was 5
+bushels per acre, of barley a little over 5, oats 7. In the Manor of
+Forncett, in various years from 1290 to 1306, wheat yielded about 10
+bushels, oats from 12 to 16, barley 16, and peas from 4 to 12 bushels
+per acre.[85]
+
+As for the dairy, 2 cows, says Walter, should yield a wey, (2 cwt) of
+cheese annually, and half a gallon of butter a week, 'if sorted out
+and fed in pasture of salt marsh;' but 'in pasture of wood or in
+meadows after mowing, or in stubble, it should take 3 cows for the
+same.' Twenty ewes, which it was then the custom to milk, fed in
+pasture of salt marsh, ought to yield the same as the 2 cows. A gallon
+of butter was worth 6d., and weighed 7 lb. And the anonymous treatise
+says each cow ought to yield from the day after Michaelmas until the
+first kalends of May, twenty-eight weeks, 10d. more or less; and from
+the first kalends of May till Michaelmas, twenty-four weeks, the milk
+of a cow should be worth 3s. 6d.; and she should give also 6 stones
+(14 lb. per stone) of cheese, and 'as much butter as shall make as
+much cheese.'[86] It was a common practice all through the Middle
+Ages, and survives in localities to-day, to let out the cows by the
+year, at from 3s. to 6s. 8d. a head, often to the daya or dairymaid,
+the owner supplying the food, and the lessee agreeing to restore them
+in equal number and condition at the end of the term.[87] The
+anonymous treatise tells us that 'if you wish to farm out your stock
+you can take 4s. 6d. clear for each cow and the tithe, and for a sheep
+6d. and the tithe, and a sow should bring you 6s. 6d. a year and
+acquit the tithe, and each hen 9d. and the tithe; and Walter says,
+'When I was bailiff the dairymaids had the geese and hens to farm, the
+geese at 12d. and the hens at 3d.'
+
+Among other information conveyed by these two treatises we learn that
+the poor servants or labourers were accustomed to be fed on the
+diseased sheep, salted and dried; but Walter adds, 'I do not wish you
+to do this.' Nor can we point the finger of scorn at this: for in the
+disastrous season of 1879 numbers of rotten sheep were sold to the
+butcher and consumed by the unsuspecting public without even being
+salted and dried.
+
+He further tells us that 'you can well have 3 acres weeded for 1d.,
+and an acre of meadow mown for 4d., and an acre of waste meadow for
+3-1/2d. And know that 5 men can well reap and bind 2 acres a day of
+each kind of corn, and where each takes 2d. a day then you must give
+5d. an acre.'[88] 'One ought to thresh a quarter of wheat or rye for
+2d. and a quarter of oats for 1d. A sow ought to farrow twice a year,
+having each time at least 7 pigs; and each goose 5 goslings a year and
+each hen 115 eggs and 7 chicks, 3 of which ought to be made capons;
+and for 5 geese you must have one gander, and for 5 hens one cock.'
+The laying qualities of the hen, in spite of the talk of the 200-egg
+bird, were evidently as good then as to-day. In those days of
+self-supporting farms it was the custom to put together the farm
+implements at home, and the farmer is advised that it will be well if
+he can have carters and ploughmen who should know how to work all
+their own wood, though it should be necessary to pay them more.[89]
+The village smith, however, seems, as we should expect, to have done
+most of the iron work that was needed.[90]
+
+These extracts have given the reader some insight into
+thirteenth-century prices, prices which in the case of grain altered
+very little for nearly 300 years: for instance, the average price of
+wheat from 1259 to 1400 was 5s. 10-3/4d. a quarter, and from 1401 to
+1540 5s. 11-3/4d.; of barley, 4s. 3-3/4d. from 1259 to 1400, 3s.
+8-3/4d. from 1401 to 1540; of oats, 2s. 5-3/4d. and 2s. 2-1/4d. in the
+same two periods respectively; of rye, 4s. 5d. and 4s. 7-3/4d.; and of
+beans, 4s. 3-1/2d. and 3s. 9-1/4d.[91] Wheat fluctuated considerably,
+being as we have seen 2s. a quarter at Hawsted in 1243 and in 1290
+14s. 10d., a most exceptional price. Oxen, which were chiefly valued
+as working animals, were about 13s. apiece[92]; cows, 9s. 5d. Farm
+horses were of two varieties: the 'affer' or 'stott', a rough small
+animal, generally worth about 13s. 5d., and the cart-horse, probably
+the ancestor of our shire horses, whose average price was 19s. 4d. A
+good saddle-horse fetched as much as £5. Sheep were from 1s. 2d. to
+1s. 5d. each. In Hampshire in 1248 shoeing ten farm horses for the
+plough for a year cost 5s.; making a gate cost 12d. As Walter of
+Henley said, it cost a penny a week to shoe a horse on all four feet;
+these horses must have been very roughly shod.[93] It is evident, from
+what Walter of Henley says, that horses were not always shod on all
+four feet, and their shoes were generally very light. The roads were
+mere tracks without any metalling, so that there was little necessity
+for heavy shoes; and as Professor Thorold Rogers suggests, it is quite
+possible that the hoofs of our horses have become weaker by reason of
+the continual paring and protection which modern shoeing involves.[94]
+They weighed usually less than half a pound, and cost about 4s. a
+hundred.
+
+The most striking fact about agricultural prices at this date is the
+low price of land compared with that of its products. The annual rent
+of land was from 4d. to 6d.[95] an acre, and it was worth about ten
+years' purchase. Consequently, a quarter of wheat was often worth more
+than an acre of land, a good ox three times as much, a good cart-horse
+four times, while a good war-horse was worth the fee-simple of a small
+farm. A greater breadth of wheat was sown than of any other crop; but
+it seems that none was ever stored except in the castles and
+monasteries, for in spite of successive abundant harvests a bad season
+would send the price up at once. Barley was, as now, chiefly used for
+making beer, which was also made from oats and wheat, of course
+without hops, which were not used till the fifteenth century; and
+sometimes it was made of oats, barley, and wheat, a concoction worth
+3/4d. a gallon in 1283.[96] Cider was also drunk, and was sold at
+Exminster in Devonshire in 1286 at 1/2d. a gallon, and apples fetched
+2d. a bushel. Thorold Rogers[97] says that wheat was the chief food of
+the English labourer from the earliest times until perhaps the
+seventeenth century, when the enormous prices were prohibitive; but
+this statement must be taken with reserve, as must that of Mr.
+Prothero[98] that rye was the bread-stuff of the peasantry. Where the
+labourer's food is mentioned as part of his wages, wheat, barley, and
+rye all occur, wheat and rye being often mixed together as 'mixtil';
+and it is most probable that in one district wheat, in another one of
+the other cereals, formed his chief bread-stuff, according to the crop
+best adapted to the soil of the locality.
+
+Walter of Henley mentions wheat as if it was the chief crop, for he
+selects it as best illustrating the cost of corn-growing[99]; and from
+the enormous number of entries enumerated by Thorold Rogers in his
+mediaeval statistics it was apparently more grown than other cereals.
+The chief meat of the lower classes then, as to-day, was bacon from
+the innumerable herds of swine who roamed in the woods and wastes, but
+in bad years, when food was scarce, the poor ate nuts, acorns, fern
+roots, bark, and vetches.[100]
+
+As the cattle of the Middle Ages were like the mountain cattle of
+to-day, so were the sheep like many of the sheep to be seen in the
+Welsh mountains; yet, unlike the cattle, an attempt seems to have been
+made, judging by the high price of rams, to improve the breed; but
+they were probably poor animals worth from 1s. to 1s. 6d. each, with a
+small fleece weighing about a pound and a half, worth 3d. a lb. or a
+little more.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[64] _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 39. No one can write on
+English agriculture without acknowledging a deep debt to his
+monumental industry, though his opinions are often open to question.
+
+[65] Compare the account of the manors in Huntingdonshire belonging to
+Romsey Abbey given in Page _End of Villeinage in England_, pp. 28 et
+seq.
+
+[66] Davenport, _A Norfolk Manor_, p. 36; and see Hall, _Pipe Roll of
+Bishopric of Winchester_, p. xxv.
+
+[67] Chevage, poll money, paid to the lord.
+
+[68] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 230.
+
+[69] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 117.
+
+[70] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 307. On the Berkeley
+estates in 1189-1220 money was so scarce with the tenants that the
+rents, apparently even where services had been commuted, were commonly
+paid in oxen.--Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 101. In the
+thirteenth century the labour services of the villeins were stricter
+than in the eleventh. Vinogradoff, _op. cit._ 298.
+
+[71] Page, _End of Villeinage_, p. 39.
+
+[72] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 82.
+
+[73] Hampshire Record Society, i. 64. See Appendix, i.
+
+[74] Hasbach, _English Agricultural Labourer_, p. 14.
+
+[75] Hallam, _Middle Ages_, iii. 361
+
+[76] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 56.
+
+[77] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 273.
+
+[78] Cullum, _History of Hawsted_, 1784 ed., p. 180.
+
+[79] Ballard, _Domesday_, p. 207.
+
+[80] Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 12.
+
+[81] Walter reckons the above food of the horse at 12s. 3d., and of
+the ox at 3s. 1d.; but both are wrong.
+
+[82] Ibid. p. 15.
+
+[83] Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 19.
+
+[84] Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 71.
+
+[85] Davenport, _A Norfolk Manor_, pp. 29 et seq. See also Hall, _Pipe
+Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester_, p. xxvi, which gives an average
+yield of wheat over a large area in 1298-9 at 4.3 bushels per acre.
+
+[86] Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 77.
+
+[87] Thorold Rogers, _Agriculture and Prices_, i. 397; _Archaeologia_,
+xviii. 281.
+
+[88] Walter of Henley, pp. 69, 75. In Lancashire, at the end of the
+thirteenth century, mowing 60-1/2 acres cost 17s. 7-1/2d. _Victoria
+County History, Lancashire, Agriculture_, and _Two Compoti of the
+Lancashire and Cheshire Manors of Henry de Lacy_ (Cheetham Society).
+
+[89] Walter of Henley, p. 63.
+
+[90] _Crondall, Records_, Hampshire Record Society, i. 65.
+
+[91] See Thorold Rogers, various tables in vol. i. of _History of
+Agriculture and Prices_. Compare these with the prices on the Berkeley
+estates from 1281 to 1307, omitting years of scarcity: wheat, 2s. 4d.
+to 5s.; oxen, 10s. to 12s.; cows, 9s. to 10s.; bacon hogs, 5s.; fat
+sheep, 1s. 6d. to 2s.; and in the early part of Edward III's reign,
+wheat, 5s. 4d. to 10s.; oxen, 14s. to 24s. Other prices about the
+same.--Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 160.
+
+[92] If it is true, as generally stated, that the mediaeval ox was
+one-third the size of his modern successor, it is apparent that he was
+a very dear animal. Cattle at this date suffered from the ravages of
+wolves.
+
+[93] _Crondall, Records_, Hampshire Record Society, i. 64.
+
+[94] _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 528.
+
+[95] Seebohm, _Transactions of Royal Historical Society_, New Series,
+xvii. 288, says that rent in the fourteenth century was commonly 4d.;
+the usual average is stated at 6d. an acre.
+
+[96] _Domesday of S. Paul_, Camden Society, p. li.
+
+[97] _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 26.
+
+[98] _Pioneers of Agriculture_, p. 13.
+
+[99] Ed. Lamond, Royal Historical Society, p. 19.
+
+[100] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 93.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.--DECLINE OF AGRICULTURE.--THE BLACK DEATH.--
+STATUTE OF LABOURERS
+
+
+After the death of Edward I in 1307 the progress of English
+agriculture came to a standstill, and little advance was made till
+after the battle of Bosworth in 1485. The weak government of Edward
+II, the long French War commenced by Edward III and lasting over a
+hundred years, and the Wars of the Roses, all combined to impoverish
+the country. England, too, was repeatedly afflicted during the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by pestilences, sometimes caused by
+famines, sometimes coming with no apparent cause; all probably
+aggravated, if not caused, by the insanitary habits of the people. The
+mention of plagues, indeed, at this time is so frequent that we may
+call them chronic.
+
+At this period corn and wool were the two main products of the farmer;
+corn to feed his household and labourers, and wool to put money in his
+pocket, a somewhat rare thing.
+
+English wool, which came to be called 'the flower and strength and
+revenue and blood of England', was famous in very early times, and was
+exported long before the Conquest. In Edgar's reign the price was
+fixed by law, to prevent it getting into the hands of the foreigner
+too cheaply; a wey, or weigh, was to be sold for 120d.[101] Patriotic
+Englishmen asserted it was the best in the world, and Henry II, Edward
+III, and Edward IV are said to have improved the Spanish breed by
+presents of English sheep. Spanish wool, however, was considered the
+best from the earliest times until the Peninsular War, when the Saxon
+and Silesian wools deposed it from its pride of place. Smith, in his
+_Memoirs of Wool_,[102] is of the opinion that England 'borrowed some
+parts of its breed from thence, as it certainly did the whole from one
+place or another.' Spanish wool, too, was imported into England at an
+early date, the manufacture of it being carried on at Andover in
+1262.[103] Yet until the fourteenth century it was not produced in
+sufficient quantities to compete seriously with English wool in the
+markets of the Continent; and it appears to have been the long wools,
+such as those of the modern Leicester and Lincoln, from which England
+chiefly derived its fame as a wool-producing country.
+
+Our early exports went to Flanders, where weaving had been introduced
+a century before the Conquest, and, in spite of the growth of the
+weaving industry in England, to that country the bulk of it continued
+to go, all through the Middle Ages, though in the thirteenth century a
+determined effort was made to divert a larger share of English wool to
+Italy.[104] During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the export
+of wool was frequently forbidden,[105] sometimes for political
+objects, but also to gain the manufacture of cloth for England by
+keeping our wool from the foreigner; but these measures did not stop
+the export, they only hampered it and encouraged much smuggling. It
+commanded what seems to us an astonishing price, for 3d. a lb. in the
+thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is probably equal to nearly 4s. in
+our money. Its value, and the ease with which it could be packed and
+carried, made it an object of great importance to the farmer. In
+1337[106] we have a schedule of the price of wool in the various
+counties of England, for in that year 30,000 sacks of the best wool
+was ordered to be bought in various districts by merchants for Edward
+III, to provide the sinews of war against France. The price for the
+best wool was to be fixed by the king, his council, and the merchants;
+the 'gross' wool being bought by agreement between buyer and seller.
+Of the former the highest price fixed was for the wool of Hereford,
+then and for long afterwards famous for its excellent quality, 12
+marks the sack of 364 lb.; and the lowest for that of the northern
+counties, 5 marks the sack.
+
+Somewhat more than a century afterwards we have another similar list
+of wool prices, when in 1454 the Commons petitioned the king that 'as
+the wools growing within this realm have hitherto been the great
+commodity, enriching, and welfare of this land, and how of late the
+price is greatly decayed so that the Commons were not able to pay
+their rents to their lords', the king would fix certain prices under
+which wools should not be bought. The highest price fixed was for the
+wool of 'Hereford, in Leominster', £13 a sack; the lowest for that of
+Suffolk, £2 12s.[107]; the average being about £4 10s.
+
+The manorial accounts of the Knights' Hospitallers, who then held land
+all over England, afford valuable information as to agriculture in
+1338.[108] From these we gather that the rent of arable land varied
+from 2d. to 2s. an acre; but the latter sum was very exceptional, and
+there are only two instances of it given, in Lincolnshire and Kent.
+Most of the tillage rented for less than 1s. an acre, more than half
+being at 6d. or under, and the average about 6d. On the other hand,
+meadow land is seldom of less value than 2s. an acre, and in
+Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, and Norfolk rose to 3s. This is one of the
+numerous proofs of the great value of meadow land at a time when hay
+was almost the sole winter food of stock; in some places it was eight
+or ten times as valuable as the arable.[109] The pasture on the
+Hospitallers' estates was divided into several and common pasture, the
+former often reaching 1s. an acre and sometimes 2s., the latter rarely
+exceeding 4d. The most usual way, however, of stating the value of
+pasture was by reckoning the annual cost of feeding stock per head,
+cows being valued at 2s., oxen at 1s., a horse at a little less than
+an ox, a sheep at 1d. The reign of Edward III was a great era for
+wool-growers, and the Hospitallers at Hampton in Middlesex had a flock
+of 2,000 sheep whose annual produce was six sacks of wool of 364 lb.
+each, worth £4 a sack, which would make the fleeces weigh a little
+more than 1 lb. each. The profit of cows on one of their manors was
+reckoned at 2s. per head, on another at 3s.; and the profit of 100
+sheep at 20s.[110] The wages paid to the labourers for day work were
+2d. a day, and we must remember that when he was paid by the day his
+wages were rightly higher than when regularly employed, for day labour
+was irregular and casual. The tenants about the same date obtained the
+following prices[111] for some of their stock:--
+
+                                            £   s.  d.
+
+  A good ox, alive, fatted on corn          1   4   0
+       "       "        "  not on corn         16   0
+  A fatted cow                                 12   0
+  A two-year-old hog                            3   4
+  A sheep and its fleece                        1   8
+  A fatted sheep, shorn                         1   2
+       "   goose                                0   3
+  Hens, each[112]                               0   2
+  20 eggs                                       0   1
+
+In the middle of the fourteenth century occurred the famous Black
+Death, the worst infliction that has ever visited England. Its story
+is too well known for repetition, and it suffices to say that it was
+like the bubonic plague in the East of to-day: it raged in 1348-9, and
+killed from one-third to one-half of the people.[113] It is said to
+have effected more important economic results than any other event in
+English history. It is probable that the prices of labour were rising
+before this terrible calamity; the dreadful famine of 1315-6,[114]
+followed by pestilence, when wheat went up to 26s. a quarter, and
+according to the contemporary chroniclers, in some cases much higher,
+destroyed a large number of the population, and other plagues had done
+their share to make labour scarce, but after the Black Death the
+advance was strongly marked. It also accelerated the break-up of the
+manorial system. A large number of the free labourers were swept away,
+and their labour lost to the lord of the manor; the services of the
+villeins were largely diminished from the same cause; many of the
+tenants, both free and unfree, were dead, and the land thrown on the
+lord's hands. Flocks and herds were wandering about over the country
+because there was no one to tend them. In short, most manors were in a
+state of anarchy, and their lords on the verge of ruin. It is not to
+be wondered at, therefore, that they immediately adopted strong
+measures to save themselves and their property and, no doubt they
+thought, the whole country. Englishmen had by this time learnt to turn
+to Parliament to remedy their ills, but as the plague was still raging
+a proclamation was issued of which the preamble states that wages had
+already gone up greatly. 'Many, seeing the necessity of masters and
+great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they get excessive
+wages', and it is, therefore, hard to till the land. Every one under
+the age of 60, it was ordered, free or villein, who can work, and has
+no other means of livelihood, is not to refuse to work for any one who
+offers the accustomed wages; no labourer is to receive more wages than
+he did before the plague, and none are to give more wages under severe
+penalties. But besides regulating wages, the proclamation also insists
+on reasonable prices for food and the necessaries of life: it was a
+fair attempt not only to protect the landlords but the labourers also,
+by keeping both wages and prices at their former rate, so that its
+object was not tyrannous as has been stated.[115] It was at once
+disregarded, a fate which met many of the proclamations and statutes
+of the Middle Ages, which often seem to have been regarded as mere
+pious aspirations.
+
+Accordingly, the Statute of 1351, 25 Edw. III, Stat. 2, c. 1, states
+that the servants had paid no regard to the ordinance regulating
+wages, 'but to their ease and singular covetise do withdraw themselves
+unless they have livery and wages to the double or treble of that they
+were wont to take'. Accordingly, it was again laid down that they were
+to take liveries and wages as before the Black Death, and 'where wheat
+was wont to be given they shall take for the bushel 10d. (6s. 8d. a
+quarter),[116] or wheat at the will of the giver. And that they be
+hired to serve by the whole year or by other usual terms, and not by
+the day, and that none pay in the time of sarcling (weeding) or
+hay-making but a penny a day, and a mower of meadows for the acre 5d.,
+or by the day 5d., and reapers of corn in the first week of August
+2d., and the second 3d., without meat or drink.' And none were to take
+for the threshing of a quarter of wheat or rye more than 2d., and for
+the quarter of beans, peas, and oats more than 1d. These prices are
+certainly difficult to understand. Hay-making has usually been paid
+for at a rate above the ordinary, because of the longer hours; and
+here we find the price fixed at half the usual wages, while mowing is
+five times as much, and double the price paid for reaping, though they
+were normally about the same price.[117]
+
+It is interesting to learn from the statute that there was a
+considerable migration of labourers at this date for the harvest, from
+Stafford, Lancaster, Derby, Craven, the Marches of Wales and Scotland,
+and other places.
+
+Such was the first attempt made to control the labourers' wages by the
+legislature, and like other legislation of the kind it failed in its
+object, though the attempt was honestly made; and if the rate of wages
+fixed was somewhat low, its inequity was far surpassed by the
+exorbitance of the labourers' demands.[118] It was an endeavour to set
+aside economic laws, and its futility was rendered more certain by the
+depreciation of the coinage in 1351, which led to an advance in
+prices, and compelled the labourers to persevere in their demands for
+higher wages.[119]
+
+Both wages and prices, except those of grain, continued to increase,
+and labour services were now largely commuted for money payments,[120]
+with the result that the manorial system began to break up rapidly.
+
+Owing to the dearth of labourers for hire, and the loss of many of the
+services of their villeins, the lords found it very hard to farm their
+demesne lands. It should be remembered, too, that an additional
+hardship from which they suffered at this time was that the quit rents
+paid to them in lieu of services by tenants who had already become
+free were, owing to the rise in prices, very much depreciated. Their
+chief remedy was to let their demesne lands. The condition of the
+Manor of Forncett in Norfolk well illustrates the changes that were
+now going on. There, in the period 1272-1307, there were many free
+tenants as well as villeins, and the holdings of the latter were
+small, usually only 5 acres. It is also to be noticed that in no year
+were all the labour services actually performed, some were always sold
+for money. Yet in the period named there was not much progress in the
+general commutation of services for money payments, and the same was
+the case in the manors, whose records between 1325 and 1350 Mr. Page
+examined for his _End of Villeinage in England_.[121] The reaping and
+binding of the entire grain crop of the demesne at Forncett was done
+by the tenants exclusively, without the aid of any hired labour.[122]
+
+However, in the period 1307-1376 the manor underwent a great change.
+The economic position of the villeins, the administration of the
+demesne, and the whole organization of the manor were revolutionized.
+Much of the tenants' land had reverted to the lord, partly by the
+deaths in the great pestilence, partly because tenants had left the
+manor; they had run away and left their burdensome holdings in order
+to get high wages as free labourers. This of course led to a
+diminution of labour rents, so the landlord let most of the demesne
+for a term of years,[123] a process which went on all over England;
+and thus we have the origin of the modern tenant farmer. A fact of
+much importance in connexion with the Peasants' Revolt, soon to take
+place, was that the average money rent of land per acre in Forncett in
+1378 was 10d., while the labour rents for land, where they were still
+paid by villeins who had not commuted or run away, were, owing to the
+rise in the value of labour, worth two or three times this. We cannot
+wonder that the poor villeins were profoundly discontented.
+
+On this manor, as on others, some of the villeins, in spite of the
+many disadvantages under which they lay, managed to accumulate some
+little wealth. In 1378 and in 1410 one bond tenant had two messuages
+and 78 acres of land; in 1441 another died seized of 5 messuages and
+52 acres; some had a number of servants in their households, but the
+majority were very poor. There are several instances of bondmen
+fleeing from the manor; and the officers of the manor failed to catch
+them. This was common in other manors, and the 'withdrawal' of
+villeins played a considerable part in the disappearance of serfdom
+and the break-up of the system.[124] The following table shows the
+gradual disappearance of villeins in the Manor of Forncett:
+
+  In 1400 the servile families who had land numbered     16
+     1500        "               "             "          8
+     1525        "               "             "          5
+     1550        "               "             "          3
+     1575        "               "             "          0
+
+There is no event of greater importance in the agrarian history of
+England, or which has led to more important consequences, than the
+dissolution of this community in the cultivation of the land, which
+had been in use so long, and the establishment of the complete
+independence and separation of one property from another.[125] As soon
+as the manorial system began to give way, and men to have a free hand,
+the substitution of large for small holdings set in with fresh vigour,
+for we have already seen that it had begun. It was one of the chief
+causes of the stagnation of agriculture in the Middle Ages that it lay
+under the heavy hand of feudalism, by which individualism was checked
+and hindered. Every one had his allotted position on the land, and it
+was hard to get out of it, though some exceptional men did so; as a
+rule there was no chance of striking out a new line for oneself. The
+villein was bound to the lord, and no lord would willingly surrender
+his services. There could be little improvement in farming when the
+custom of the manor and the collective ownership of the teams bound
+all to the same system of farming.[126] In fact, agriculture under
+feudalism suffered from many of the evils of socialism.
+
+But, though hard hit, the old system was to endure for many
+generations, and the modern triumvirate of landlord, tenant, and
+labourer was not completely established in England until the era of
+the first Reform Bill.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[101] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 130. A
+weigh in the Middle Ages was 182 lbs., or half a sack.
+
+[102] Second edition, i. 50 n. See also Burnley, _History of Wool_, p.
+17.
+
+[103] Gross, _Gild Merchant_, ii. 4. It is from the Spanish merino,
+crossed with Leicesters and Southdowns, that the vast Australian
+flocks of to-day are descended.
+
+[104] Cunningham, _op. cit._ i. 628.
+
+[105] Ashley, _Early History of English Woollen Industry_, p. 34.
+
+[106] _Calendar of Close Rolls_, 1337-9, pp. 148-9.
+
+[107] _Rolls of Parliament_, v. 275.
+
+[108] _The Hospitallers in England_, Camden Society.
+
+[109] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 147.
+
+[110] _Hospitallers in England_, p. xxvi.
+
+[111] Ibid. pp. 1, li.
+
+[112] Poultry-keeping was wellnigh universal, judging by the number of
+rents paid in fowls and eggs.
+
+[113] 1348 seems also to have been an excessively rainy year. The wet
+season was very disastrous to live stock; according to the accounts of
+the manors of Christ Church, Canterbury, about this time (_Historical
+MSS. Commission, 5th Report_, 444) there died of the murrain on their
+estates 257 oxen, 511 cows, 4,585 sheep. Murrain was the name given to
+all diseases of stock in the Middle Ages, and is of constant
+occurrence in old records.
+
+[114] The cause of this as usual was incessant rain during the greater
+part of the summer; the chronicles of the time say that not only were
+the crops very short but those that did grow were diseased and yielded
+no nourishment. The 'murrain' was so deadly to oxen and sheep that,
+according to Walsingham, dogs and ravens eating them dropped down
+dead.
+
+[115] See Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 335. Also in an age
+when the idea of Competitive price had not yet been evolved, and when
+regulation by authority was the custom, it was natural and right that
+the Government in such a crisis should try to check the demands of
+both labourers and producers, which went far beyond what employers or
+consumers could pay. Putnam, _Enforcement of the Statute of
+Labourers_, 220.
+
+[116] The average price of wheat in 1351 was 10s. 2-1/2d., which went
+down to 7s. 2d. next year, and 4s. 2-1/2d. the year after; but judging
+by the ineffectiveness of the statute to reduce wages, it probably had
+little effect in causing this fall.
+
+[117] See Appendix I.
+
+[118] Putnam, _op. cit._, 221. The statute for the first ten years,
+however, kept wages from ascending as high as might have been the
+case.
+
+[119] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, i. 543, says that as the plague
+diminished the number of employers as well as labourers, the demand
+for labour could not have been much greater than before, and would
+have had little effect on the rate of if Edward III had not debased
+the coinage. But if the owners did decrease the lands would only
+accumulate in fewer hands, and would still require cultivation.
+
+[120] Page, _End of Villeinage_, pp. 59 et seq.
+
+[121] Ibid. p. 44.
+
+[122] _Transactions_, Royal Historical Society, New Series, xiv. 123.
+
+[123] This had been done before, but was now much more frequent.
+Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 17.
+
+[124] 'After the Black Death the flight of villeins was extremely
+common.'--Page, _op. cit._, p. 40.
+
+[125] Nasse, _Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages_, p. 1.
+
+[126] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 137.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HOW THE CLASSES CONNECTED WITH THE LAND LIVED IN THE MIDDLE AGES
+
+
+The castles of the great landowners have been so often described that
+there is no need to do this again. The popular idea of a baron of the
+Middle Ages is of a man who when he was not fighting was jousting or
+hunting. Such were, no doubt, his chief recreations; so fond was he of
+hunting, indeed, that his own broad lands were not enough, and he was
+a frequent trespasser on those of others; the records of the time are
+full of cases which show that poaching was quite a fashionable
+amusement among the upper classes. But among the barons were many men
+who, like their successors to-day, did their duty as landlords. Of one
+of the Lords of Berkeley in the fourteenth century, it was said he was
+'sometyme in husbandry at home, sometyme at sport in the field,
+sometyme in the campe, sometyme in the Court and Council of State,
+with that promptness and celerity that his body might have bene
+believed to be ubiquitary'. Many of them were farmers on a very large
+scale, though they might not have so much time to devote to it as
+those excellent landlords the monks.
+
+Thomas Lord Berkeley, who held the Berkeley estates from 1326 to 1361,
+farmed the demesnes of a quantity of manors, as was the custom, and
+kept thereon great flocks of sheep, ranging from 300 to 1,500 on each
+manor.[127] The stock of the Bishop of Winchester, by an inquisition
+taken at his death in 1367, amounted to 127 draught horses, 1,556 head
+of black cattle, and 12,104 sheep and lambs. Almost every manor had
+one or two pigeon houses, and the number of pigeons reared is
+astonishing; from one manor Lord Berkeley obtained 2,151 pigeons in a
+single year. No one but the lord was allowed to keep them, and they
+were one of the chief grievances of the villeins, who saw their seed
+devoured by these pests without redress. Their dung, too, was one of
+the most valued manures. Lord Berkeley, like other landlords, went
+often in progress from one of his manors and farmhouses to another,
+making his stay at each of them for one or two nights, overseeing and
+directing the husbandry. The castle of the great noble consumed an
+enormous amount of food in the course of the year; from two manors on
+the Berkeley estate came to the 'standinghouse' of the lord in twelve
+months, 17,000 eggs, 1,008 pigeons, 91 capons, 192 hens, 288 ducks,
+388 chickens, 194 pigs, 45 calves, 315 quarters of wheat, 304 quarters
+of oats; and from several other manors came the like or greater store,
+besides goats, sheep, oxen, butter, cheese, nuts, honey, &c.[128] Even
+the lavish hospitality of the lords, and the great number of their
+retainers, must have had some difficulty in disposing of these huge
+supplies.
+
+The examining of their bailiff's accounts must have taken a
+considerable portion of the landlord's time, for those of each manor
+were kept most minutely, and set forth, among other items, 'in what
+sort he husbanded' the demesne farms, 'what sorts of cattle he kept in
+them, and what kinds of graine he yearly sowed according to the
+quality and condition of the ground, and how those kinds of graine
+each second or third yeare were exchanged or brought from one manor to
+another as the vale corne into an upland soyle, and contrarily'. And
+we are told incidentally he 'set with hand, not sowed his beanes'. He
+was also accustomed to move his live stock from one manor to another,
+as they needed it.
+
+The accounts also stated what days' works were due from each tenant
+according to the season of the year, and at the end of each year there
+was a careful valuation of live and dead stock.[129]
+
+The difference
+between the smaller gentry and the more important yeomen[130] who
+farmed their own land must have been very slight. No doubt both of
+them were very rough and ignorant men, who knew a great deal about the
+cultivation of their land and very little about anything else. We may
+be sure that the ordinary house of both was generally of wood; as
+there is no stone in many parts of England, and bricks were not
+reintroduced till the fourteenth century and spread slowly. Even in
+Elizabeth's reign, Harrison[131] tells us that 'the ancient houses of
+our gentry are yet for the most part of strong timber', and he even
+thinks that houses made of oak were luxurious, for in times past men
+had been contented with houses of willow, plum, and elm, but now
+nothing but oak was good enough; and he quaintly says that the men who
+lived in the willow houses were as tough as oak, and those who lived
+in the oak as soft as willow. There are very few mansions left of the
+time before Edward III, for being of timber they naturally decayed.
+
+In a lease, dated 1152, of a manor house belonging to S. Paul's
+Cathedral,[132] is a description of a manor house which contained a
+hall 35 feet long, 30 feet broad, and 22 feet high; that is, 11 feet
+to the tie beam and 11 feet from that to the ridge board; showing that
+the roof was open and that there were no upper rooms. There was a
+chamber between the hall and the thalamus or inner room which was 12
+feet long, 17 feet broad, and 17 feet high, the roof being open as in
+the hall; and the thalamus was 22 feet long, 16 feet broad, and 18
+feet high. About the same date the Manor house of Thorp was larger,
+and contained a hall, a chamber, tresantia (apparently part of the
+hall or chamber separated by a screen to form an antechamber), two
+private rooms, a kitchen, brew-house, malt-house, dairy, ox shed, and
+three small hen-houses.
+
+The ordinary manor house of the Middle Ages contained three rooms at
+least, of mean aspect, the floor even of the hall, which was the
+principal eating and sleeping room, being of dirt; and when there was
+an upper room or solar added, which began to be done at the end of the
+twelfth century,[133] access to it was often obtained by an outside
+staircase.
+
+If the manor house belonged to the owner of many manors, it was
+sometimes inhabited by his bailiff.
+
+The barns on the demesnes were often as important buildings as the
+manor houses; one at Wickham, belonging to the canons of S. Paul's[134]
+in the twelfth century, was 55 feet long, 13 feet high from the floor
+to the principal beam, and 10-1/2 feet more to the ridge board; the
+breadth between the pillars was 19-1/2 feet, and on each side it had a
+wing or aisle 6-1/2 feet wide and 6-1/2 feet high. The amount of corn
+in the barn was often scored on the door-posts.[135] In the manor
+houses chimneys rarely existed, the fire being made in the middle of
+the hall. Even in the early seventeenth century in Cheshire there were
+no chimneys in the farmhouses, and there the oxen were kept under the
+same roof as the farmer and his family.[136] When chimneys did come in
+they were not much thought of. 'Now we have chimneys our tenderlings
+complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses (colds);' for the smoke not
+only hardened the timbers, but was said by Harrison to be an excellent
+medicine for man. Instead of glass there was much lattice, and that
+made either of wicker or fine rifts of oak in checkerwise, and horn
+was also used. Beds, of course, were a luxury, the owner of the manor,
+his guests, and retainers flung themselves down on the hall floor
+after supper and all slept together, though sometimes rough mattresses
+were brought in.
+
+Furniture was rude and scanty. In 1150 the farm implements and
+household furniture on the Manor of 'Waleton' was valued and consisted
+of 4 carts, 3 baskets, a basket used in winnowing corn, a pair of
+millstones, 10 tubs, 4 barrels, 2 boilers of lead with stoves, 2
+wooden bowls, 3 three-legged tables, 20 dishes or platters, 2
+tablecloths worth 6d., 6 metal bowls, half a load of the invaluable
+salt, 2 axes, a table with trestles (the usual form of table), and 5
+beehives made of rushes.[137] These articles were handed down from one
+generation to another, and in a lease made 150 years afterwards of the
+same manor most of them reappear. The greater part of the furniture,
+until the fifteenth century, was most likely made by migratory
+workmen, who travelled from village to village; for except the rudest
+pieces it was beyond the village carpenter, and shops there were none.
+
+It is not to be expected that when the master lived in this manner the
+lot of the labourer was a very good one. His home was miserably poor,
+generally of 'wattle and dab', sometimes wholly of mud and clay; many
+with only one room for all purposes. A bill is still in existence for
+a house, if it can be called one, built in 1306 for two labourers by
+Queen's College, Oxford, which cost 20s. in all, and was a mere hovel
+without floor, ceiling, or chimney.[138] Their wretched houses appear
+to have been built on the bare earth, and unfloored. Perhaps as time
+went on a rude upper storey was added, the floor of which was made of
+rough poles or hurdles and was reached by a ladder. The furniture was
+miserably poor; a few pots and pans, cups and dishes, and some tools
+would exhaust the list.[139] The goods and chattels of a landless
+labourer in 1431 consisted of a dish, an adze, a brass pot, 2 plates,
+2 augers, an axe, a three-legged stool, and a barrel.[140] Englishmen
+of all classes were hopelessly dirty in their habits; even till the
+sixteenth century they were noted above other countries for the
+profuseness of their diet and their unclean ways. Erasmus spoke of the
+floor of his house as inconceivably filthy. To save fuel, the
+labourer's family in the cold season all lay huddled in a heap on the
+floor, 'pleasantly and hot', as Barclay the poet tells us; and if he
+ever had a bed it was a bundle of fern or straw thrown down, with his
+cloak as a coverlet, though thus he was just as well off as his social
+superiors, for with them the loose cloak of the day was a common
+covering for the night. He was constantly exposed to disease, for
+sanitary precautions were ignored; at the entrance of his hovel was a
+huge heap of decaying refuse, poisoning air and water. Even in the
+sixteenth century a foreigner noticed that 'the peasants dwell in
+small huts and pile up their refuse out of doors in heaps so high that
+you cannot see their houses'.[141] Diseased animals were constantly
+eaten, vegetables were few, and in the winter there was no fresh meat
+for any one, except game and rabbits and, for the well-to-do, fish,
+but we may doubt if the peasant got any but salt fish. The consequence
+was that leprosy and kindred ailments were common; and we do not
+wonder that plagues were frequent and slew the people like flies. The
+peasants' food consisted largely of corn. In the bailiff's accounts of
+the Manor of Woodstock in 1242, six servants at Handborough received
+41-1/2 bushels of corn each, 2 ox herds at Combe received the same, and
+4 servants at Bladon had 36 bushels each. In 1274 at Bosham, and in
+1288 at Stoughton in Sussex, the allowance was the same.[142] The
+writer of the anonymous _Treatise on Husbandry_ says that in his time,
+the thirteenth century, the average annual allowance of corn to a
+labourer was 36 bushels.[143] Fish, too, seem to have formed a large
+portion of his diet; all classes ate enormous quantities of fish,
+before the Reformation, in Lent and on fast days, and the labourer was
+constantly given salt herrings as part of his pay. In 1359, at
+Hawsted, the villeins when working were allowed 2 herrings a day, some
+milk, a loaf, and some drink.[144] Eden[145] says his food consisted
+of a few fish, principally herrings, a loaf of bread, and some beer;
+but we must certainly add pork, which was his stand-by then as
+now.[146] In the fourteenth century, at all events, there were three
+kinds of bread in use--white bread, ration bread, and black bread; and
+it was no doubt the latter that the peasant ate.[147] Clothing was
+dear and cloth coarse, the most valuable personal property consisting
+of clothing and metal vessels. Shirts were the subject of charitable
+gifts.[148] By 37 Edw. III, c. 14, labourers were not to wear any
+manner of cloth but 'blanket and russet wool of 12d.' and girdles of
+linen. If they wore anything more extravagant it was forfeited to the
+king.
+
+To the labourer of modern times the life of his forefathers would have
+seemed unutterably dull. No books, no newspapers, no change of scene
+by cheap excursions, no village school, no politics. The very
+cultivation of the soil by the old three-course system was monotonous.
+But there were bright spots in his existence: the village church not
+only afforded him the consolations of religion but also entertainments
+and society. Religion in the Middle Ages was a part of the people's
+daily life, and its influence permeated even their amusements.
+Miracles and mystery plays, played in the churches and churchyards,
+were a common feature in village life; as were the church ales or
+parish meetings held four or five times a year, where cakes and beer
+were purchased from the churchwarden and consumed for the good of the
+parish. Indeed, there can be no doubt that there was much more
+sociability than to-day, in the country at least. Labour was lightened
+by the co-operation of the common fields; common shepherds and
+herdsmen watched the sheep and cattle of the different tenants, 'a
+common mill ground the corn, a common oven baked the bread, a common
+smith worked at a common forge.' His existence, moreover, was
+enlivened by a considerable number of sports. A statute at the end of
+the fourteenth century (12 Ric. II, c. 6) says he was fond of playing
+at tennis(!), football, quoits, dice, casting the stone, and other
+games, which this statute forbad him, and enacted that he should use
+his bow and arrows on Sundays and holidays instead of such idle sport.
+This is a foretaste of the modern sentiment that seeks to wean him
+from watching football matches and take to miniature rifle clubs. He
+was also, like some of his successors, fond of poaching, though he
+appears to have been rash enough to indulge in it by day. 13 Ric. II,
+c. 13, says he was prone on holidays, when good Christian people be in
+church hearing divine service, to go hunting with greyhounds and other
+dogs, in the parks and warrens of the lord and of others, and
+sometimes these hunts were turned into conferences and conspiracies,'
+for to rise and disobey their allegiance', such as preceded the
+Peasants' Revolt of 1381; and accordingly no one who did not own lands
+worth 40s. a year was to keep a dog to hunt, or ferrets other
+'engines': the first game law on the English statute book.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[127] Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 302. No doubt the riches of
+the Berkeleys were considerably greater than those of many of the
+barons.
+
+[128] _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 166. There is no reason to doubt
+Smyth, as he wrote with the original accounts before him.
+
+[129] _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 156.
+
+[130] The yeoman is said to have made his appearance in the fifteenth
+century, but the small freeholders of the manor before that date were
+to all intents and purposes yeomen. No doubt, as trade grew in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries successful tradesmen bought small
+freeholds in the country and swelled the numbers of yeomen.
+
+[131] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, F.J. Furnivall edn., p. 337.
+
+[132] _Domesday of S. Paul_, Camden Society, p. 129.
+
+[133] Turner, _Domestic Architecture_, i. 59.
+
+[134] _Domesday of S. Paul_, p. 123.
+
+[135] _Historical MSS. Commission Report_, v. 444.
+
+[136] Ormerod, _History of Cheshire_, i. 129.
+
+[137] _Domesday of S. Paul_, p. xcvii.
+
+[138] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_.
+
+[139] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 21.
+
+[140] See Cullum, _History of Hawsted_.
+
+[141] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, Appendix ii, lxxxi. In some
+manors, however, there were careful regulations for public health.
+According to the Durham _Halmote Rolls_, published by the Surtees
+Society, village officials watched over the water supply, prevented
+the fouling of streams; bye-laws were enacted as to the regulation of
+the common place for clothes washing, and the times for emptying and
+cleansing ponds and mill-dams.
+
+[142] Ballard, _Domesday_, Antiquary Series, p. 209.
+
+[143] Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 75.
+
+[144] Cullum, _Hawsted_, 1784 ed., p. 182.
+
+[145] _State of the Poor_, i. 15.
+
+[146] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 32.
+
+[147] See _Knights Hospitallers in England_, Camden Society,
+Introduction.
+
+[148] Thorold Rogers, _op. cit._ i. 66.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR.--SPREAD OF LEASES.--THE PEASANTS'
+REVOLT.--FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO REGULATE WAGES.--A HARVEST HOME.--
+BEGINNING OF THE CORN LAWS.--SOME SURREY MANORS
+
+
+We have seen that the landlords' profits were seriously diminished by
+the Black Death, and they cast about them for new ways of increasing
+their incomes. Arable land had been until now largely in excess of
+pasture, the cultivation of corn was the chief object of agriculture,
+bread forming a much larger proportion of men's diet than now. This
+began to change. Much of the land was laid down to grass, and there
+was a steady increase in sheep farming; thus commenced that revolution
+in farming which in the sixteenth century led Harrison to say that
+England was mainly a stock-raising country. The lords also let a
+considerable amount of their demesne land on leases for years. 'Then
+began the times to alter' says Smyth of the Lord Berkeley of the end
+of the fourteenth century, 'and hee with them, and he began to tack
+other men's cattle on his pasture by the week, month, and quarter, and
+to sell his meadow grounds by the acre. And in the time of Henry IV
+still more and more was let, and in succeeding times. As for the days'
+works of the copyhold tenants, they also were turned into money.'[149]
+Such leases had been used long before this, but this is the date of
+their great increase. In the thirteenth century a lease of 2 acres of
+arable land in Nowton, Suffolk, let the land at 6d. an acre per annum
+for a term of six years.[150] It contains no clauses about
+cultivation; the landlord warrants the said 2 acres to the tenant, and
+the tenant agrees to give them up at the end of the term freely and
+peaceably. The deed was indented, sealed, and witnessed by several
+persons. The impoverished landlords also let much of their land on
+stock and land leases. The custom of stocking the tenants' land was a
+very ancient one: the lord had always found the oxen for the plough
+teams of the villeins. In the leases of the manors of S. Paul's in the
+twelfth century the tenant for life received stock both live and dead,
+which when he entered was carefully enumerated in the lease, and at
+the end of the tenancy he had to leave behind the same quantity.[151]
+It was a common practice also, before the Black Death, for the lord to
+let out cows and sheep at so much per head per annum.[152] The stock
+and land lease therefore was no novelty. In 1410 there is a lease of
+the demesne lands at Hawsted by which the landlord kept the manor
+house and its appurtenances in his own hands, the tenant apparently
+having the farm buildings, which he was to keep in repair. He was to
+receive at the beginning of the term 20 cows and one bull, worth 9s.
+each; 4 stotts, worth 10s. each; and 4 oxen, worth 13s. 4d. each;
+which, or their value in money, were to be delivered up at the end of
+the term. The tenant was also to leave at the end of the lease as many
+acres well ploughed, sown, and manured as he found at the beginning.
+Otherwise the landlord was not to interfere with the cultivation. If
+the rent or any part thereof was in arrear for a fortnight after the
+two fixed days for payment, the landlord might distrain; and if for a
+month, he might re-enter: and both parties bound themselves to forfeit
+the then huge sum of £100 upon the violation of any clause of the
+lease.[153] There is a lease[154] of a subsequent date (the twentieth
+year of Henry VIII), but one which well illustrates the custom now so
+prevalent, granted by the Prior of the Monastery of Lathe in Somerset
+to William Pole of Combe, Edith his wife, and Thomas his son, for
+their lives. With the land went 360 wethers. For the land they paid 16
+quarters of best wheat, 'purelye thressyd and wynowed,' 22 quarters of
+best barley, and were to carry 4 loads of wood and fatten one ox for
+the prior yearly; the ox to be fattened in stall with the best hay,
+the only way then known of fattening oxen. For the flock of wethers
+they paid £6 yearly. The tenants were bound to keep hedges, ditches,
+and gates in repair. Also they were bound by a 'writing obligatory' in
+the sum of £100 to deliver up the wether flock whole and sound, 'not
+rotten, banyd,[155] nor otherwise diseased.' The consequence of the
+spread of leases was that the portion of the demesne lands which the
+lords farmed themselves dwindled greatly, or it was turned from arable
+into grass. Stock and land leases survived in some parts till the
+beginning of the eighteenth century, when it was still the custom for
+the landlord to stock the land and receive half the crop for
+rent.[156] According to the _Domesday of S. Paul_, in the thirteenth
+century, a survey of eighteen manors containing 24,000 acres showed
+three-eighths of the land in demesne, the rest in the hands of the
+tenants. In 1359 the lord of the principal manor at Hawsted held in
+his own hand 572 acres of arable land, worth 4d. to 6d. an acre rent,
+and 50 acres of meadow, worth 2s. an acre.[157] He had also pasture
+for 24 cows, which was considered worth 36s. a year, and for 12 horses
+and 12 oxen worth 48s. a year, with 40 acres of wood, estimated at 1s.
+an acre. In 1387, however, the arable land had decreased to 320 acres,
+but the stock had increased, and now numbered 4 cart horses, 6 stotts
+or smaller horses, 10 oxen, 1 bull, 26 cows, 6 heifers, 6 calves, 92
+wethers, 20 hoggerells or two-year-old sheep, 1 gander, 4 geese, 30
+capons, 26 hens, and only one cock. The dairy of 26 cows was let out,
+according to the custom of the time, for £8 a year; and we are told
+that the oxen were fed on oats, and shod in the winter only.
+
+But if the position of the lords was severely affected by the great
+pestilence that of the villeins was also. The villein himself was
+becoming a copyholder; in the thirteenth century the nature of his
+holding had been written on the court roll, before long he was given a
+copy of the roll, and by the fifteenth century he was a
+copyholder.[158] There was, too, a new spirit abroad in this century
+of disorganization and reform, which stirred even the villeins with a
+desire for better conditions of life. These men, thus rising to a more
+assured position and animated by new hopes, saw all round them hired
+labourers obtaining, in spite of the Statute of Labourers, double the
+amount of wages they had formerly received, while they were bound down
+to the same services as before. The advance in prices was further
+increased by the king's issuing in 1351 an entirely new coinage, of
+the same fineness but of less weight than the old; so that the demands
+of the labourers after the Black Death were largely justified by the
+depreciation in the currency.[159] There had also arisen at this time,
+owing to the increase in the wealth of the country, a new class of
+landlords who did not care for the old system[160]; and it is probably
+these men who are meant by the statute I Ric. II, c. 6, which
+complains that the villeins daily withdrew their services to their
+lords at the instigation of various counsellors and abettors, who made
+it appear by 'colour of certain exemplifications made out of the Book
+of Domesday' that they were discharged from their services, and
+moreover gathered themselves in great routs and agreed to aid each
+other in resisting their lords, so that justices were appointed to
+check this evil. But there were other 'counsellors and abettors' of
+the Peasants' Revolt than the new landlords. One of its most
+interesting features to modern readers is its thorough organization.
+Travelling agents and agitators like John Ball were all over the
+country, money was subscribed and collected, and everything was ripe
+for the great rising of 1381, which was brought to a head by the bad
+grading of the poll tax of King Richard. It has been said that the
+chief grievance of the villeins was that the lords of manors were
+attempting to reimpose commuted services, but judging by the petition
+to the King when he met them at Mile-end there can be no doubt that
+the chief grievance was the continuance of existing services. 'We
+will', said they, 'that ye make us free for ever, and that we be
+called no more bond, or so reputed.' Also, as Walsingham says,[161]
+they were careful to destroy the rolls and ancient records whereby
+their services were fixed, and to put to death persons learned in the
+law.
+
+As every one knows, the revolt was a failure; and whether it
+ultimately helped much to extinguish serfdom is doubtful. It probably,
+like the pestilence, accelerated a movement which had been for some
+time in progress and was inevitable. There is ample evidence to prove
+that there was a very general continuance of predial services after
+the revolt, though they went on rapidly decreasing. One of the chief
+methods adopted by the villeins to gain their freedom was desertion,
+and so common did this become that apparently the mere threat of
+desertion enabled the villein to obtain almost any concession from his
+lord, who was afraid lest his land should be utterly deserted. The
+result was that by the middle of the fifteenth century the abolition
+of labour services was approaching completion.[162] It lingered on,
+and Fitzherbert lamented in Elizabeth's reign the continuance of
+villeinage as a disgrace to England; but it had then nearly
+disappeared, and was unheard of after the reign of James I.[163]
+
+Seven years after the Peasants' Revolt another attempt was made to
+regulate agricultural wages by the statute 12 Ric. II, c. 4, which
+stated that 'the hires of the said servants and labourers have not
+been put on certainty before this time', though we have seen that the
+Act of 1351 tried to settle wages. In the preamble it is said that the
+statute was enacted because labourers 'have refused for a long season
+to work without outrageous and excessive hire', and owing to the
+scarcity of labourers 'husbands' could not pay their rents, a sentence
+which shows the general use of money rents.
+
+The wages were as follows, apparently with food:--
+
+                                                     s.  d.
+
+  A bailiff annually, and clothing once a year       13  4
+  A master hind, without clothing                    10  0
+  A carter,          "        "                      10  0
+  A shepherd,        "        "                      10  0
+  An ox or cow herd  "        "                       6  8
+  Swine herd or female labourer, without clothing     6  0
+  A plough driver, without clothing                   7  0
+
+The farm servants' food would be worth considerably more than the
+actual cash he received; a quarter of wheat, barley, and rye mixed
+every nine weeks was no unusual allowance, which at 4s. 4d. would be
+worth about 25s. a year. He would also have his harvest allowance,
+though the statute above forbids any perquisites, worth about 3s., and
+sometimes it was accompanied by the gift of a pig, some beer, or some
+herrings.[164] His wife also, at a time when women did the same work
+as the men, could earn 1d. a day, and his boy perhaps 1/2d. If his
+wages were wholly paid in money, we may say that in the last half of
+the fourteenth century the ordinary labourer earned 3d. a day, so that
+as corn and pork, his chief food, had not risen at all, he was much
+better off than in the preceding 100 years.
+
+Cullum, in his invaluable _History of Hawsted_, gives us a picture of
+harvesting on the demesne lands in 1389 which shows an extraordinarily
+busy scene. There were 200 acres of all kinds of corn to be gathered
+in, and over 300 people took part; though apparently such a crowd was
+only collected for the two principal days of the harvest, and it must
+be remembered that the towns were emptied into the country at this
+important season. The number of people for one day comprised a carter,
+ploughman, head reaper, cook, baker, brewer, shepherd, daya
+(dairymaid); 221 hired reapers; 44 pitchers, stackers, and reapers
+(not hired, evidently villeins paying their rents by work); 22 other
+reapers, hired for goodwill (_de amore_); and 20 customary tenants.
+This small army of men consumed 22 bushels of wheat, 8 pennyworth of
+beer, and 41 bushels of malt, worth 18s. 9-1/2d.; meat to the value of
+9s. 11-1/2d.; fish and herrings, 5s. 1d.; cheese, butter, milk, and
+eggs, 8s. 3-1/2d.; oatmeal, 5d. salt, 3d.; pepper and saffron, 10d.,
+the latter apparently introduced into England in the time of Edward
+III, and much used for cooking and medicine, but it gradually went out
+of fashion, and by the end of the eighteenth century was only
+cultivated in one or two counties, notably Essex where Saffron Walden
+recalls its use; candles, 6d.; and 5 pairs of gloves 10d.[165]
+
+The presentation of gloves was a common custom in England; and these
+would be presented as a sign of good husbandry, as in the case of the
+rural bridegroom in the account of Queen Elizabeth's visit to
+Kenilworth who wore gloves to show he was a good farmer. Tusser bids
+the farmer give gloves to his reapers. The custom was still observed
+at Hawsted in 1784, and in Eden's time, 1797, the bursars of New
+College, Oxford, presented each of their tenants with two pairs, which
+the recipients displayed on the following Sunday at church by
+conspicuously hanging their hands over the pew to show their
+neighbours they had paid their rent. In this account of the Hawsted
+harvest the large number of hired men and the few customary tenants is
+noteworthy as a sign of the times, for before the Black Death the
+harvest work on the demesne was the special work of the latter.
+
+In the fourteenth century the long series of corn laws was commenced
+which was to agitate Englishmen for centuries, and after an apparently
+final settlement in 1846 to reappear in our day.[166] It was the
+policy of Edward III to make food plentiful and cheap for the whole
+nation, without special regard to the agricultural interest: and by 34
+Edw. III, c. 20, the export of corn to any foreign part except Calais
+and Gascony, then British possessions, or to certain places which the
+king might permit, was forbidden. Richard II, however, reversed this
+policy in answer to the complaints of agriculturists whose rents were
+falling,[167] and endeavoured to encourage the farmer and especially
+the corn-grower; for he saw the landlords turning their attention to
+sheep instead of corn, owing to the high price of labour. Accordingly,
+to give the corn-growers a wider market, he allowed his subjects by
+the statute 17 Ric. II, c. 7, to carry corn, on paying the duties due,
+to what parts they pleased, except to his enemies, subject however to
+an order of the Council; and owing to the interference of the Council
+the law probably became a dead letter, at all events we find it
+confirmed and amended by 4 Hen. VI, c. 5.
+
+The prohibition of export must have been a serious blow to those
+counties near the sea, for it was much easier to send corn by ship to
+foreign parts than over the bad roads of England to some distant
+market.[168] Indeed, judging by the great and frequent discrepancy of
+prices in different places at the same date, the dispatch of corn from
+one inland locality to another was not very frequent. Richard also
+attempted to stop the movement, which had even then set in, of the
+countrymen to the growing towns, forbidding by 12 Ric. II, c. 5, those
+who had served in agriculture until 12 years of age to be apprenticed
+in the towns, but to 'abide in husbandry'.
+
+One of the most unjust customs of the Middle Ages was that which bade
+the tenants of manors, except those who held the _jus faldae_, fold
+their sheep on the land of the lord, thus losing both the manure and
+the valuable treading.[169] However, sometimes, as in Surrey, the
+sheepfold was in a fixed place and the manure from it was from time to
+time taken out and spread on the land.[170]
+
+In the same district horses had been hitherto used for farm work, as
+it was considered worthy of note that oxen were beginning to be added
+to the horse teams. The milk of two good cows in twenty-four weeks was
+considered able to make a wey of cheese, and in addition half a gallon
+of butter a week; and the milk of 20 ewes was equal to that of 3 cows.
+
+On the Manor of Flaunchford, near Reigate, the demesne land amounted
+to 56 acres of arable and two meadows, but there must have been the
+usual pasture in addition to keep the following head of stock: 13
+cows, who in the winter were fed from the racks in the yard; 4 calves,
+bought at 1s. each; 12 oxen for ploughing, whose food was oats and
+hay--a very large number for 56 acres of arable, and they were
+probably used on another manor; 1 stott, used for harrowing; a goat,
+and a sow.
+
+                                                   £   s.   d.
+
+  In 1382 the total receipts of this manor were    8   1   9-1/2
+  The total expenses                               7   0   5
+                                                  --------------
+                                 Profit           £1   1   4-1/2
+                                                  ==============
+
+  Among the receipts were:--
+    For the lord's plough, let to farmers (perhaps
+      this accounts for the large team of oxen kept)    6   8
+    14 bushels of apples                                1   2
+    5 loads of charcoal                                16   8
+    A cow                                              10   0
+  Among the payments:--
+    For keeping plough in repair, and the wages of a
+      blacksmith, one year by agreement                 6   8
+    Making a new plough from the lord's timber              6
+    Mowing 2 acres of meadow                            1   0
+    Making and carrying hay of ditto, with
+      help of lord's servants                               4
+    Threshing wheat, peas, and tares, per quarter           4
+       "      oats, per quarter                             1-1/2
+    Winnowing 3 quarters of corn                            1
+    Cutting and binding wheat and oats, per acre            6
+
+On the Manor of Dorking the harvest lasted five weeks as a rule; the
+fore feet only of oxen used for ploughing, and of heifers used for
+harrowing, were shod. For washing and shearing sheep 10d. a hundred
+was the price; ploughing for winter corn cost 6d. an acre, and
+harrowing 1/2d. 30-1/2 acres of barley produced 41-1/2 quarters; 28
+acres of oats produced 38-1/2 quarters; 13 cows were let for the
+season at 5s. each. In the same reign, at Merstham, the demesne lands
+of 166-1/2 acres were let on lease with all the live and dead stock,
+which was valued at £22 9s. 3d., and the rent was £36 or about 4s. 4d.
+an acre, an enormous price even including the stock.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[149] Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, ii. 5. There is no doubt the
+lease system was growing in the thirteenth century. About 1240 the
+writ _Quare ejecit infra terminum_ protected the person of a tenant
+for a term of years, who formerly had been regarded as having no more
+than a personal right enforceable by an action of covenant.
+Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 330; but leases for lives and
+not for years seem the rule at that date.
+
+[150] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 175.
+
+[151] See _Domesday of S. Paul_, Introduction.
+
+[152] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 25.
+
+[153] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 195.
+
+[154] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 586.
+
+[155] Banyd, afflicted with sheep rot.
+
+[156] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 55.
+
+[157] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 182. Another instance of the difference in
+value between arable and tillage. At the inquisition of the Manor of
+Great Tey in Essex, 1326, the jury found that 500 acres of arable land
+was worth 6d. an acre rent, 20 acres of meadow 3s. an acre, and 10
+acres of pasture 1s. an acre. _Archaeologia_, xii. 30.
+
+[158] Medley, _Constitutional History_, p. 52.
+
+[159] Cunningham, _op. cit._ i. 328, and 335-6.
+
+[160] _Domesday of S. Paul_, p. lvii.
+
+[161] _Hist. Angl._, Rolls Series, i. 455. The other political and
+social causes of the revolt do not concern us here. The attempt to
+minimize its agrarian importance is strange in the light of the words
+and acts above mentioned.
+
+[162] Page, _op. cit._ p. 77.
+
+[163] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 402, 534; _Transactions
+of the Royal Historical Society_, New Series, xvii. 235. Fitzherbert
+probably referred more to villein status, which continued longer than
+villein tenure.
+
+[164] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 278,
+288.
+
+[165] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, p. 233, says the produce of
+an acre of saffron was usually worth £20.
+
+[166] Exportation of corn is mentioned in 1181, when a fine was paid
+to the king for licence to ship corn from Norfolk and Suffolk to
+Norway.--McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, i. 345. As early as the
+reign of Henry II, Henry of Huntingdon says, German silver came to buy
+our most precious wool, our milk (no doubt converted into butter and
+cheese), and our innumerable cattle.--Rolls Series, p. 5. In 1400, the
+_Chronicle of London_ says the country was saved from dearth by the
+importation of rye from Prussia.
+
+[167] Hasbach, _op. cit._. p. 32.
+
+[168] Lord Berkeley, about 1360, had a ship of his own for exporting
+wool and corn and bringing back foreign wine and wares.--Smyth, _Lives
+of the Berkeleys_, i. 365.
+
+[169] Nasse, _Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages_, p. 66.
+
+[170] Customs in some Surrey manors in the time of Richard II,
+_Archaeologia_, xviii. 281.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+1400-1540
+
+THE SO-CALLED 'GOLDEN AGE OF THE LABOURER' IN A PERIOD OF GENERAL
+DISTRESS
+
+
+In this period the average prices of grain remained almost unchanged
+until the last three decades, when they began slowly and steadily to
+creep up, this advance being helped to some extent by defective
+harvests. In 1527, according to Holinshed it rained from April 12 to
+June 3 every day or night; in May thirty hours without ceasing; and
+the floods did much damage to the corn. In 1528 incessant deluges of
+rain prevented the corn being sown in the spring, and grain had to be
+imported from Germany. The price of wheat was a trifle higher than in
+the period 1259-1400; barley, oats, and beans lower; rye higher.[171]
+Oxen and cows were dearer, horses about the same, sheep a little
+higher, pigs the same, poultry and eggs dearer, wool the same, cheese
+and butter dearer. The price of wheat was sometimes subject to
+astonishing fluctuations: in 1439 it varied from 8s. to 26s. 8d.; in
+1440 from 4s. 2d. to 25s. The rent of land continued the same, arable
+averaging 6d. an acre,[172] though this was partly due to the fact
+that rents, although now generally paid in money, were still fixed and
+customary; for the purchase value of land had now risen to twenty
+years instead of twelve.[173] The art of farming hardly made any
+progress, and the produce of the land was consequently about the same
+or a little better than in the preceding period.[174]
+
+At the end of the fourteenth century the ordinary wheat crop at
+Hawsted was in favourable years about a quarter to the acre, but it
+was often not more than 6 bushels; and this was on demesne land,
+usually better tilled than non-demesne land.[175] As for the labourer,
+it is well known that Thorold Rogers calls the fifteenth century his
+golden age, and seeing that his days' wages, if he 'found himself',
+were now 4d. and prices were hardly any higher all round than when he
+earned half the money in the thirteenth century, there is much to
+support his view. As to whether he was better off than the modern
+labourer it is somewhat difficult to determine; as far as wages went
+he certainly was, for his 4d. a day was equal to about 4s. now; it is
+true that on the innumerable holidays of the Church he sometimes did
+not work,[176] but no doubt he then busied himself on his bit of
+common. But so many factors enter into the question of the general
+material comfort of the labourer in different ages that it is almost
+impossible to come to a satisfactory conclusion. Denton paints a very
+gloomy picture of him at this time[177]; so does Mr. Jessop, who says,
+the agricultural labourers of the fifteenth century were, compared
+with those of to-day, 'more wretched in their poverty, incomparably
+less prosperous in their prosperity; worse clad, worse fed, worse
+housed, worse taught, worse governed; they were sufferers from
+loathsome diseases, of which their descendants know nothing; the very
+beasts of the field were dwarfed and stunted; the disregard of to
+sell their corn at low prices to the detriment of the whole kingdom: a
+typical example of the political economy of the time, which considered
+the prosperity of agriculture indispensable to the welfare of the
+country, even if the consumer suffered. Accordingly, it was enacted
+that wheat could be exported without a licence when it was under 6s.
+8d. a quarter, except to the king's enemies. On imports of corn there
+had been no restriction until 1463, when 3 Edw. IV, c. 2 forbade the
+import of corn when under 6s. 8d: a statute due partly to the fear
+that the increase of pasture was a danger to tillage land and the
+national food supply, and partly to the fact that the landed interest
+had become by now fully awake to the importance of protecting
+themselves by promoting the gains of the farmer.[178] It may be
+doubted, however, if much wheat was imported except in emergencies at
+this time, for many countries forbade export. These two statutes were
+practically unaltered till 1571,[179] and by that of 1463 was
+initiated the policy which held the field for nearly 400 years.
+
+Thorold Rogers denounces the landlords for legislating with the object
+of keeping up rents, but, as Mr. Cunningham has pointed out, this
+ignores the fact that the land was the great fund of national wealth
+from which taxation was paid; if rents therefore rose it was a gain to
+the whole country, since the fund from which the revenue was drawn was
+increased.[180]
+
+In spite of the high wages of agricultural labourers, the movement
+towards the towns noticed by Richard II continued. The statute 7 Hen.
+IV, c. 17, asserts that there is a great scarcity of labourers in
+husbandry and that gentlemen are much impoverished by the rate of
+wages; the cause of the scarcity lying in the fact that many people
+were becoming weavers,[181] and it therefore re-enacted 12 Ric. II,
+c. 5, which ordained that no one who had been a servant in husbandry
+until 12 years old should be bound apprentice, and further enacted
+that no person with less than 20s. a year in land should be able to
+apprentice his son. Like many other statutes of the time this seems to
+have been inoperative, for we find 23 Hen. VI, c. 12 (1444), enacting
+that if a servant in husbandry purposed leaving his master he was to
+give him warning, and was obliged either to engage with a new one or
+continue with the old. It also regulated the wages anew, those fixed
+showing a substantial increase since the statute of 1388. By the
+year:--
+
+  A bailiff was to have £1 3s. 4d., and 5s. worth of clothes.
+  A chief hind, carter, or shepherd, £1, and 4s. worth of clothes.
+  A common servant in husbandry, 15s., and 3s. 4d. worth of clothes.
+  A woman servant, 10s., and 4s. worth of clothes.
+  All with meat and drink.
+
+By the day, in harvest, wages were to be:--
+
+  A mower, with meat and drink, 4d.; without, 6d.
+  A reaper or carter, with meat and drink, 3d.; without, 5d.
+  A woman or labourer, with meat and drink, 2d.; without, 4d.
+
+In the next reign the labourer's dress was again regulated for him,
+and he was forbidden to wear any cloth exceeding 2s. a yard in price,
+nor any 'close hosen', apparently tight long stockings, nor any hosen
+at all which cost more than 14d.[182] Yeomen and those below them were
+forbidden to wear any bolsters or stuff of wool, cotton wadding, or
+other stuff in their doublets, but only lining; and somewhat
+gratuitously it was ordered that no one under the degree of a
+gentleman should wear pikes to his shoes.
+
+In 1455 England's Thirty Years' War, the War of the Roses, began, and
+agriculture received another set back. The view that the war was a
+mere faction fight between nobles and their retainers, while the rest
+of the country went about their business, is somewhat exaggerated. No
+doubt, the mass of Englishmen, as in the civil war of the seventeenth
+century, preferred to 'sit still', as Clarendon said, but the business
+of many must have been very much upset. The various armies were
+compelled to obtain their supplies from the country, and with the
+lawless habits of the times plundered friend and foe alike, as
+Cavalier and Roundhead did afterwards; and many a farmer must have
+seen all his stock driven off and his grain seized to feed the
+combatants. For instance, it was said before the battle called Easter
+Day Field that all the tenants of Abbot's Ripton in Huntingdonshire
+were copyholders of the Abbot of Ramsey, and the northern army lay
+there so long that they impoverished the country and the tenants had
+to give up their copyholds through poverty.[183] The loss of life,
+too, must have told heavily on a country already suffering from
+frequent pestilence. It is calculated that about one-tenth of the
+whole population of the country were killed in battle or died of
+wounds and disease during the war; and as these must have been nearly
+all men in the prime of life, it is difficult to understand how the
+effect on the labour market was not more marked. The enclosing of land
+for pasture farms, which we shall next have to consider, was probably
+in many cases an absolute necessity, for the number of men left to
+till the soil must have been seriously diminished.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[171] See table at end of volume. The shrinkage of prices which
+occurred in the fifteenth century was due to the scarcity of precious
+metals.
+
+[172] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iv. 128.
+The rent of arable land on Lord Derby's estate in Wirral in 1522 was a
+little under 6d. a statute acre; of meadow, about 1s. 6d.--_Cheshire
+Sheaf_ (Ser. 3), iv. 23.
+
+[173] Thorold Rogers, _op. cit._ iv. 3.
+
+[174] Thorold Rogers, _op. cit._ iv. 39.
+
+[175] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 187. The amount of seed for the various
+crops was, wheat 2 bushels per acre, barley 4, oats 2-1/2.
+
+[176] By 4 Hen. IV, c. 14, labourers were to receive no hire for holy
+days, or on the eves of feasts for more than half a day; but the
+statute was largely disregarded.
+
+[177] See _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 105: 'The undrained
+neglected soil, the shallow stagnant waters which lay on the surface
+of the ground, the unhealthy homes of all classes, insufficient and
+unwholesome food, the abundance of stale fish eaten, and the scanty
+supply of vegetables predisposed rural and town population to
+disease.'
+
+[178] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 448.
+
+[179] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1852), p. 412. In 1449
+Parliament had decided that all foreign merchants importing corn
+should spend the money so obtained on English goods to prevent it
+leaving the country.--McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, i. 655.
+
+[180] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 191.
+
+[181] Much of the weaving, however, was done in rural districts.
+
+[182] See 3 Edw. IV, c. 5; _Rot. Parl._ v. 105; 22 Edw. IV, c. 1.
+
+[183] Cunningham, _op. cit._ i. 456.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ENCLOSURE
+
+
+We have now reached a time when the enclosure question was becoming of
+paramount importance,[184] and began to cause constant anxiety to
+legislators, while the writers of the day are full of it. Enclosure
+was of four kinds:
+
+  1. Enclosing the common arable fields for grazing, generally
+     in large tracts.
+
+  2. Enclosing the same by dividing them into smaller fields,
+     generally of arable.
+
+  3. Enclosing the common pasture, for grazing or tillage.
+
+  4. Enclosing the common meadows or mowing grounds.
+
+It is the first mainly, and to a less degree the third of these, which
+were so frequent a source of complaint in the fifteenth and sixteenth
+centuries; for the first, besides displacing the small holder, threw
+out of employment a large number of people who had hitherto gained
+their livelihood by the various work connected with tillage, and the
+third deprived a large number of their common rights.
+
+The first Enclosure Act was the Statute of Merton, passed in 1235, 20
+Henry III, c. 4, which permitted lords of manors to add to their
+demesnes such parts of the waste pasture and woods as were beyond the
+needs of the tenants. There is evidence, however, that enclosure,
+probably of waste land, was going on before this statute, as the
+charter of John, by which all Devonshire except Dartmoor and Exmoor
+was deforested, expressly forbids the making of hedges, a proof of
+enclosure, in those two forests.[185] We may be sure that the needs of
+the tenants were by an arbitrary lord estimated at a very low figure.
+At the same time many proceeded in due legal form. Thomas, Lord
+Berkeley, about the period of the Act reduced great quantities of
+ground into enclosures by procuring many releases of common land from
+freeholders.[186] His successor, Lord Maurice, was not so observant of
+legality. He had a wood wherein many of his tenants and freeholders
+had right of pasture. He wished to make this into a park, and treated
+with them for that purpose; but things not going smoothly, he made the
+wood into a park without their leave, and then treated with his
+tenants, most of whom perforce fell in with his highhanded plan; those
+who did not 'fell after upon his sonne with suits, in their small
+comfort and less gaines.'[187] Sometimes the rich made the law aid
+their covetousness, as did Roger Mortimer the paramour of the 'She
+Wolf of France'. Some men had common of pasture in King's Norton Wood,
+Worcestershire, who, when Mortimer enclosed part of their common land
+with a dike, filled the dike up, for they were deprived of their
+inheritance. Thereupon Mortimer brought an action of trespass against
+them 'by means of jurors dwelling far from the said land', who were
+put on the panel by his steward, who was also sheriff of the county,
+and the commoners were convicted and cast in damages of £300, not
+daring to appear at the time for fear of assault, or even death.[188]
+Neither dared they say a word about the matter till Mortimer was dead,
+when it is satisfactory to learn that Edward III gave them all their
+money back save 20 marks. We are told that Lord Maurice Berkeley
+consolidated much of his demesne lands, throwing together the
+scattered strips and exchanging those that lay far apart from the
+manor houses for those that lay near; trying evidently to get the home
+farms into a ring fence as we should term it.[189] In this policy he
+was followed by his successor Thomas the Second, who during his
+ownership of the estate from 1281 to 1320, to the great profit of his
+tenants and himself, encouraged them to make exchanges, so as to make
+their lands lie in convenient parcels instead of scattered strips, by
+which he raised the rent of an acre from 4d. and 6d. to 1s. 6d.[190]
+There is a deed of enclosure made in the year 1250, preserved, by
+which the free men of North Dichton 'appropriated and divided between
+them and so kept for ever in fee all that place called Sywyneland,
+with the moor,' and they were to have licence to appropriate that
+place, which was common pasture (the boundaries of which are given),
+'save, however, to the grantor William de Ros and his heirs' common of
+pasture in a portion thereof named by bounds, with entry and exit for
+beasts after the wheat is carried. The men of North Dichton were also
+to have all the wood called Rouhowthwicke, and to do what they liked
+with it.[191] In return they gave the lord 10 marks of silver and a
+concession as regards a certain wood. It has been noticed that the
+Black Death, besides causing many of the landlords to let their
+demesnes, also made them turn much tillage into grass to save labour,
+which had grown so dear. We have also seen that the statutes
+regulating wages were of little effect, and they went on rising, so
+that more land was laid down to grass. The landowners may be said to
+have given up ordinary farming and turned to sheep raising.
+
+English wool could always find a ready sale, although Spanish sheep
+farming had developed greatly; and the profitable trade of growing
+wool attracted the new capitalist class who had sprung up, so that
+they often invested their recently made fortunes in it, buying up many
+of the great estates that were scattered during the war.[192]
+
+The increase of sheep farming was assisted by the fact that the
+domestic system of the manufacture of wool, which supplanted the guild
+system, led, owing to its rapid and successful growth, to a constant
+and increasing demand for wool. At the same time this development of
+the cloth industry helped to alleviate the evils it had itself caused
+by giving employment to many whom the agricultural changes wholly or
+partially deprived of work. 'It is important to remember, that where
+peasant proprietorship and small farming did maintain their ground it
+was largely due to the domestic industries which supplemented the
+profits of agriculture.'[193]
+
+Much of the land laid down to grass was demesne land, but many of the
+common arable fields were enclosed and laid down. John Ross of Warwick
+about 1460 compares the country as he knew it with the picture
+presented by the Hundred Rolls in Edward I's time, showing how many
+villages had been depopulated; and he mentions the inconvenience to
+travellers in having to get down frequently to open the gates of
+enclosed fields.[194]
+
+Enclosure was really a sure sign of agricultural progress; nearly all
+the agricultural writers from Fitzherbert onwards are agreed that
+enclosed land produced much more than uninclosed. Fitzherbert, in the
+first quarter of the sixteenth century, said an acre of land rented
+for 6d. uninclosed was worth 8d. when enclosed. Gabriel Plattes, in
+the seventeenth century, said an acre enclosed was worth four in
+common. In fact, the history of enclosures is part of the history of
+the great revolution in agriculture by which the manorial system was
+converted into the modern system as we know it to-day of several
+ownership and the triumvirate of landlord, tenant farmer, and
+labourer. No one could have objected to the enclosure of waste; it was
+that of the common arable fields and of the common pasture that
+excited the indignation of contemporaries. They saw many of the small
+holders displaced and the countryside depopulated; many of the
+labourers were also thrown out of employment, for there was no need in
+enclosed fields of the swineherd and shepherd and oxherd who had
+tended the common flocks of the villagers in the old unfenced fields.
+But much of the opposition was founded on ignorance and hatred of
+change; England had been for ages mainly a corn-growing land, and,
+many thought, ought to remain so. As a matter of fact, what much of
+the arable land wanted was laying down to grass; it was worn out and
+needed a rest. The common field system was wasteful; the land, for
+instance, could never be properly ploughed, for the long narrow strips
+could not be cross-ploughed, and much of it must have suffered
+grievously from want of manure at a time when hardly any stock was
+kept in the winter to make manure. The beneficial effect of the rest
+is shown by the fact that at the end of the sixteenth century, when
+some of the land came to be broken up, the produce per acre of wheat
+had gone up largely.[195] Marling and liming the land, too, which had
+been the salvation of much of it for centuries, had gone out partly
+because of insecurity of tenure, partly because in the unsettled state
+of England men knew not if they could reap any benefit therefrom; and
+partly because, says Fitzherbert, men were lazier than their fathers.
+There can be no doubt that enclosures were often accompanied with
+great hardships and injustice. Dugdale, speaking of Stretton in
+Warwickshire,[196] says that in Henry VII's time Thomas Twyford,
+having begun the depopulation thereof, decaying four messuages and
+three cottages whereunto 160 acres of 'errable' land belonged, sold it
+to Henry Smith; which Henry, following that example, enclosed 640
+acres of land more, whereby twelve messuages and four cottages fell to
+ruins and eighty persons there inhabiting, being employed about
+tillage and husbandry, were constrained to depart thence and live
+miserably. By means whereof the church grew to such ruin that it was
+of no other use than for the shelter of cattle. A sad picture, and
+true of many districts, but much of the depopulation ascribed to
+enclosures was due to the devastation of the Civil Wars.
+
+In spite of these enclosures, which began to change the England of
+open fields into the country we know of hedgerows and winding roads,
+great part of the land was in a wild and uncultivated state of fen,
+heath, and wood, the latter sometimes growing right up to the walls of
+the towns.[197] An unbroken series of woods and fens stretched right
+across England from Lincoln to the Mersey, and northwards from the
+Mersey to the Solway and the Tweed; Warwickshire, Northamptonshire,
+and Leicestershire were largely covered by forests, and Sherwood
+Forest extended over nearly the whole of Notts. Cannock Chase was
+covered with oaks, and in the forest of Needwood in Camden's time the
+neighbouring gentry eagerly pursued the cheerful sport of hunting. The
+great forest of Andredesweald, though much diminished, still covered a
+large part of Sussex, and the Chiltern district in Bucks and
+Oxfordshire was thick with woods which hid many a robber. The great
+fen in the east covered 300,000 acres of land in six counties, in
+spite of various efforts to reclaim the land, and was to remain in a
+state of marsh and shallow water till the seventeenth century.
+
+North and west of the great fen was Hatfield Chase, 180,000 acres
+mostly swamp and bog, with here and there a strip of cultivated land,
+much of which had been tilled and neglected; a great part too of
+Yorkshire was swamp, heath, and forest, and of Lancashire marshes and
+mosses, some of which were not drained till recent times. The best
+corn-growing counties were those lying immediately to the north of
+London, stretching from Suffolk to Gloucestershire, and including the
+southern portions of Staffordshire and Leicestershire; Essex was a
+great cheese county; Hants, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, and
+Bedfordshire were famous for malt, and Leicestershire for peas and
+beans. The population of England in 1485 was probably from two to two
+and a half millions. At the time of Domesday it was under two
+millions, and from that date increased perhaps to nearly four millions
+at the time of the Black Death in 1348-9, which swept away from
+one-third to one-half of the people, and repeated wars and pestilences
+seem to have kept it from increasing until Tudor times. Of the whole
+population no fewer than eleven-twelfths were employed in
+agriculture.[198]
+
+It was sought to remedy enclosure and depopulation by legislation, and
+the statute of 4 Hen. VII, c. 19, was passed, which stated in its
+preamble that where in some towns (meaning townships or villages) 200
+persons used to be occupied and lived by their lawful labours, now
+there are occupied only two or three herdsmen, so that the residue
+fall into idleness, and husbandry is greatly decayed, churches
+destroyed, the bodies there buried not prayed for, the parsons and
+curates wronged, and the defence of this land enfeebled and impaired;
+the latter point being wisely deemed one of the most serious defects
+in the new system of farming. Indeed, the encouragement of tillage was
+largely prompted by the desire to see the people fed on good
+home-grown corn and made strong and healthy by rural labour for the
+defence of England. It therefore enacted that houses which within
+three years before had been let for farms with 20 acres of tillage
+land should be kept in that condition, under a penalty of forfeiting
+half the profits to the king or the lord of the fee. Soon after Henry
+VIII ascended the throne came another statute, 6 Hen. VIII, c. 5, that
+all townships, villages, &c., decayed and turned from husbandry and
+tillage into pasture, shall by the owner be rebuilt and the land made
+mete for tillage within one year; and this was repeated and made
+perpetual by a law of the next year.[199]
+
+But legislation was in vain; the price of wool was now beginning to
+advance so that the attraction of sheep farming was irresistible, and
+laws, which asked landowners and farmers to turn from what was
+profitable to what was not, were little likely to be observed,
+especially as the administration of these laws was in the hands of
+those whose interest it was that they should not be observed.
+
+Their ill success, however, did not deter the Parliament from fresh
+efforts. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 13, sets forth the condition of affairs in
+its preamble: as many persons have accumulated into few, great
+multitude of farms and great plenty of cattle, especially sheep,
+putting such land as they can get into pasture, and enhanced the old
+rents and raised the prices of corn, cattle, wool, and poultry almost
+double, 'by reason whereof a mervaylous multitude and nombre of the
+people of this realme be not able to provide drynke and clothes
+necessary for themselves, but be so discoraged with myserie and
+povertie that they fall dayly to thefte and robberye or pitifully dye
+for hunger and colde.' So greedy and covetous were some of these
+accumulators that they had as many as 24,000 sheep; and a good sheep,
+that was used to be sold for 2s. 4d. or 3s. at the most, was now from
+4s. to 6s.; and a stone of clothing wool, that in some shires was
+accustomed to be sold for 18d. or 20d., is now 3s. 4d. to 4s.; and in
+others, where it was 2s. 4d. to 3s. it is now 4s. 8d. to 5s.
+
+It was therefore enacted that no man, with some exceptions, was to
+keep more than 2,000 sheep at one time in any part of the realm,
+though lambs under one year were not to count. The frequency of these
+laws proves their inefficacy, and the conduct of Henry VIII was the
+chief cause of it; for while Parliament was complaining of the
+decrease of tillage he gave huge tracts of land taken from the
+monasteries to greedy courtiers, who evicted the tenants and lived on
+the profits of sheep farming.[200] For the dissolution of the
+monasteries was now taking Place,[201] and the best landowners in
+England, some of whom farmed their own land long after most of the lay
+landlords had given it up or turned it into grass, and whose lands are
+said to have fetched a higher rent than any others, were robbed and
+ruined. Including the dissolution of the monasteries and the
+confiscation of the chantry lands in 1549 by Edward VI, about
+one-fifteenth of the land of England changed hands at this time. The
+transfer of the abbey lands to Henry's favourites was very prejudicial
+to farming; it was a source of serious dislocation of agricultural
+industry, marked by all the inconvenience, injustice, and loss that
+attends a violent transfer of property. It is probable also that many
+of the monastic lands were let on stock and land leases; and the stock
+was confiscated, with inevitable ruin to the tenant as well as the
+landlord.[202] And not only was a serious injury wrought to
+agriculture by the spoliation of a large number of landlords generally
+noted for their generosity and good farming, but with the religious
+houses disappeared a large number of consumers of country produce, the
+amount of which may be gathered from the following list of stores of
+the great Abbey of Fountains at the dissolution: 2,356 horned cattle,
+1,326 sheep, 86 horses, 79 swine, and large quantities of wheat, oats,
+rye, and malt, with 392 loads of hay.[203] It must indeed have seemed
+to many as if the poor farmer was never to have any rest; no sooner
+were the long wars over and pestilences in some sense diminished, than
+the evils of enclosure and the dissolution of the monasteries came
+upon him. Many ills were popularly ascribed to the fall of the
+monasteries; in an old ballad in Percy's _Reliques_ one of the
+characters says, in western dialect:--
+
+     'Chill tell the what, good vellowe,
+     Before the friers went hence,
+     A bushel of the best wheate
+     Was zold vor vorteen pence,
+     And vorty eggs a penny
+     That were both good and newe.'
+
+NOTE.--If any further proof were needed of the constant attention
+given by Parliament to agricultural matters, it would be furnished by
+the Acts for the destruction of vermin.[204] Our forefathers had no
+doubt that rooks did more harm than good, yearly destroying a
+'wonderfull and marvelous greate quantitie of corne and graine'; and
+destroying the 'covertures of thatched housery, bernes, rekes,
+stakkes, and other such like'; so that all persons were to do their
+best to kill them, 'on pain of a grevous amerciament'.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[184] Much the same tendencies were at work in other countries,
+especially in Germany.
+
+[185] Slater, _English Peasantry and Enclosure_, 248.
+
+[186] Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 113.
+
+[187] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1331, p. 127.
+
+[188] _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 141.
+
+[189] Ibid. i. 141.
+
+[190] _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 160.
+
+[191] _Historical MSS. Commission, 6th Report_, p. 359.
+
+[192] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 379.
+
+[193] Ashley, _English Woollen Industry_, pp. 80-1. Broadly speaking,
+there are four stages in the development of industry--the family
+system, the guild system, the domestic system, and the factory system.
+
+[194] _Hist. Reg. Angl._, p. 120.
+
+[195] Gisborne, _Agricultural Essays_, pp. 186-9.
+
+[196] _Antiquities of Warwickshire_ 2nd ed., p. 51.
+
+[197] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 135.
+
+[198] See Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 331; Denton,
+_England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 127.
+
+[199] 7 Hen. VIII, c. 1.
+
+[200] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 489.
+
+[201] Dissolution of small monasteries, 1536; of greater, 1539-40.
+
+[202] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iv. 129.
+
+[203] Dugdale, _Monasticon_, v, 291.
+
+[204] 24 Hen. VIII, c. 10; 8 Eliz. c. 15; 14 Eliz. c. 11; 39 Eliz. c.
+18.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+FITZHERBERT.--THE REGULATION OF HOURS AND WAGES
+
+
+The farming of this period is portrayed for us by Fitzherbert, the
+first agricultural writer of any merit since Walter of Henley in the
+thirteenth century. He was one of the Justices of Common Pleas, and
+had been a farmer for forty years before he wrote his books on
+husbandry, and on surveying in 1523, so that he knew what he was
+writing about; 'there is nothing touching husbandry contained in this
+book but I have had experience thereof and proved the same.' In spite
+of the increase of grazing in his time he says the 'plough is the most
+necessarie instrument that an husbandman can occupy', and describes
+those used in various counties; in Kent, for instance, 'they have some
+go with wheeles as they do in many other places'; but the plough of
+his time is apparently the same as that of Walter of Henley, and
+altered little till the seventeenth century. The rudeness of it may be
+judged from the fact that in some places it only cost 10d. or 1s.
+though in other parts they were as much as 6s. or even 8s. He
+says[205] it was too costly for a farmer to buy all his implements,
+wherefore it is necessary for him to learn to make them, as he had
+done in the Middle Ages before the era of ready-made implements, when
+he always bought the materials and put them together at home. On the
+vexed question of whether to use horses or oxen for ploughing, he says
+it depends on the locality; for instance, oxen will plough in tough
+clay and upon hilly ground, whereas horses will stand still; but
+horses go faster than oxen on even ground and light ground, and are
+'quicke for carriages, but they be far more costly to keep in winter.'
+
+According to him, oxen had no shoes as horses had.[206] Here is his
+description of a harrow: it is 'made of six final peeces of timber
+called harow bulles, made either of ashe or oke; they be two yardes
+long, and as much as the small of a man's leg; in every bulle are five
+sharpe peeces of iron called harow tyndes, set somewhat a slope
+forward.' This harrow, drawn by oxen, was good to break the big clods,
+and then the horse harrow came after to break the smaller clods. It
+differed slightly from the former, some having wooden tines. For
+weeding corn the chief instrument 'is a pair of tongs made of wood,
+and in dry weather ye must have a weeding hoke with a socket set upon
+a staffe a yard long.'[207]
+
+He recommends that grass be mown early, for the younger and greener
+the grass is the softer and sweeter it will be when it is hay, and the
+seeds will be in it instead of fallen out as when left late; advice
+which many slovenly farmers need to-day. He does not approve of the
+custom of reaping rye and wheat high up and mowing them after, but
+advises that they be cut clean; barley and oats, however, should be
+commonly mown. Both wheat and rye were to be sown at Michaelmas, and
+were cast upon the fallow and ploughed under, two London bushels of
+wheat and rye being the necessary amount of seed per acre. In spite of
+his praise of the plough he allows that the sheep 'is the most
+profitablest cattel that a man can have', and he gives a list of their
+diseases, among the things that rot them being a grass called
+sperewort, another called peny grass, while marshy ground, mildewed
+grass, and grass growing upon fallow and therefore full of weeds were
+all conducive to rot. The chief cause, however, is mildew, the sign of
+whose presence is the honeydew on the oak leaves. In buying cattle to
+feed the purchaser is to see that the hair stare not, and that the
+beast lacks no teeth, has a broad rib, a thick hide, and be loose
+skinned, for if it stick hard to his ribs he will not feed[208]; it
+should be handled to see if it be soft on the forecrop, behind the
+shoulder, on the hindermost rib upon the huck bone, and at the nache
+by the tail. Among other diseases of cattle he mentions the gout,
+'commonly in the hinder feet'; but he never knew a man who could find
+a remedy. He was a great advocate of enclosures; for it was much
+better to have several closes and pastures to put his cattle in, which
+should be well quick-setted, ditched, and hedged, so as to divide
+those of different ages, as this was more profitable than to have his
+cattle go before the herdsman (in the common field).
+
+It will be seen from the above that Fitzherbert made no idle boast in
+saying he wrote of what he knew, and much of his advice is applicable
+to-day, though the time is past for the farmer's wife to 'wynowe all
+manner of cornes, to make malte, to shere corne, and in time of nede
+to helpe her husbande to fyll the mucke wayne or dounge carte, dryve
+the plough, lode heye, corne, and such other'; though she may go or
+ride to the market 'to sel butter, cheese, milke, eggs, chekyns,
+hennes, and geese.'[209] It appears that the horses of England at this
+time had considerably deteriorated, for the statute 27 Hen. VIII, c.
+6, mentions the great decay of the breed, the cause it is stated being
+that 'in most places of this Realme little horsis and naggis of small
+stature and valeu be suffered to depasture and also to covour marys
+and felys of very small stature'; therefore owners and farmers of deer
+parks shall keep in every such park two brood mares of 13 'hand
+fulles' (hands) at least. Another statute, 32 Hen. VIII, c. 13, strove
+to remedy this evil by enacting that no entire horse under 15 hands
+was to feed on any forest, chase, waste, or common land.
+
+This statute was a useful one, so also was 21 Hen. VIII, c. 8, which
+forbade for three years the killing of calves between January 1 and
+May 1, under a penalty of 6s. 8d., because so many had been killed by
+'covetous persons' that the cattle of the country were dwindling in
+number. Others, however, were merely meddlesome, and directed against
+that unpopular man the dealer. For instance, owners refusing to sell
+cattle at assessed prices were to answer first in the Star Chamber (25
+Hen. VIII, c. 1); and by 3 and 4 Edw. VI, c. 19, no cattle were to be
+bought but in open fair or market, and not to be resold then alive,
+though a man might buy cattle anywhere for his own use. No person,
+again, was to resell cattle within five weeks after he bought them (5
+Edw. VI, c. 14); and a common drover had by the same Act to have a
+licence from three justices before he could buy and sell cattle. We
+may be sure that these laws were more honoured in the breach than in
+the observance, as they deserved to be.
+
+Hops were said to have been introduced from the Low Countries about
+the middle of Henry VIII's reign; but there can be no doubt that this
+is a mistake. It has been mentioned that they flourished in the
+gardens of Edward I, and a distinguished authority[210] says the hop
+may with probability be reckoned a native of Britain; but it was first
+used as a salad or vegetable for the table, the young sprouts having
+the flavour of asparagus and coming earlier. Hasted, the historian of
+Kent, states[211] that a petition was presented to Parliament against
+the hop plant in 1428 wherein it was called a 'wicked weed'. Harrison
+says, 'Hops in time past were plentiful in this land, afterwards their
+maintenance did cease, and now (cir. 1580) being revived where are
+anie better to be found?'[212] Even then growers had to face foreign
+competition, as the customs accounts prove that considerable
+quantities were imported into England. In 1482 a cwt. was sold for 8s.
+and 1 cwt. 21 lb. for 19s. 6d., an early example of that fluctuation
+in price which has long characterized them.[213] Their average price
+about this time seems to have been 14s. 1/2d. a cwt.
+
+During the Tudor period the number of day labourers increased, largely
+owing to the enclosures having deprived the small holder and commoner
+of their land and rights. But judging by the statutes those paid
+yearly and boarded in the farm house were still most numerous.
+
+In 1495 the hours of labourers were first regulated by law. The
+statute II Hen. VII, c. 22, says that 23 Hen. VI, c. 12,[214] was
+insufficiently observed; and besides increasing wages slightly set
+forth the following hours for work on the farm: the labourer was to be
+at his work from the middle of March to the middle of September before
+5 a.m., and have half an hour for breakfast and an hour and a half for
+dinner and sleep, when sleep was allowed, that is from the middle of
+May to the middle of August; when sleep was not allowed, an hour for
+dinner and half an hour for his nonemete or lunch; and he was to work
+till between 7 and 8 p.m. During the rest of the year he was to work
+from daylight to dark. The attempt to regulate hours, which seem fair
+and reasonable, no doubt met with better success than that to regulate
+wages, for 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3 (1514), says the previous statutes had
+been very much disregarded, and sets down the rates once more:--
+
+  A bailiff's yearly wages, with diet, were to be not more
+    than £1 6s. 8d., and 5s. for clothes.
+
+  A chief hind, carter, or chief shepherd, with diet, not more
+    than £1, and 5s. for clothes.
+
+  A common servant or labourer, with diet, not more than
+    16s. 8d., and 4s. for clothes.
+
+  A woman servant, with diet, not more than 10s., and 4s.
+    for clothes.
+
+By the day, except in harvest, a common labourer from Easter to
+Michaelmas was to have 2d. with food and drink, 4d. without; and from
+Michaelmas to Easter 1-1/2d. with food and drink, and 3d. without. In
+harvest:--
+
+  A mower, with food, 4d. a day; without, 6d.
+  A reaper, with food, 3d. a day; without, 5d.
+  A carter, with food, 3d.; without, 5d.
+  Other labourers, with food, 2-1/2d.; without, 4-1/2d.
+  Women, with food, 2-1/2d.; without, 4-1/2d.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[205] _Booke of Husbandry_ (ed. 1568), fol. 5. The surveyor of
+Fitzherbert's day combined some of the duties of the modern bailiff
+and land agent: he bought and sold for his employer, valued his
+property, and supervised the rents.
+
+[206] _Booke of Husbandry_ (ed. 1568), fol. vi.
+
+[207] Ibid. fol. xv.
+
+[208] _Booke of Husbandry_ (ed. 1568), fol. xxix.
+
+[209] Fitzherbert adds pigs and all manner of cornes, so altogether
+the farmer's wife seems to have done as much as the farmer.
+
+[210] Sir Jas. E. Smith, _English Flora_, iv. 241.
+
+[211] _History of Kent_ (ed. 1778), i. 123.
+
+[212] _Description of Britain_ (Furnivall ed.), p. 325.
+
+[213] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iii. 254.
+
+[214] See above.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+1540-1600
+
+PROGRESS AT LAST.--HOP-GROWING.--PROGRESS OF ENCLOSURE.--HARRISON'S
+'DESCRIPTION'
+
+
+The period we have now reached was one of steady growth in the value
+of land and its products. In 1543 Henry VIII, who had given away or
+squandered, in addition to the great treasure left him by his thrifty
+father, all the wealth obtained from the dissolution of the
+monasteries, debased the coinage in order to get more money into his
+insatiable hands, and prices went up in consequence. But there were
+other causes: the influx of precious metals from newly discovered
+America into Europe had commenced to make itself felt, and the
+population of the country began to grow steadily. Also, it must not be
+forgotten that the seasons, which in the early part of the century had
+been normal, were for the next sixty years frequently rainy and bad.
+It is unnecessary to say that this must have largely helped to raise
+the price of corn. The average price of wheat from 1540-1583 was 13s.
+10-1/2d. a quarter; from 1583-1702, 39s. 0-1/2d. Corn was still
+subject to extraordinary fluctuations: in 1557, Holinshed says before
+harvest wheat was 53s. 4d. a quarter, malt 44s. After harvest wheat
+was 5s., malt 6s. 8d., the former prices being due to a terrible
+drought in England. Oxen in the period 1583-1703 were worth 75s.
+instead of under £1 in the period 1400-1540. Wool was from 9d. to 1s.
+a lb. instead of about 3-1/2d., and all other farm products increased
+with these.[215] Hops were from 1540-1582 about 26s. 8d. a cwt., and
+from 1583-1700, 82s. 9-1/2d. In 1574 Reynold Scott published the first
+English treatise on hops,[216] in which he says, 'one man may well
+keep 2,000 hils, upon every hil well ordered you shall have 3 lb. of
+hoppes at the least, one hundred pounds of these hoppes are commonly
+worth 26s. 8d., one acre of ground and the third part of one man's
+labour with small cost beside, shall yield unto him that ordereth the
+same well, fortie marks yearly and that for ever,' an optimistic
+estimate that many growers to-day would like to see realized. 'In the
+preparation of a hop garden', says the same writer, 'if your ground be
+grasse, it should be first sowen with hempe or beanes which maketh the
+ground melowe, destroyeth weedes, and leaveth the same in good season
+for this purpose.[217] At the end of Marche, repayre to some good
+garden to compound with the owner for choice rootes, which in some
+places will cost 5d. an hundredth. And now you must choose the biggest
+rootes you can find, such as are three or four inches about, and let
+every root be nine or ten inches long, and contain three joints.'
+Holes were then to be dug at least 8 feet apart, one foot square, and
+one foot deep, and in each two or three roots planted and well hilled
+up. Tusser, however, recommended them much closer:
+
+     'Five foot from another each hillock should stand,
+     As straight as a levelled line with the hand.
+     Let every hillock be four foot wide.
+     Three poles to a hillock, I pas not how long,
+     Shall yield the more profit set deeplie and strong.'
+
+Three or four poles were to be set to each hill 15 or 16 feet long,
+unless the ground was very rich, the poles 9 or 10 inches in
+circumference at the butt, so as to last longer and stand the wind
+well. After they were put up, the ground round the poles was to be
+well rammed. Rushes or grass were used for tieing the hops. During
+the growth of the hops, not more than two or three bines were to be
+allowed to each pole; and after the first year the hills were to be
+gradually raised from the alleys between the rows until, according to
+the illustrations in Scott's book, they were 3 or 4 feet high, the
+'greater you make your hylles the more hoppes you shall have upon
+your poals'. When the time for picking came, the bines when cut were
+carried to a 'floore prepared for the purpose', apparently of
+hardened earth, where they were stripped into baskets, and Scott
+thought that 'it is not hurtfull greatly though the smaller leaves be
+mingled with the hoppes'. In wet weather the hops were to be stripped
+in the house. The fire for drying hops was of wood, and some dried
+their hops in the sun, both processes to us appearing very risky; as
+the first would be too quick, and the latter next to impossible in
+September in England. They were sometimes packed in barrels, as
+Tusser tells us, 'Some close them up drie in a hogshead or vat, yet
+canvas or sontage (coarse cloth) is better than that.'
+
+By this time England had largely changed from a corn-growing to a
+stock-raising country; Harrison, writing in the middle of Queen
+Elizabeth's reign, says, 'the soile of Britaine is more inclined
+to feeding and grazing than profitable for tillage and bearing of
+corne ... and such store is there of cattle in everie place that the
+fourth part of the land is scarcely manured for the provision of
+graine.' But this statement seems exaggerated. We know that by
+Harrison's time enclosures had affected but a small area, and the
+greater part of the cultivated land was in open arable fields. The
+yield of corn was now much greater than in the Middle Ages; rye or
+wheat well tilled and dressed now produced 15 to 20 bushels to the
+acre instead of 6 or 8, barley 36 bushels, oats 4 or 5 quarters[218],
+though in the north, which was still greatly behind the rest of
+England, crops were smaller. No doubt this was partly due to the
+much-abused enclosures: the industrious farmer could now do what he
+liked with his own, without hindrance from his lazy or unskilful
+neighbour. Tusser's preference for the 'several' field is very
+decided; comparing it with the 'champion' or common field he says:--
+
+     The countrie inclosed I praise
+     the tother delighteth me not,
+     There swineherd that keepeth the hog
+     there neetherd with cur and his horne,
+     There shepherd with whistle and dog
+     be fence to the medowe and corne,
+     There horse being tide on a balke
+     is readie with theefe for to walke,
+     Where all things in common doth reste
+     corne field with the pasture and meade,
+     Tho' common ye do for the best
+     yet what doth it stand ye in steade?
+     More plentie of mutton and beefe
+     corne butter and cheese of the best
+     More wealth any where (to be briefe)
+     more people, more handsome and prest (neat.)
+     Where find ye? (go search any coaste)
+     than there where enclosure is most.
+     More work for the labouring man
+     as well in the towne as the fielde.
+     For commons these commoners crie
+     inclosing they may not abide,
+     Yet some be not able to bie
+     a cow with her calf by her side.
+     Nor laie (intend) not to live by their wurke,
+     But thievishly loiter and lurke.
+     What footpaths are made and how brode
+     Annoiance too much to be borne,
+     With horse and with cattle what rode
+     is made thorowe erie man's come.
+
+But the rich graziers boasted that they did not grow corn because
+they could buy it cheaper in the market; and they are said to have
+traded on the necessity of the poor farmer to sell at Michaelmas in
+order to pay his rent, and when they had got the corn into their
+hands they raised the price. The corn-dealers of the time were looked
+upon with dislike by every one; many of the dearths then so frequent,
+and nearly always caused by bad seasons, were ascribed to 'engrossers
+buying of corn and witholding it for sale'. By a statute of 1552 the
+freedom of internal corn trade was entirely suppressed, and no one
+could carry corn from one part of England to another without a
+licence, and any one who bought corn to sell it again was liable to
+two months' imprisonment and forfeited his corn. Although we shall
+see that this policy was reversed in the next century, the feeling
+against corn-dealers survived for many years and was loudly
+expressed during the Napoleonic war; indeed, we may doubt if it
+is extinct to-day.
+
+Many of the fruits and garden produce, which had been neglected since
+the first Edward, had by now come into use again, 'not onlie among the
+poor commons, I meane of melons, pompions, gourds, cucumbers,
+radishes, skirets (probably a sort of carrot), parsneps, carrots,
+cabbages, navewes (turnip radishes (?)), turnips,[219] and all kinds
+of salad herbes, but also at the tables of delicate merchants,
+gentlemen, and the nobilitie.'[220]
+
+'Also we have most delicate apples, plummes, pears, walnuts, filberts,
+&c., and those of sundrie sorts, planted within fortie years past, in
+comparison of which most of the old trees are nothing worth: so have
+we no less store of strange fruite, as abricotes, almonds, peaches,
+figges, cornetrees (probably cornels) in noblemen's orchards. I have
+seen capers, orenges, and lemmons, and heard of wild olives growing
+here, besides other strange trees.'[221]
+
+As a proof of the growth of grass in proportion to tillage between
+the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, Eden gives several
+examples,[222] of which the following are significant:--
+
+                                           Arable.     Grass.
+                                           acres.      acres.
+
+  1339. 18 messuages in Norfolk had         160         60
+  1354. a Norfolk manor                     300         59
+  1395. 2 messuages in Warwickshire         400         60
+  1560. 2 messuages in Warwickshire         600        660
+  1567. a Norfolk estate                    200        400
+  1569.    "     manor                       60         60
+
+'Our sheepe are very excellent for sweetness of flesh, and our woolles
+are preferred before those of Milesia and other places.'[223] So
+thought Harrison and many English landowners and farmers too, so that
+legislation was powerless to stop the spread of sheep farming. In 1517
+a commission of inquiry instigated by Wolsey held inquisition on
+enclosures and the decay of tillage, and it seems to have been the
+only honest effort to stop the evil. It was to inquire what decays,
+conversions, and park enclosures had been made since 1489, but the
+result even of this attempt was small. In 1535 a fresh statute, 27
+Hen. VIII, c. 22, stated that the Act limiting the number of sheep to
+be kept had only been observed on lands held of the king, whereon many
+houses had been rebuilt and much pasture reconverted to tillage; but
+on lands holden of other lords this was not the case, therefore the
+king was to have the moiety of the profits of such lands as had been
+converted from tillage to pasture since 4 Hen. VII until a proper
+house was built and the land returned to tillage; but the Act only
+applied to fourteen counties therein enumerated. The enclosing for
+sheep-runs still went on, however, often with ruthless selfishness;
+houses and townships were levelled, says Sir Thomas More, and nothing
+left standing except the church, which was turned into a sheep-house:
+
+     'The towns go down, the land decays,
+     Of corn-fields plain lays,
+     Great men maketh nowadays
+     A sheepcot of the church',
+
+said a contemporary ballad.
+
+Latimer wrote, 'where there were a great many householders and
+inhabitants there is now but a shepherd and his dog.' 'I am sorie to
+report it,' says Harrison,[224] 'but most sorrowful of all to
+understand that men of great port and countenance are so far from
+suffering their farmers to have anie gaine at all that they themselves
+become graziers, butchers, tanners, sheepmasters, and woodmen, thereby
+to enrich themselves.' The Act against pulling down farmhouses was
+evaded by repairing one room for the use of a shepherd; a single
+furrow was driven across a field to prove it was still under the
+plough; to avoid holding illegal numbers of sheep flocks were held in
+the names of sons and servants.[225] The country swarmed with heaps of
+miserable paupers, 'sturdy and valiant' beggars, and thieves who,
+though hanged twenty at a time on a single gallows, still infested all
+the countryside, their numbers being swollen by the dissolution of the
+monasteries and the breaking up of the bands of retainers kept by the
+great nobles.
+
+Rents also were rising rapidly. Latimer's account of his father's farm
+is too well known to be again quoted; his opinions were shared by all
+the writers of the day. Sir William Forrest, about 1540, says that
+landlords now demand fourfold rents, so that the farmer has to raise
+his prices in proportion, and beef and mutton were so dear that a poor
+man could not 'bye a morsell'. 'Howe joyne they lordshyp to
+lordshyppe, manner to manner, ferme to ferme. How do the rych men, and
+especially such as be shepemongers, oppresse the king's people by
+devourynge their common pastures with the shepe so that the poore are
+not able to keepe a cowe, but are like to starve. And yet when was
+beef ever so dere or mutton, wool now 8s. a stone.
+
+'Now', says another, later in the century, 'I can never get a horse
+shoed under 10d. or 12d., when I have also seen the common pryce was
+6d. And cannot your neighbour remember that within these thirty years
+I could bye the best pigge or goose that I could lay my hand on for
+four pence which now costeth 12d., a good capon for 3d. or 4d., a hen
+for 2d., which now costeth me double and triple.'[226]
+
+Parliament, of course, tried to regulate the price of food; an Act of
+1532, 24 Hen. VIII, c. 3, ordained that beef and pork should be 1/2d.
+a lb. and mutton and veal 5/8d. a lb. The decrease in the number of
+cows also received its attention; 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 3,
+states that forasmuch of late years a great number of persons have fed
+in their pastures sheep and cattle with no regard to breeding, so that
+there was great scarcity of stock, therefore for every 60 sheep kept
+one milk cow shall be kept, and for every 120 sheep one calf shall be
+bred, and for every 10 head of horned cattle shall be kept one milk
+cow, and for every two cows so kept one calf shall be bred. The Act
+was to last seven years, but 13 Eliz. c. 25 made it perpetual.
+
+In 1549 came the rising of Robert Kett in Norfolk, the last attempt of
+the English labourer to obtain redress of his wrongs by force of arms,
+though Kett himself belonged to the landlord class and took the side
+of the people probably by accident. The petition of grievances drawn
+up by his followers aimed at diminishing the power of lords of manors
+as regards enclosures, the keeping of dove-cots, and other feudal
+wrongs. 'We pray', said the insurgents, 'that all bondmen may be made
+free, for God made all free with His precious blood-shedding.' The
+rebellion came to nothing, and some of the abuses at which it was
+aimed were dying a natural death, though enclosure often acted hardly
+on the poor man.
+
+The manorial system went on steadily decaying, and by this time the
+demesne lands had much diminished in area on most manors. Many parcels
+had been sold to the new landlord class, who had made their fortunes
+in the towns and, like most Englishmen, desired to become country
+gentlemen.
+
+Much of the demesne had been sold in small lots to well-off tradesmen,
+and as the villeins had become copyholders a large part of the land
+was owned or occupied by yeomen or tenant farmers, who cultivated from
+20 to 150 acres. Many of the labourers also owned or rented cottages
+with 4 or 5 acres attached to them. Such was the rural society at the
+end of the Tudor period. The progress of enclosures helped to destroy
+this, for the labourers gradually ceased to own or occupy land, farms
+increased in size, the ownership of land came to be more and more the
+privilege of the rich, and people flocked in increasing numbers to the
+towns.[227a] In five Norfolk manors in Elizabeth's time only from
+one-seventh to one-tenth was in demesne, and little of what was left
+was farmed by the lord, but let to farmers on leases.[227b] On some
+manors the demesne land lay in compact blocks near the manor house; on
+others it was in scattered strips of various size; in others it lay in
+blocks and strips. The following particulars of a manor in Norfolk
+give a good picture of an estate in 1586-8, the tenants on it, their
+rank, and the size of their holdings:--
+
+  Horstead with Staninghall, 2,746 acres.
+
+  The tenants with messuages in the village were:--
+
+                               Acres.
+
+   1. J. Topliffe, gentleman     280
+   2. F. Woodhouse, Esquire      270
+   3. R. Ward, gentleman         265
+   4. H. Shreve                  180
+   5. A. Pightling, widow        120
+   6. W. Rose's heirs            110
+   7. G. Berde                    60
+   8. A. Thetford, gentleman      60
+   9. T. Pightling                60
+  10. R. Pightling                60
+  11. J. Rose                     40
+  12. R. Lincoln                  40
+  13. W. Jeckell                  20
+  14. W. Bulwer                   20
+  15. E. Newerby, gentleman       15
+  16. T. Barnard                  12
+  17. E. Sparke                   10
+
+There were also 12 tenants without houses, holding from 1 to 20
+acres; the demesne was 230 acres; there were two glebes containing 84
+acres, and town lands of 7 acres. The waste amounted to 350 acres,
+which by 1599 had all disappeared.
+
+On this manor the houses were not collected together in a village as
+usual in most parts of England, but scattered about the estate. In
+two other manors the amount of waste remaining at this period was
+very small, but in three others little had been 'approved' and much
+consequently remained; most of the 'approvements', where made, seem
+to have been of long standing, and all the enclosures made were for
+tillage, not for grass as we should expect. The 350 acres of waste
+that remained at Horstead in 1586-8 was enclosed in 1599 by agreement
+between the lords of the manor and the tenants on the following
+terms:--
+
+  1. Lords to take 80 acres in severalty.
+
+  2. Lords to reserve all rights to treasure trove, minerals,
+     waifs, &c., with right of entry to take the same.
+
+  3. All rights of pasture, shack, and foldage were to be
+     extinguished on all lands in the village.
+
+  4. The tenants were to pay an annual quit rent of £7 14s. 5d.
+     for their shares of the common.
+
+Before a man enclosed he consolidated his holding by exchange, so as
+to bring it into a compact parcel instead of scattered strips, a very
+lengthy process; then he ploughed up the bounds between the strips;
+after which he changed the direction of the ploughing, ploughing the
+land crossways, a very necessary change, as it had all been ploughed
+lengthways for centuries; and lastly he erected his fences: the
+bounds of the strips, however, were sometimes left to show which were
+freehold and which copyhold. On the other hand, there were exceptions
+to the curtailment of the demesne: on an Oxfordshire manor of the
+sixteenth century the greater part of the 64 yard-lands of which it
+consisted had by then passed from the possession of the peasants to
+the private use of the lord of the manor.[228] To each yard-land
+belonged a house and farmyard, 24 to 28-3/4 acres of arable land, a
+share in the commonable meadows which for each occupier came to some 8
+acres, also the right to turn out 8 oxen or cows, or 6 horses and 40
+sheep on to the common pasture. Probably, as in other manors in
+ancient times, each occupier had a right to as much firewood as was
+necessary, and timber for building purposes and fences. The arable
+land lay in numerous small plots of half an acre each and less,
+mingled together in a state of great confusion, and was farmed on the
+four-field system--wheat, beans, oats, fallow--though 200 years before
+the three-field system had been most common in the district. Many of
+the common arable fields evidently often contained, in those days of
+poor cultivation and inefficient drainage, patches of boggy and poor
+land which were left uncultivated.[229] In the rolls of the Manor of
+Scotter in Lincolnshire, in the early part of the sixteenth century,
+no one was to allow his horses to depasture in the arable fields
+unless they were tethered on these bad spots to prevent them wandering
+into the growing corn.[230] Many of the other regulations of this
+manor throw a flood of light on the farming of the day. In 1557 it was
+ordered that no man should drive his cattle unyoked through the
+corn-field under a penalty of 3s. 4d. Every man shall keep a
+sufficient fence against his neighbour under the same penalty. No man
+shall make a footpath over the corn-field, the penalty for so doing
+being 4d. Every one shall both ring and yoke their swine before S.
+Ellen's Day (probably May 3), under a penalty of 6s. 8d., the custom
+of yoking swine to prevent them breaking fences being common until
+recent times. It was the custom in some manors to sow peas in a plot
+especially set apart for the poor. Another rule was that no one should
+bake or brew by night for fear of burning down the flimsy houses and
+buildings. The penalty for ploughing up the balks which divided the
+strips, or meere (marc) furrows as they were called in Lincolnshire,
+was 2d., a very light one for so serious an offence. In 1565 a penalty
+of 10s. was imposed on Thomas Dawson for breaking his hemp, i.e.
+separating the fibre from the bark in his large open chimney on winter
+nights, a habit which the manor courts severely punished owing to the
+risk of fire, for hemp refuse is very inflammable. It 1578 it was laid
+down that every one was to sow the outside portion of their arable
+lands, and not leave it waste for weeds to the damage of his
+neighbours; and that those who were too poor to keep sheep should not
+gather wool before 8 o'clock in the morning, in reference to the
+custom of allowing the poor to pick refuse wool found on bushes and
+thorns, and this rule was to prevent them tearing wool from the sheep
+at night under that pretext. No man was to keep any beasts apart from
+the herdsman, for if the herdsman did not know the animals he could
+not tell them from strays. Every one was to sweep their chimney four
+times a year, for fear of sparks falling on the thatch. No man was to
+suffer the nests of crows or magpies in his ground, but pull them down
+before May Day. In the meadows, before each man began to mow his grass
+he was to mark the exact limits of his own land with 'wadsticks' or
+tall rods, so that there could be no mistake as to boundaries. The
+health of the community and of the live stock also received attention:
+in 1583 one Pattynson was fined 1s. for allowing a 'scabbed' horse to
+go on the common; dead cattle were to be buried the day after death,
+and all unwholesome meat was to be buried.
+
+Harrison praises the farmer of his day highly: 'the soyle is even now
+in these oure dayes growne to be much more fruitfulle; the cause is
+that our country men are grown more skilful and careful throwe
+recompense of gayne.' He was also doing well by means of his skill and
+care; and in spite of the raising of rents by the much-abused
+landlords; for in former times 'for all their frugality they were
+scarcely able to live and pay their rents on rent day without selling
+a cow or a horse'. Such also used to be their poverty, that if a
+farmer went to the alehouse, 'a thing greatly used in those days,' and
+there, 'in a braverie to show what store he had, did caste downe his
+purse and therein a noble or 6 shillings in silver unto them, it was
+very likely that all the rest could not lay downe so much against it.'
+And In Henry's time, though rents of £4 had increased to £40, £50, or
+£100, yet the farmer generally had at the end of his term saved six or
+seven years' rent, besides a 'fair garnish of pewter on his cupboard',
+and odd vessels, also 'three or four feather beds, so manie coverlids
+and carpets of tapestry, a silver salt, a bowle for wine, and a dozzen
+of spoones to furnish up the sute'. His food consisted principally of
+beef, and 'such food as the butcher selleth', mutton, veal, lamb,
+pork, besides souse, brawn, bacon, fruit, fruit pies, cheese, butter,
+and eggs.[231] In feasting, the husbandman or farmer exceeded,
+especially at bridals, purifications of women, and such other
+meetings, where 'it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and
+spent'. But, besides these, there were many poorer farmers who lived
+at home 'with hard and pinching diet'. Wheaten bread was at this time
+a luxury confined to the gentility, the farmer's loaf, according to
+Tusser, was sometimes wheat, sometimes rye, sometimes mastlin, a
+mixture of wheat and rye, though the poorer farmer on uninclosed land
+ate bread made of beans.
+
+The poor ate bread of rye or barley, and in time of dearth of beans,
+peas, and oats, and sometimes acorns.[232] According to Tusser, the
+labourer was allowed roast meat twice a week,
+
+     'Good plowmen looke weekly of custom and right,
+     For roast meate on Sundaies, and Thursdaies at night';
+
+and Latimer calls bacon 'the necessary meate' of the labourer, and it
+seems to have been his great stand-by then as now. The bread and bacon
+were supplemented largely by milk and porridge.[233] The statute, 24
+Hen. VIII, c. 3, says that all food, and especially beef, mutton,
+pork, and veal, 'which is the common feeding of mean and poor
+persons.' was too dear for them to buy, and fixed the price of beef
+and pork at 1/2d. a lb. and of mutton and veal at 5/8d. a lb.; but the
+statute, like others of the kind, was of little avail, and the price
+of beef was in the middle of the sixteenth century about 1d. a lb. or
+8d. in our money. As the average price of wheat at the same date was
+14s. a quarter, or about 112s. in our money, fresh meat was
+comparatively much cheaper, and it is no wonder that even the farmer
+could not afford wheaten bread regularly. Moryson, writing in
+Elizabeth's reign, says 'Englishmen eate barley and rye brown bread,
+and prefer it to white as abiding longer in the stomeck and not so
+soon digested'.[234]
+
+A tithe dispute at North Luffenham in Rutlandshire throws considerable
+light on the financial position of the various classes interested in
+the land about 1576. At the trial several witnesses were examined, who
+all made statements as to the amount of their worldly wealth, and it
+is a noteworthy fact that even the humblest had saved something;
+perhaps because there was no poor law or State pension fund to
+discourage thrift.[235] Thomas Blackburne, a husbandman, who had
+served his master as 'chief baylie of his husbandrie', had at the end
+of a long life saved £40. Another, William Walker, eighty years of
+age, during forty years of service to Mr. John Wymarke had put by £10.
+Robert Sculthorp, who had at one time been a farmer, was worth £26 6s.
+8d., but the size of his farm is unfortunately not told us. Roland
+Wymarke, a gentleman farmer, who had farmed for forty years at North
+Luffenham, was little better off than Thomas Blackburne, the baylie,
+for he estimated his capital at £50. £50, however, must not be taken
+as representing the average wealth of a 'gentleman', though a few
+hundred pounds was then considered a considerable fortune. In 1577
+Thomas Corny, a prosperous landlord at Bassingthorpe, Lincolnshire,
+had a house with a hall, three parlours, seven chambers, a high
+garret, maid's garret, five chambers for yeomen hinds, shepherd, &c.,
+two kitchens, two larders, milk-house, brew-house, buttery, and
+cellar; and it was furnished with tables, carpets, cushions, pictures,
+beds, curtains, chairs, chests, and numerous kitchen and other
+utensils, besides a quantity of plate, which was then looked upon not
+only as a useful luxury but as a safe form of investment. The small
+squire was not nearly so well off as this. In 1527 the house of John
+Asfordby, who was of that degree, contained a hall, parlour, small
+parlour, low parlour, a chamber over the parlour, gallery chamber,
+buttery, and kitchen, and furniture was scanty, but the plate cupboard
+was well filled.[236] A prosperous yeoman was often comparatively
+better off than the small squire. Richard Cust, of Pinchbeck in the
+same county, though his house was small, consisting only of a hall,
+parlour with chamber over, kitchen with chamber over, brew-house,
+milne-house (mill-house), and milk-house, was richer in furniture,
+possessing a folding-table, 4 chairs, 6 cushions, 27 pieces of pewter,
+10 candlesticks, 4 basins, 1 laver, 6 beds, and other articles.[237]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[215] See table at end, and Thorold Rogers's prices in Vol. V. of his
+great work.
+
+[216] 'A perfite platforme of a Hoppegarden', in _Arte of Gardening_,
+by R. Scott, 1574.
+
+[217] Tusser recommends that the hopyard be dug. Thomas Tusser was
+born in Essex, about 1525, and died in 1580. He led a roving life,
+which included a good deal of farming; but the statement that he died
+poor appears to be inaccurate. Much of his advice is not very
+valuable.
+
+[218] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, p. 110.
+
+[219] Usually grown in gardens, until the middle of the seventeenth
+century. Tusser also mentions them.
+
+[220] _Description of Britain_, ii. 324 (Furnivall ed.).
+
+[221] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, ii. 329.
+
+[222] _State of the Poor_, i. 48-9. Blomefield's _Norfolk_, iv. 569,
+i. 51, i. 649. Dugdale, _Warwickshire_, p. 557.
+
+[223] _Description of Britain_, iii. 5.
+
+[224] _Description of Britain_ (ed. Furnivall), ii. 243.
+
+[225] Froude, _History of England_, v. III.
+
+[226] 'A compendious or brief examination of certain ordinary
+complaints', quoted by Eden, _State of the Poor_, 1. 119.
+
+[227a] _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (New Series),
+xix. 103.
+
+[227b] Ibid. xi. 74 sq.
+
+[228] Nasse, _Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages_, p. 9.
+_Archaeologia_, xxxiii. 270.
+
+[229] In the still surviving open fields at Laxton, mentioned above,
+there are certain unploughed portions called 'sicks', or grassy
+patches, never cultivated.--Slater, _op. cit._ p. 9.
+
+[230] _Archaeologia_, xlvi. 374.
+
+[231] _Description of Britain_, ii. 150.
+
+[232] In the reign of Mary, 'the plain poor people did make very much
+of acorns.' Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 181.
+
+[233] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 116.
+
+[234] _Itinerary_, iii. 140.
+
+[235] _Rutland Magazine_, i. 64.
+
+[236] _Victoria County History: Lincolnshire_, ii. 331.
+
+[237] See _Records of Cust Family_, i. 56.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+1540-1600
+
+LIVE STOCK.--FLAX.--SAFFRON.--THE POTATO. THE ASSESSMENT OF WAGES
+
+
+The cattle and sheep of this period have generally been described as
+poor animals, and no doubt they would seem small to us. To Jacob
+Rathgib, a traveller, writing in 1592, they seemed worthy of praise:
+'England has beautiful oxen and cows, with very large horns, low and
+heavy and for the most part black; there is abundance of sheep and
+wethers, which graze by themselves winter and summer without
+shepherds.' The heaviest wethers, according to him, weighed 60 lb. and
+had at the most 6 lb. of wool, a much heavier fleece than is generally
+ascribed to them; others had 4 or 5 lb. Horses were abundant, and,
+though low and small, were very fleet; the riding horses being
+geldings and generally excellent. Immense numbers of swine were in the
+country, 'larger than in any other.' Six years later another
+traveller, Hentzner, noticed that the soil abounded with cattle, and
+the inhabitants were more inclined to feeding than ploughing. He saw,
+too, a Berkshire harvest-home: 'As we were returning to our inn (at
+Windsor) we happened to meet some country people celebrating their
+harvest-home, their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having
+besides an image richly dressed by which perhaps they would signify
+Ceres; this they keep moving about, while men and women, men and
+maid-servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud
+as they can till they arrive at the barn.' Harrison[238] tells us, no
+doubt with patriotic bias, that 'our oxen are such as the like are not
+to be found in any country of Europe both for greatness of body and
+sweetness of flesh, their horns a yard between the tips.' Cows had
+doubled in price in his time, from 26s. 8d. to 53s. 4d. 'Our horses
+are high, but not of such huge greatness as in other places,' yet
+remarkable for the easiness of their pace; and 5 or 6 cart-horses will
+draw 30 cwt. a long journey, and a pack-horse will carry 4 cwt.
+without any hurt,--a statement which is one more proof of the poorness
+of the roads. The chief horse fairs were at 'Ripon, Newportpond,
+Wolfpit, and Harborow,' where horse dealers were as great rogues as
+ever. Pigeons were still the curse of the farmer, and their cotes were
+called dens of thieves.
+
+By the end of the sixteenth century, certainly by the first quarter of
+the seventeenth, the villein, who in the Middle Ages had formed the
+bulk of the population, had disappeared.[239] It is probable that even
+at the beginning of the Tudor period the great majority of the bondmen
+had become free, and that the serf then only formed one per cent. of
+the population, and many of those had left the country and become
+artizans in the towns, for personal serfdom had outlasted demesne
+farming; though even there the heavy hand of the lord was upon them
+and enforced the ancient customs.
+
+In the sixteenth century flax was apparently grown upon most farms,
+the statutes 34 Hen. VIII, c. 4, and 5 Eliz., c. 5, obliging every
+person occupying 60 acres of tillage to have a quarter of an acre in
+flax or hemp, and Moryson says the husbandmen wore garments of coarse
+cloth made at home, so did their wives, and 'in generall' their linen
+was coarse and made at home.[240]
+
+     'Good flax and good hemp to have of her own
+     In Maie a good housewife will see it be sowne',
+
+sings Tusser. The statute of Henry VIII enjoined the sowing of flax
+and hemp because of the great increase of idle people in the realm, to
+which the numerous imports, especially linen cloth, contributed.
+
+Saffron also was much grown, that at Saffron Walden in Essex was said
+to be the best in the world, the profit from it being reckoned at £13
+an acre. Its virtues were innumerable, if we may believe the
+contemporary writers; it flavoured dishes, helped digestion, was good
+for short wind, killed moths, helped deafness, dissolved gravel, and,
+lastly, 'drunk in wine doth haste on drunkenesse.'
+
+The most important novelty of this century was the potato, which the
+colonists, sent out in 1586 by Sir Walter Raleigh, brought from
+Virginia to Ireland, though it had been introduced into Europe by the
+Spaniards before this. According to Gerard, the old English botanist,
+it was, on its first introduction from America, only cultivated in the
+gardens of the nobility and gentry as a curious exotic; and in 1606 it
+occurs among the vegetables considered necessary for a nobleman's
+household.[241] It is curious to find Gerard comparing it to what he
+calls the 'common potato', in reality the sweet potato brought to
+England by Drake and Hawkins earlier in the century. In James I's
+reign the root was considered a great delicacy, and was sold to the
+queen's household at 2s. a lb., an enormous price.
+
+Like most agricultural novelties it spread very slowly, but about the
+middle of the seventeenth century began to be planted out in the
+fields in small patches in Lancashire, whence it spread all over the
+kingdom and to France.[242] At this date it was looked upon as a very
+second-rate article of food, if we may judge by the _Spectator_ (No.
+232), which alludes to it as the diet of beggars. About 1690, Houghton
+says, 'now they begin to spread all the kingdom over,' and recommends
+them boiled or roasted and eaten with butter and sugar.[243] Eden
+notes its increasing popularity during the eighteenth century, and by
+his time (the end of that century) in many parts it was the staple
+article of food for the poor; in Somerset the children mainly
+subsisted on it, and in Devon it was made into bread. Its cultivation
+on a large scale in the field did not, however, spread all over
+England till the Napoleonic war, and the ignorance and prejudice
+against it lasted for long; even Cobbett called it 'the lazy root,'
+and whole potatoes were used for seed regardless of the number of
+eyes.
+
+In 1563 was passed the famous Act, 5 Eliz., c. 4, which Thorold Rogers
+has asserted to be the commencement of a conspiracy for cheating the
+English workman of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to deprive him
+of hope, and to degrade him into irremediable poverty.[244] The
+violence of this language is a prima facie reason for doubting the
+correctness of his assertion, which on examination is found to be
+grossly exaggerated. Under Richard II the justices were authorized to
+fix the rate of wages, provided they did not exceed the maximum fixed
+by Parliament. The Elizabethan statute abolished the maximum and left
+the justices to fix reasonable rates. So far from being an attempt to
+keep wages down it seems to have been an honest effort to regulate
+them according to prices,[245] whereas most previous statutes had
+merely reduced wages. The preamble of the Act states this clearly
+enough, saying that the existing laws with regard to the hiring and
+wages of servants were insufficient; chiefly because the wages 'are in
+dyvers places to small and not answerable to this time respecting the
+advancement of prices in all things that belong to the said servants
+and labourers, the said lawes cannot conveniently without the great
+greefe and burden of the poore labourer and hired man be put in due
+execution.' But as several of these Acts were still beneficial it was
+proposed to consolidate them into one statute in order to banish
+idleness, advance husbandry, and give the labourer decent wages. It
+was enacted therefore that all persons between the ages of twelve
+years and sixty, not being otherwise occupied, 'nor being a gentleman
+born, nor having lands of the yearly value of 40s., nor goods to the
+value of £10,' should be compellable to serve in husbandry with 'any
+person that keepeth husbandry' by the year, and the hours of work were
+re-enacted.
+
+The rates of wages of artificers, husbandmen, &c., were to be
+ascertained yearly by the justices and the sheriff, 'if he
+conveniently may,' at quarter sessions, 'calling unto them such
+discrete and grave persons as they shall thinck meete and conferring
+together respecting the plentie or scarcitie of the tyme and other
+circumstances necessary to be considered,' and the wages fixed were to
+be certified into Chancery. Then proclamations of the wages thus
+determined were to be made in the cities and market towns. Every
+person who gave higher wages than those established by the
+proclamation was to be imprisoned for ten days and fined £5, every
+receiver to be imprisoned twenty-one days. The importance still
+attached to the harvest season is shown by the section that all
+artificers and others were compellable to work in harvest or be put in
+the stocks two days and a night. For the better advancement of
+husbandry and tillage every householder farming 60 acres of tillage or
+more might receive an apprentice in husbandry, but no tradesman or
+merchant might take an apprentice save his own son, unless his parents
+had freehold of the annual value of 40s.; and no person was to use
+'any art mistery or manual occupation now in use' unless he had served
+seven years' apprenticeship to it. There can be no doubt that the
+clauses last quoted confined a large portion of the population to
+agricultural work, but as we know that the people were deserting the
+country and flocking to the towns, this must have seemed to the
+framers of the law very desirable.
+
+This method of fixing wages was in force until 1814, and its repeal
+then was entirely contrary to the opinion of the artizan class; but it
+may be doubted if the magistrates extensively used the powers given
+them by the Act, and wages seem to have been settled generally by
+competition. Several instances remain, however, of wages drawn up
+under this Act. Almost immediately after it was passed, in June 1564,
+the Rutland magistrates met under the Act, and stated that the prices
+of linen, woollen, leather, corn, and other victuals were great, so
+they drew up the following list of wages[246]:--
+
+  A bailiff in husbandry, having charge of two plough lands,
+    at least should have by the year 40s., and 8s.
+    for his livery.
+
+  A chief servant in husbandry, which can eire (plough), sow,
+    mow, thresh, make a rick, thatch and hedge, and can kill
+    and dress a hog, sheep, and calf, by the year 40s., and 6s.
+    for his livery.
+
+  A common servant in husbandry, which can mow, sow, thresh,
+    and load a cart, and cannot expertly make a rick, hedge, and
+    thatch, and cannot kill and dress a hog, sheep, or calf, by
+    the year 33s. 4d., and 5s. for his livery.
+
+  A mean servant in husbandry, which can drive the plough, pitch
+    The cart, and thresh, and cannot expertly sow, mow, thresh,
+    and load a cart, nor make a rick, nor thatch, by the year 24s.,
+    and 5s. for his livery.
+
+The chief shepherd is only to receive 20s. and 5s. for his livery; but
+this must be an error, as in the statutes 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3, and 23
+Hen. VI, c. 12, he was placed next the bailiff as we should expect.
+
+These wages were evidently 'with diet', and show a considerable
+advance on those fixed by 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3.[247] By the day the
+ordinary labourer was to have 6d. in winter, 7d. in summer, and 8d. to
+10d. in harvest time, 'finding himself.' A mower with meat earned 5d.,
+without meat 10d. a day; a man reaper with meat 4d., without 8d.; a
+woman reaper 3d., and 6d.
+
+As the price of corn and meat was three times what it had been in the
+fifteenth century, and the labourers' wages, taking into consideration
+his harvest pay, not quite double, the Rutland magistrates hardly
+observed the spirit of the Act. Rutland, moreover, judging by the
+assessments of the time, was a county where agriculture was very
+flourishing; and thirty years after we find in Yorkshire that the
+winter wages of the labourer were 4d. and the summer 5d. a day: that
+is, he had little more wages than in the fifteenth century, with
+provisions risen threefold. At Chester at the same date his day's
+wages were to be 4d. all the year round.[248] In 1610 the Rutland
+magistrates at Oakham[249] decreed that an ordinary labourer was to
+have 6d. a day in winter and 7d. in summer, the same wages as in 1564,
+yet wheat in that year averaged 32s. 7d. a quarter. A bailiff by the
+year was now advanced to 52s., a manservant of the best sort, equal no
+doubt to the chief servant in husbandry, to 50s., a 'common servant'
+to 40s., and a 'mean servant' to 29s., but all without livery. At
+Chelmsford, in 1651, there was a very different rate fixed, the
+ordinary labourer getting from 1s. to 1s. 2d. a day; but this seems to
+have been exceptional, as at Warwick in 1684 he was only to have 8d.,
+and as late as 1725 in Lancashire 9d. to 10d. a day.[250] In 1682, by
+the Bury St. Edmunds assessment, a common labourer got 10d. a day in
+winter and 1s. in summer, and a reaper in harvest 1s. 8d. By the year
+a bailiff was paid £6, a carter £5, and a common servant £3 10s., of
+course with food.[251] These figures clearly prove that the wages
+fixed by the magistrates were often terribly inadequate, though it
+must be said in their defence that the great rise in prices probably
+struck them as abnormal and not likely to last. It should be
+remembered, too, that besides his wages the labourer and his family
+had often bye industries such as weaving to fall back upon, and in
+most parts of England still a piece of common land to help him.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[238] _Description of Britain_, iii. 2.
+
+[239] _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (New Series),
+xvii. 235.
+
+[240] Moryson, _Itinerary_ (ed. 1617), iii. 179.
+
+[241] _Archaeologia_ xiii. 371.
+
+[242] In 1650 it was much cultivated about London.
+
+[243] _Collections on Husbandry and Trade_, ii. 468.
+
+[244] _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 398.
+
+[245] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, ii. 38. The Statute of
+Labourers of 1351 made the same effort, see p. 43.
+
+[246] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iv. 120;
+and _Work and Wages_, p. 389.
+
+[247] See above.
+
+[248] Thorold Rogers, _Work and Wages_, pp. 390-1.
+
+[249] _Archaeologia_, xi. 200.
+
+[250] Thorold Rogers, _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 396.
+
+[251] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 215. It is strange to find food reckoned
+so highly; if the common labourer at Hawsted received his food, he was
+only paid 5d. a day in winter, and 6d. in summer; if one man's food
+was reckoned at half his wages, how far did the other half go in
+feeding and clothing his family?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+1600-1700
+
+CLOVER AND TURNIPS.--GREAT RISE IN PRICES. MORE ENCLOSURE.--A FARMING
+CALENDAR
+
+
+The seventeenth century was one of considerable progress in English
+agriculture. The decay of common-field farming was enabling individual
+enterprise to have its way. The population was rapidly growing; by
+1688 the returns of the hearth tax prove that the northern counties
+were nearly as thickly populated as the southern, and prices during
+the first half were continually rising, though after that they
+remained almost stationary, since the effect of the influx of precious
+metals from the New World was exhausted. In the first half of the
+century John Smyth ascribes the advance of rents to the Castilian
+voyages opening the New World, whereby such floods of treasure have
+flowed into Europe that the rates of Christendom are raised near
+twentyfold'.
+
+But the greatest agricultural event of the century was the
+introduction of clover and the encouragement of turnips as grown in
+Holland, by Sir Richard Weston, about 1645. No doubt the turnip was
+already well known in England. Tusser and Fitzherbert both mention it,
+apparently as a garden root only; but Gerard in his _Herbal_, 1597,
+says it grew in fields 'and divers vineyards or hoppe gardens in most
+places of England', which certainly points to an effort having been
+made generally to use it as a field crop whenever an enclosed space
+gave it some protection from the depredations of the common herds.
+However, its cultivation must have declined, as long after this it was
+regarded as a novelty as a field crop in most parts of England.[252]
+In Holland it had been used in the field universally, and this use
+with that of 'great', as it was called, or broad clover, Weston
+pressed on the English farmer. But their progress was wofully slow. At
+Hawsted in Suffolk clover and turnips were first sown about 1700, and
+the eastern portion of England was far ahead of the north and west; as
+late as 1772 Arthur Young wrote that 'sainfoin, cabbages, potatoes,
+and carrots are not common crops in England; I do not imagine above
+half or at most two-thirds of the nation cultivate clover.'[253] Yet
+their introduction must have been of the greatest benefit to the
+farmer and the public; his stock of hay was increased, he could
+utilize his fallows, and keep a much larger head of stock through the
+winter, who would give him a greater quantity of manure. Every one
+where turnips were grown could now have fresh meat during the winter.
+The slow progress of these great blessings is perhaps the strongest
+testimony in our history of the innate conservatism of the farmer. The
+green crop was for long considered to be suited only to the garden,
+and as our forefathers were prejudiced against the spade it was
+difficult to get such crops cultivated even there; but it should also
+be remembered that no crop was possible in the common fields which did
+not come to maturity before Lammas, unless some special agreement was
+made as to it.[254] Clover, Sir Richard Weston said, thrives best when
+sown on the worst and barrenest ground, which was to be pared and
+burnt, and unslaked lime added to the ashes. Then it was to be well
+ploughed and harrowed, and about 10 lb. of seed sown per acre in the
+end of March or in April. 'It will stand five years, and then when
+ploughed up will yield three or four years running rich crops of
+wheat, and then a crop of oats, after which you may sow clover again.'
+
+In the seventeenth century the practice of liming and marling, which
+had been largely discontinued since the fourteenth century, was
+revived (Westcote, in his _View of Devon_ in 1630, calls liming, &c.,
+a new invention), and there was also a great improvement in
+implements. Patents were taken out for draining machines in 1628, for
+new manures in 1633-6, ploughs 1623-7 and 1634, mechanical sowing
+1634-9. Only six were taken out, however, between 1640 and 1760 that
+concerned agriculture.[255] The Civil War checked the improvement, for
+though the great mass of the people had nothing to do with either
+party, the country was of necessity in a very unsettled state, and
+both sides plundered indiscriminately. Yet in some parts, as in
+Devonshire, so many of the able men served in the two armies, that few
+but old men, women, and children were left to manage the farms, and
+even they were afraid to grow more than enough to supply themselves
+since both armies seized the crops.[256] These bad effects lasted for
+some time afterwards; Chapple, a Devonshire land agent of the
+eighteenth century, says he had talked with people who remembered the
+state of husbandry in the last ten or twelve years of the reign of
+Charles II, when in many parts of Devonshire an acre or two of wheat
+was esteemed a rarity.
+
+That the rate of progress in the century was not more rapid is
+attributed by Blyth to several causes[257]:--
+
+  1. Want of leases, by which tenants were deprived of security.
+
+  2. Discouragement to flood (irrigate) land, from the risk of
+     law suits with neighbours.
+
+  3. Intermixture of different properties in common fields.
+
+  4. Unlimited pasturage on commons, by which they were overstocked.
+
+  5. The want of a law compelling all men to kill moles.
+
+  6. The excessive number of water-mills, to the great destruction
+     of much gallant land.
+
+The average price of wheat during the seventeenth century was 41s. a
+quarter, of barley 22s., and oats 14s. 8-1/2d. Oxen averaged about £5
+apiece, cows much less, about £3, and there was not much change in
+their value during the century. Sheep were about 10s. 6d., and a
+cart-horse in the first half of the century from £5 to £10, in the
+second half from £8 to £15. Beef rose from 2d. a lb. in the early part
+of the century to 3d. at the close of it. Wool remained stationary at
+from 9d. to 1s. per lb.
+
+[258]A proclamation of 1633 fixed the
+following prices for London poulterers and victuallers:--
+
+                                     s.   d.
+
+  Best turkey-cock                   4    4
+  Duck                                    8
+  Best hen                           1    0
+  3 eggs                                  1
+  1 lb. best fresh butter in winter       6
+  1 lb. best fresh butter in summer       5
+  1 lb. best salt butter                  4-1/2
+  Best fat goose                      2   0
+   "   crammed capon                  2   6
+   "   pullet                         1   6
+   "   chicken                            6
+
+According to the _Manydown Manor Rolls_ the Wootton churchwardens in
+1600 paid from 8s. to 11s. for calves, 4s. 4d. for a fat lamb, 8s. for
+a sheep, 6s. 8d. for a barren ewe, 6d. for a couple of chickens, 1s.
+6d. for 500 faggots.[259]
+
+After the restoration in 1660 another period of prosperity set
+in,[260] and altogether the century was a prosperous one for farmers
+and manufacturers. The newly established Royal Society materially
+helped agriculture. 'Since his majesty's most happy restoration the
+whole land hath been fermented and stirred up by the profitable hints
+it hath received from the Royal Society, by which means parks have
+been disparked, commons enclosed, woods turned into arable, and
+pasture lands improved by clover, St. foine, turnips, cole-seed, and
+many other good husbandries, so that the food of cattle is increased
+as fast, if not faster, than the consumption, and by these means the
+rent of the kingdom is far greater than ever it was.'[261] The century
+was distinguished also for the curious number of cycles of good and
+bad seasons; 1646-50 were years of prolonged dearth, wheat reaching an
+enormous price, and 1661-2, were famine years, while the end of the
+century was long famous for its barren years.
+
+With the prices of produce rents rose enormously. Very early in the
+century[262] rents of arable land had increased ninefold, since the
+fifteenth century, and by 1688 Davenant and King estimated the average
+rent of arable land in England at 5s. 6d. per acre and of permanent
+grass at 8s. 8d. Perhaps this is too high an estimate, as on the
+Belvoir estate of 17,837 acres in 1692 the rental all round was 3s.
+9-1/4d. an acre for land above the average in quality, though it must
+be remembered that the Earls and Dukes of Rutland were indulgent
+landlords.
+
+The _History of Hawsted_ affords a valuable index of the increase of
+rents at this period.[263] In 1500 the average rent was 1s. 4d. an
+acre; in 1572, 39 acres of arable, meadow, and pasture were let for
+2s. 3d. an acre, the landlord, it is interesting to notice, reserving
+the right of hawking, netting rabbits, hunting, and fowling; and about
+the same date other lands on the estate were let at 1s. 3d. and 1s.
+6d. an acre, so that there had not generally been much advance since
+1500, which is what we should expect, as the great rise took place at
+the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
+centuries. In 1589, therefore, it is not surprising to find that 40
+acres of meadow and pasture let at 5s. an acre, and in 1611 some
+buildings and 155 acres of park at 11s. an acre. In 1616, 366 acres of
+arable and pasture and 39 acres of meadow were valued at 12s. an acre
+for letting, and the Hall Farm of 175 acres (8-1/2 acres meadow) at
+10s.; and Great Pipers Farm of 138 acres (8 meadow) at 7s., while
+meadow and pasture near the mansion was valued at 21s. an acre.
+
+In 1658 the rent of the Hall Farm had advanced from 10s. an acre to
+about 13s., though in 1682 it went down to 11s. 6d.[264] According to
+the survey of the Manor of Manydown in Hampshire in 1650, meadow land
+was worth 20s. an acre, pasture 8s. to 10s., arable from 2s. to 10s.,
+the latter showing a great variation in quality.[265] In 1723 Bryers
+Wood Farm at Hawsted, which had been let in 1620 for £15, was let at
+£29 5s. These rents are considerably higher than the estimate of
+Davenant and King; but it must be remembered that they were for land
+in the parts of England, where farming was at its best, and they, in
+accounting for the whole country, had to take into consideration a
+vast amount of land in the north and west which was worth very little.
+In the Rawlinson Collection[266] in the Bodleian Library is a rental
+of Lord Kingston's estate in north Nottinghamshire in 1689, the rents
+averaging 10s. an acre; but this was an exceptionally good estate,
+much of the property being meadow and pasture. The farmhouses also
+were above the average, while in two of the parishes the tenants had
+rights of common, and in two others the tenancies were tithe free.
+There was very little arable land on the estate, three small holdings
+letting for 6s. 8d. an acre; and some of the pasture land was let at
+14s., 15s. 6d., and even 18s. an acre. The largest farm, Saundby Hall,
+of 607 acres, nearly all meadow and pasture, was 9s. 10d. an acre. The
+cottages were fortunate in having pieces of land attached to them. In
+Saundby, Richard Ffydall rented a cottage and 2 acres of arable land
+for £1 13s. 4d.; Widow Johnson a cottage and yard for 13s. 4d.;
+William Daubney a cottage with 6-1/2 acres of arable and 5-1/2 acres
+of pasture for £7 18s. 6d. A farm in Scrooby, consisting of a
+messuage, cottage, and 113 acres of arable, meadow, and pasture, only
+let at £23.
+
+As to the freehold value of land, in 1621, according to D'Ewes, it was
+worth from sixteen to twenty years' purchase; yet, in 1688, Sir Josiah
+Child said that lands now sell at twenty years' purchase, which fifty
+or sixty years before sold at eight or ten; and he also states, 'the
+same farms or lands to be now sold would yield treble and in some
+cases six times the money they were sold for fifty years ago'.[267]
+Davenant puts land at twelve years' purchase in 1600, at eighteen
+years in 1688.[268] In 1729 the price of land was said to be
+twenty-seven years' purchased.[269]
+
+The legislation against laying down tillage to grass was continued
+until the end of the sixteenth century. The statute 39 Eliz., c. 1,
+repealed 4 Hen. VII, c. 19, and all other Acts against pulling down
+houses, and provided that a house of husbandry should be a house that
+hath or hath had 20 acres of arable land. All such houses which had
+been destroyed during the last seven years were to be rebuilt, and if
+destroyed more than seven years only one-half was to be rebuilt; but
+to each of them at least 40 acres of land were to be attached.
+
+The next statute, 39 Eliz., c. 2, sets forth once more the advantages
+of tillage, viz. the increase and multiplying of people for service in
+the wars, and in time of peace the employment of a greater number of
+people, the keeping of people from poverty, the dispersal of the
+wealth of the kingdom in many hands, and 'the standing of this realm
+upon itself without depending upon foreign countries'[270]; and
+therefore enacts that lands converted from tillage to pasture shall be
+restored to tillage within three years, and lands then in tillage
+should be so continued; but this was only to extend to twenty-three
+counties, and omitted most of those in the south-west. At the
+beginning of the seventeenth century a reaction set in; the price of
+corn had risen immensely and continued to do so, the price of wool
+remained stationary, and tillage was as profitable as grass. In 1620
+Coke speaks of the man who only kept a shepherd and a dog as one who
+never prospered. In 1624 several of the tillage laws were
+repealed.[271]
+
+As an example of the unenclosed fields, at the end of the sixteenth
+century, we may take the common fields at Daventry, which were three
+in number, containing respectively 368, 383, and 524 acres, divided
+into furlongs, a term which had now a very wide signification, each of
+which was subdivided into lands nearly always half an acre in extent,
+several of these lands when adjoining being often held now by the same
+owner. One furlong may be taken as an example. It was 37 acres 1 rood
+in extent, and contained ninety-six lands, owned by seventeen people.
+The meadows were divided still more minutely, some of the smaller
+portions being only a quarter of an acre each. The largest meadow
+contained 50 acres, divided among fifty-three people. In the manor,
+besides the arable and meadow, there were 300 acres of common
+pasture, a park, and a small wood. There were forty-one freeholders
+and many leasehold tenants, the average freehold being 34 acres, the
+average leasehold only half an acre, small holdings being the usual
+feature of the unenclosed township.
+
+In the seventeenth century the price of wool ceased to operate as a
+cause of enclosure, but in many parts the change to pasture continued,
+owing to the rise in price of cattle and of wages. The same reason,
+too, for laying down land to grass that had been so powerful in the
+preceding centuries still existed, the common arable fields needed
+rest from continual cropping and poor manuring, while good crops of
+corn could be grown from the virgin soil of the newly enclosed waste.
+The preamble of the Durham decrees clearly states this: 'the land is
+wasted and worn with continual ploweing, and thereby made bare,
+barren, and very unfruitful.'[272] We may, therefore, take Coke's
+words as inapplicable to many districts. In the seventeenth century
+there were several methods of enclosing. Sometimes the lord of the
+manor enclosed and left the land of the tenants still in common; or a
+tenant enclosed piece by piece; or enclosures were made by Act of
+Parliament, the earliest of which for common fields was passed in the
+time of James I, a method at this period very seldom used; or there
+was an agreement between lord and tenants often authorized by the
+Courts of Chancery or Exchequer.
+
+Besides enclosure, another process was going on, the consolidation of
+farms by the amalgamation of small holdings into larger ones.
+Farmhouses, as we see them to-day, began to appear on the holdings
+thus consolidated, instead of being grouped together in villages. A
+writer in 1604 says, 'we may see many of their houses built alone like
+raven's nests, no birds building neere them' so unwonted was the sight
+of isolated dwellings in most places at the time.
+
+However, in 1630 Charles I went back to the policy of his forefathers
+and issued letters to certain of the Midland counties ordering all
+enclosures of the last two years to be removed, and Commissions were
+issued to inquire into the matter in 1632, 1635, and 1636,[273] the
+chief evil feared from enclosures being depopulation, and enclosers
+were prosecuted in the Court of Star Chamber.
+
+The assertion that enclosures ceased during the seventeenth century
+has been proved inaccurate by modern research, and there is no doubt
+that they went on continuously. In 1607, in the Midlands, the
+enclosing of land produced serious armed resistance, probably because
+the Midland counties were then the great corn-growing district of
+England, and the change to pasture and the consolidation of farms
+displaced a larger population there than elsewhere. Between 1628 and
+1630 enclosures in Leicestershire, for instance, were very numerous,
+no less than 10,000 acres being enclosed in that time, most of which
+was converted to pasture. The attempt of the Government to check the
+movement, initiated by Charles I, seems to have had considerable
+effect, but died away with the Civil War, and though other attempts
+were made under the Commonwealth they came to nothing, and from this
+time enclosures went on unchecked by the Government,[274] and were
+soon to have its active support. Yet there was a vast amount still in
+common field: the whole of the cultivated land of England in 1685 was
+stated by King and Davenant to amount to not much more than half the
+total area, and of this cultivated portion three-fifths was still
+farmed on the old common-field system. Northamptonshire,
+Leicestershire, Rutland, Huntingdonshire, and Bedfordshire were
+comparatively unenclosed.[275] From the books and maps of the day 'it
+is clear that many routes which now pass through an endless succession
+of orchards, corn-fields, hay-fields, and bean-fields then ran through
+nothing but heath, swamp, and warren. In the drawings of an English
+landscape made in that age for the Grand Duke Cosmo scarce a hedgerow
+is to be seen.... At Enfield, hardly out of sight of the smoke of the
+capital, was a region of five-and-twenty miles in circumference which
+contained only three houses and scarcely any enclosed fields.'[276]
+The enclosure of these areas was to be mainly the work of the latter
+half of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth
+centuries.
+
+The amount of enclosure in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the first
+half of the seventeenth centuries was, according to the latest
+research, much, and perhaps very naturally, exaggerated by
+contemporaries. Between 1455-1607 the enclosures in twenty-four
+counties are said to have amounted to some 500,000 acres, or 2.76 of
+their total area,[277] but the evidence for this is by no means
+conclusive. However, there seems no reason to doubt that the enclosure
+of this period was but a faint beginning of that great outburst of it
+that marked the agrarian revolution of the middle of the eighteenth
+century, and that it was mainly confined to the Midland counties, Mr.
+Johnson, in his recent Ford Lectures, has stated that the enclosure of
+the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not accompanied by very
+much direct eviction of freeholders or bona fide copyholders of
+inheritance; yet the small holder suffered in many ways, e.g. by the
+lord disproving the hereditary character of the copyhold, or by
+changing copyholds of inheritance into copyholds for lives or leases
+for lives or years. He and his successors could then refuse to renew
+at the termination of lives or years except on payment of a
+practically prohibitory fine. In short, though there was not much
+violation of legal right there was much injustice, and enclosure,
+though its effects were exaggerated at this period, certainly tended
+to displace the small landholder. It does not appear, however, that
+the moderate-sized proprietors were seriously affected. Many of the
+larger freeholders and copyholders on manors enclosed on their own
+account, and perhaps increased at the expense of the very large and
+the very small. Indeed, the decrease of small landowners was chiefly
+due to political and social causes. The old self-sufficing,
+agricultural economy of England, which we have seen beginning to break
+up in the fourteenth century, was becoming thoroughly disintegrated.
+The capitalist class was increasing; the successful merchant and
+lawyer were acquiring land and becoming squires; there was an intense
+land hunger. Simon Degge, wilting of Staffordshire in 1669, says that
+in the previous sixty years half the lands had changed owners, not so
+much as of old they were wont to do, by marriage, but by purchase; and
+he notices how many lawyers and tradesmen have supplanted the
+gentry.[278]
+
+In fact, there was a much freer disposal of lands from the end of the
+fifteenth century, when the famous Taltarum's case enabled entailed
+estates to be barred, until the Restoration, than there has been
+before or since. For these two hundred years the courts of law and
+parliament resisted every effort to re-establish the system of
+entails; the owners of land constantly multiplied, and this tendency
+must have counteracted the displacement of the small holder by
+enclosure. Sir Thomas Smith, writing towards the end of the sixteenth
+century, says that it was the yeomen who bought the lands of
+'unthrifty gentlemen;' and Moryson tells us that 'the buyers
+(excepting lawyers) are for the most part citizens and vulgar
+men'.[279] It became one of the boasts of England that she had a large
+number of yeomen farming their own land. During the Civil War,
+however, it became important to landowners to protect their properties
+in the interest of children and descendants from forfeiture for
+treason. The judges lent their aid, and the system of strict family
+settlements was devised, under which the great bulk of the estates in
+England are now held. This system favoured the accumulation of lands
+in a few hands and the aggregation of great estates, and was largely
+responsible for the disappearance of the small freeholder.
+
+In reviewing the progress of agriculture in the seventeenth century,
+the drainage of the fen country of Lincolnshire and the adjoining
+counties must not be forgotten. It had been for centuries the scene of
+drainage operations on a more or less extended scale, few of which,
+however, met with success; but in the seventeenth century the growing
+value of land caused a serious revival of these efforts. Attempts made
+under Elizabeth and James I had only succeeded in rescuing a certain
+amount of land for pasture,[280] but in the reign of Charles I the
+scheme of Cornelius Vermuyden was more successful. His system,
+however, was defective, and in the reign of Charles II the Bedford
+Level was in a lamentable state and in danger of reverting to its
+primitive condition. Many of the works too were destroyed by the
+'stiltwalkers', and in 1793 Maxwell states that out of 44,000 acres of
+fen land in Huntingdonshire only 8,000 or 10,000 were productive[281];
+and in 1794 Stone tells us that the commons round the Isle of
+Axholme were chiefly covered with water.[282] Still to Vermuyden and
+his contemporaries must be assigned the credit of the first
+comprehensive scheme for rescuing these fertile lands from the waters
+that covered them.
+
+At the commencement of this important century an old calendar of
+1606[283] clearly sets forth the farming work of the year:--
+
+January and February are the best months for ploughing for peas,
+beans, and oats, and to have peas soon in the year following sow them
+in the wane of the moon at S. Andrewstide before Christmas; which may
+be compared to Tusser's advice for February,
+
+     'Go plow in the stubble, for now is the season
+     For sowing of fitches of beans and of peason.'
+
+'Clean grounds of all such rubbish as briars, brambles, blackthorns,
+and shrubbs' (then more often choking the ground than now), which are
+to be fagoted as good fuel for baking and brewing.
+
+'Do not plough in rainy weather, for it impoverisheth the earth.'
+
+March and April. Take up colts from grass to be broken. Sow beans,
+peas, and oats. In these months are all grounds where cattle went in
+the last winter to be furthed (apparently managed) and cleared and the
+mole-hills scattered, that the fresh spring of grass may grow better.
+All hedges and ditches to be made betwixt 'severals', evidently
+enclosures as distinguished from common fields. From March 25 to May 1
+summer pastures are to be spared, that they may have time to get head
+before summer cattle be put in. In the meantime such cattle are to be
+bestowed in meadows till May Day, and after that date such meadows are
+to be cleansed and spared until the crops of hay be taken off. From
+now till midsummer sell fat cattle and sheep, and with the money buy
+lean cattle and sheep. Sow barley.
+
+May and June. Sort all cattle for their summer pasture on May Day,
+viz. draught oxen by themselves, milch cows by themselves, weaning
+calves, yearlings, two-year-olds, three- and four-year-olds, every
+sort by themselves, which being divided in pasture fitting for them
+will make larger and fairer cattle. Separate the horses in the same
+way. Wash sheep and shear four or five days after, which done the wool
+is to be well wound and weighed, and safely laid up in some place
+where there is not too much air or it will lose weight, nor where it
+is damp or it will increase too much in weight. Cleanse winter corn
+from thistles and weeds.
+
+July and August. First of all comes hay-making. In August wean lambs,
+and put them in good pasture, and in winter put them in fresh pasture
+until spring, and then put them with the 'holding' sheep.
+
+In these months is corn to be 'shornne or mowen downe' (the writer, it
+is to be noticed, has no preference for either method); and after the
+corn is carried put draught horses and oxen into the averish (corn
+stubble), to ease other pastures; and after them put hogs in. Gather
+crabs in woods and hedgerows for making verjuice.
+
+September and October. Have all plows and harrows neat and fit for
+sowing of wheat, rye, mesling (wheat and rye mixed), and vetches.[284]
+
+Pick hops. Buy store cattle, both steers and heifers, of three or four
+years old, which being well wintered at grass, or on straw at the barn
+doors, will be the sooner fed the summer following, and they will
+sooner feed after straw than grass.
+
+From October to May are calves to be reared, because then they be more
+hardly bred and become the stronger cattle. Feed brawns, bacons,
+lards, and porkets on mast if there is any, if not on corn. 'In these
+months cleanse poundes or pools, this season being the driest;' an
+extraordinary assertion, unless the climate has changed, seeing that
+according to the monthly averages from 1841-1906, taken at the Royal
+Observatory, Greenwich, October is the wettest month in the year.[285]
+
+November and December. Sort all kinds of sheep until Lady Day, viz.
+wethers by themselves, and weaning lambs by themselves; and do not put
+rams to the ewes before S. Lukestide, October 18, for those lambs fall
+about March 25, and if they fall before then the scarcity of grass and
+the cold will so nip and chill them that they will die or be
+weaklings. It is good at this time to take draught cattle and horses
+from grass into the house before any great storms begin. Thrash corn
+now after it hath had a good sweat in the mow, and so dried again, and
+give the straw to the draught oxen and cattle at the standaxe or at
+the barn doors for sparing of hay, advice which Tusser also gives:
+
+     'Serve rie straw out first, then wheat straw and peas,
+     Then ote straw and barley, then hay if ye please.'
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[252] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, pp. 77 sq., and Gerard, _Herbal_ (ed.
+1633), p. 232.
+
+[253] About 1684, John Worlidge wrote to Houghton that sheep fatted on
+clover were not such delicate meat as the heath croppers, and that
+sheep fatten very well on turnips. Houghton, _Collection for
+Improvement of Husbandry_, iv. 142. This is said to be the first
+notice of turnips being given to sheep.
+
+[254] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, p. 77. One of the proofs of the rarity
+of vegetables among the poorer classes of England, especially in the
+Middle Ages, is the fact that rents paid in kind never included them.
+
+[255] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1892, p. 19.
+
+[256] Chapple, _Review of Risdon's Survey of Devon_ (1785), p. 17 n.
+_Victoria County History: Devonshire, Agriculture_.
+
+[257] Blyth was a great advocate of enclosure. 'Live the commoners do
+indeed', he says, 'very many in a mean, low condition, with hunger and
+ease. Better do these in Bridewell. What they get they spend. And can
+they make even at the year's rent?'
+
+[258] Rymer, _Foedera_ (Orig. ed.), xix. 512.
+
+[259] _Manydown Manor Rolls_, Hampshire Record Society, p. 172.
+
+[260] Thorold Rogers, _Work and Wages_, p. 459.
+
+[261] Houghton, _Collections, &c._, ii. 448.
+
+[262] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. p. vii.
+Cf. p. 139 infra.
+
+[263] Cullum, _Hawsted_, pp. 196 et seq. In the Hawsted leases, at the
+end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, it is
+noteworthy that there were, at a time of repeated complaints against
+laying down land to pasture, clauses against breaking up pasture land.
+
+[264] In 1677 there were complaints of a fall in rents.
+
+[265] _Manydown Manor Rolls_, Hampshire Record Society, pp. 178 et
+seq.
+
+[266] Rawl. A. 170, No. 101.
+
+[267] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, ii. 483.
+
+[268] Ibid. ii. 630.
+
+[269] Ibid. iii. 147. The rental of the lands in England in 1600 was
+estimated by Davenant at £6,000,000, in 1688 at £14,000,000; and in
+1726 by Phillips at £20,000,000. Ibid. iii. 133. In 1850, Caird
+estimated it at £37,412,000.
+
+[270] With what horror would those legislators have contemplated
+England's position to-day, when a temporary loss of the command of the
+sea would probably ruin the country.
+
+[271] 21 Jac. 1, c. 28.
+
+[272] _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (New Series),
+xix. 116.
+
+[273] _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (New Series),
+xix. 127.
+
+[274] Ibid. 130.
+
+[275] See article in _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_
+(New Series), xix.
+
+[276] Macaulay, _History of England_, ch. iii.
+
+[277] _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, xvii. 587. Considering that
+the legislature of the sixteenth century was against enclosure and
+depopulation, it is hard to understand 31 Eliz., c. 7, which forbade
+cottages to be erected unless 4 acres of land were attached thereto,
+in order to avoid the great inconvenience caused by the 'buyldinge of
+great nombers and multitude of cottages, which are daylie more and
+more increased in many partes of this realme'. How was it that
+cottages had increased so much in rural districts, which are of course
+alluded to, in spite of enclosure?
+
+[278] Harwood, _Erdeswick_.
+
+[279] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 44.
+
+[280] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 187.
+
+[281] _General View of Hunts._, p. 8.
+
+[282] _General View of Lincoln_, p. 29.
+
+[283] _Farming Calendar_, from an original MS., printed in
+_Archaeologia_, xiii. 373 et seq.
+
+[284] Cf. Tusser:
+
+'October for wheat-sowing calleth as fast';
+
+and
+
+'When wheat upon eddish (stubble), ye mind to bestowe Let that be the
+first of the wheat ye do sowe';
+
+and
+
+'Who soweth in raine, he shall reap it with tears'.
+
+[285] The writer of the diary probably meant this work should be done
+in September.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE GREAT AGRICULTURAL WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--FRUIT
+GROWING. A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ORCHARD
+
+
+The seventeenth century is distinguished by a number of agricultural
+writers whose works, as they afford the best account of the farming of
+the time, we may be pardoned for freely quoting. The best known of
+them were, Sir John Norden, Gervase Markham, Sir Richard Weston,
+Blythe, Hartlib, Sir Hugh Plat, John Evelyn, John Worlidge, and
+Houghton.
+
+Sir John Norden printed his _Surveyor's Dialogue_ in 1608, which is in
+the form of a conversation between a farmer and a surveyor, the former
+at the outset telling the latter that men of his profession were then
+very unpopular because 'you pry into men's titles and estates, and
+oftentimes you are the cause that men lose their land, and customs are
+altered, broken, and sometimes perverted by your means. And above all,
+you look into the values of men's lands, wherefore the lords of manors
+do reckon their tenants to a higher rent, and therefore not only I but
+many poore tenants have good cause to speak against the
+profession'.[286]
+
+The surveyor attributes the increase in prices to farmers outbidding
+one another for farms, for the rents of farms and prices grow
+together; a statement which seems to have been quite true and disposes
+of the assertion that the landlords raised the rents unfairly, for
+they were quite entitled to what rent they could get in the open
+market, the farmers being presumably wise enough not to offer rents
+which would preclude a profit. He further blames the farmer of his day
+for being discontented with his lot: in former times 'farmers and
+their wives were content with mean dyet and base attire and held their
+children to some austere government, without haunting alehouses,
+taverns, dice, and cards; now the husbandman will be equal to the
+yeoman, the yeoman to the gentleman, the gentleman to the squire, and
+there is at this day thirty times as much vainely spent in a family of
+like multitude and quality as was in former ages'; a complaint that
+has been common in all ages. Contrary to what is the practice to-day,
+and apparently to common sense, the surveyor recommends that open
+drains be made as narrow above as at the bottom, at the most not more
+than a foot and a half broad.[287] Hops, he says, were then grown in
+Suffolk, Essex, and Surrey, 'in your loose and spongie grounds,
+trenched.' 'Carret' roots were raised in Suffolk and Essex, and
+beginning to increase in all parts of the realm[288]; but if he
+alludes to their cultivation in the open field the statement must be
+taken with considerable qualification, as they were not so grown
+generally until the end of the eighteenth century or the beginning of
+the next.
+
+Kent was then, as now, the great fruit county of England; 'above all
+others I think the Kentishmen be most apt and industrious in planting
+orchards with pippins and cherries, especially near the Thames about
+Feversham and Sittingbourne.' But Devon and Hereford were also famous;
+Westcote about 1630 says the Devonshire men had of late much enlarged
+their orchards, and 'are very curious in planting and grafting all
+kinds of fruit'[289]; and John Beale in 1656 tells us Hereford 'is
+reputed the orchard of England'[290]; while Hartlib says there were
+many orchards in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.[291] He calls
+'Tandeane' near Taunton the Paradise of England, where the husbandry
+was excellent, the land fruitful by nature and improved by the art and
+industry of the farmers; 'they take extraordinary pains in soyling,
+ploughing, and dressing their lands, and after the plow there goeth
+some three or four with mattocks to break the clods and to draw up the
+earth out of the furrows that the lands may lye round, and that the
+water annoy not the seed (the water evidently often lying long in the
+furrows between the great high ridges), and to that end they most
+carefully cut gutters and trenches in all places. And for the better
+enriching of their ploughing lands they cut up, cast, and carry in the
+unplowed headlands and places of no use. Their hearts, hands, eyes,
+and all their powers concurre in one to force the earth to yield her
+utmost fruit; and the crops of wheat that rewarded this industry were
+sometimes 8 and 10 quarters to an acre.
+
+A short pamphlet called the _Fruiterer's Secrets_, published in London
+in 1604, imparts some interesting and curious information about fruit
+growing.[292] There were then four sorts of cherries in England,
+Flemish,[293] English, Gascoyne, and black, and the preserving of them
+from birds, always a burden on the grower, the author says can be done
+by a gun or a sling; the worst enemies being jays and bullfinches, who
+ate stones and all. Stone fruit should be gathered in dry weather, and
+after the dew is off, for if gathered wet it loses colour and becomes
+mildewed. If nettles newly gathered are laid at the bottom of the
+basket and on the top of the fruit, they will hasten the ripening of
+fruit picked unripe, and make it keep its colour.
+
+Those English farmers who still shake their apples from the trees to
+fall and be bruised on the ground had better listen to the careful
+directions for placing the ladder on the trees where it will do no
+damage, as to the use of the gathering hook so that the branches can
+be brought within easy reach of the picker on his ladder, the wearing
+of a gathering apron, and the emptying of it gently into the baskets.
+Green fern has the same effect on pears packed for carriage as nettles
+on stone fruit; while apples should be packed in wheat, or better
+still in rye straw. For long journeys the American system of packing
+in barrels is anticipated, the apples being carefully put in by hand,
+and the barrels lined at both ends with straw, but not at the sides to
+avoid heating, while holes should be bored at either end to prevent
+heat. Pippins, John Apples, Pearmains, and other 'keepers' need not be
+turned until the week before Christmas, and again at the end of March,
+when they must be turned oftener; but never touch fruit during a frost
+or a thaw, or in rainy weather, or it will turn black.
+
+Hartlib, a few years after, reckoned no less than 500 sorts of apples
+in England, though doubtless many of these were identical, since the
+same apple often has two or three names in one parish. The best for
+the table were the Jennetings, Harvey Apple, Golden Pippin, Summer and
+Winter Pearmains, John Apple, &c.; for cider the Red Streak (the great
+favourite), Jennet Moyle, Eliot, Stocking Apple, &c. He was told that
+in Herefordshire a tenant bought the farm he rented with the fruit
+crop of one year; £10 to £15 having been given per acre for cherries
+and more for apples and pears. Pears for the table were the Windsor,
+'Burgamet,' 'Boon Christians'! Greenfield, and others; and for perry,
+which John Beale, a well-known writer of the day considered 'a weak
+drink, fit for our hindes and generally refused by our gentry as
+breeding wind in the stomack', the Horse Pear, Bosbury, Choak,
+&c.[294] There were many kinds of plums, among them the Mistle Plum,
+Damazene, Violet, and Premorden.
+
+Four kinds of grafting were practised: in the cleft, and in the bark,
+the two most usual ways; shoulder or whip grafting, and grafting by
+approach,[295] the last 'where the stock you intend to graft on and the
+tree from which you take your graft stand so near together that they
+may be joined, then take the sprig you intend to graft and pare away
+about three inches in length of the rind and wood near unto the very
+pith, and cut also the stock on which you intend to graft the same
+after the same manner that they may evenly join each other, and so
+bind them and cover them with clay or wax.' Inoculation was also
+practised, 'when the sap is at the fullest in the summer, the buds you
+intend to inoculate being not too young but sufficiently grown.' For
+transplanting the middle of October is recommended, and the wise
+advice added, 'plant not too deep,' and in clay plant as near the
+surface as possible, for the roots will seek their way downward but
+rarely upward; and in transplanting 'you may prune the branches as
+well as the roots of apples and pears, but not of plums.' The best
+distance apart in an orchard for apples and pears was considered to be
+from 20 to 30 feet, the further apart the more they benefit from the
+sun and air, a piece of advice which many a subsequent planter has
+neglected. For cherries and plums 15 to 20 feet was thought right.
+Worlidge's directions for pruning are minute and careful, and should
+be well hammered into many slovenly farmers to-day.
+
+Cider-making was performed much as it is in old-fashioned farms
+to-day, by mashing the apples in a trough by means of a millstone set
+edgeways, and then pressing the juice out through hair mats, the
+juice, says Hartlib, 'having been let stand a day or two and the black
+scum that ariseth in that time taken off they tunne it, and in the
+barrels it continueth to work some days longer, just as beer useth to
+do.[296] Another method was to put the fruit in a clean vessel or
+trough, and bruise or crush it with beetles, then put the crushed
+fruit in a bag of hair-cloth and press it.[297] After the cider was in
+the barrels there was placed in them a linen bag containing cloves,
+mace, cinnamon, ginger, and lemon peel which was said to make the
+cider taste as pleasantly as Rhenish wine.
+
+Worlidge gives us what is perhaps the first mention of a poultry farm,
+and strangely enough it seems to have paid. 'I have been credibly
+informed that a good farm hath been wholly stocked with poultry,
+spending the whole crop upon them and keeping severall to attend them,
+and that it hath redounded to a very considerable improvement'.[298]
+Incubators of a very rude sort were used, three or four dozen eggs
+being placed in a 'lamp furnace made of a few boards', and hatched by
+the heat of a lamp or candle.
+
+It must strike the reader that the accusation levelled against the
+English farmer, of having made little progress in his art from the
+Middle Ages to the commencement of the reign of George III is hardly
+warranted. Their knowledge and skill in their business were evidently
+such as to make considerable progress inevitable, and then as now they
+were in some cases assisted by their landlords, as in Herefordshire,
+where Lord Scudamore, after the assassination of his friend the Duke
+of Buckingham, devoted his energies to the culture of fruit, and with
+other public-spirited gentlemen turned that county into 'one entire
+orchard', besides improving the pastures and woods[299]; though
+Hartlib laments that gentlemen try so few experiments for the
+advancement of agriculture, and that both landowners and farmers
+instead of communicating their knowledge to each other kept it
+jealously to themselves.[300] The chief hindrance to landlord and
+tenant was that the heavy hand of ancient custom lay upon them, with
+its antiquated communistic system of farming, which still in the
+greater part of the land of England utterly prevented good husbandry
+and stifled individual effort. It was one of these Herefordshire
+gentlemen. Rowland Vaughan, who in 1610 wrote what is probably the
+first account of irrigation in England, though the art was mentioned
+by Fitzherbert and must have been known in Devon and Hampshire long
+before his time; indeed, it is another instance of the then isolation
+of country districts that he speaks as if he had made a new discovery.
+He tells us that 'having sojourned two years in his father's house,
+wearied in doing nothing and fearing his fortunes had been overthrown,
+he cast about what was best to be done to retrieve his reputation'.
+And one day he saw from a mole-hill on the side of a brook on his
+property a little stream of water issuing down the working of the
+mole, which made the ground 'pleasing green', and from this he was led
+on to what he calls 'the drowning of his lands'. This was so
+successful that he improved the value of his estate from £40 to £300 a
+year, and his neighbours, who of course had first scoffed at him, came
+to learn from him. Not many years after 'drowning' was said to have
+become one of the most universal and advantageous improvements in
+England.[301] Vaughan says that he had counted as many as 300 persons
+gleaning in one field after harvest, and that in the mountains near
+eggs were 20 a penny, and a good bullock 26s. 3d., but this was a
+backward region.[302]
+
+Between 1617 and 1621 the price of wheat fell from 43s. 3d. to 21s. a
+quarter, and immediately affected the payment of rent.[303] Mr. John
+Chamberlain, in February, 1620, wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton, 'We are
+here in a strange state to complain of plenty, but so it is that corn
+beareth so low a price that farmers are very backward to pay their
+rents and in many places plead disability: for remedy whereof the
+Council have written letters into every shire to provide a granary
+with a stock to buy corn and keep it for a dear year.' Sir Symonds
+D'Ewes notes in his diary that 'at this time (1621) the rates of all
+sorts of corn were so extremely low as it made the very prices of land
+fall from twenty years' purchase to sixteen or seventeen. For the best
+wheat was sold for 2s. 8d. and 2s. 6d. the bushel, the ordinary at 2s.
+Barley and rye at 1s. 4d. and 1s. 3d. the bushel, and the worser of
+those grains at a meaner rate, the poorer sort that would have been
+glad but a few years before of coarse rye bread, did now usually
+traverse the markets to find out the finer wheats as if nothing else
+would please their palates'. Instead of being glad that they were for
+once having a small share of the good things of this world, he
+rejoices that their unthankfulness and daintiness was soon punished by
+high prices and dearness of all sorts of grain.[304] The year 1630 was
+the commencement of a series of dear seasons, when for nine
+consecutive years the price of wheat did not fall below 40s. a quarter
+and actually touched 86s. The restraints laid on corn-dealers had,
+since the principles of commerce were being better understood, been
+modified in 1624, but the high prices revived the old hatred against
+them, and we find Sir John Wingfield writing from Rutland that he has
+'taken order that ingrossers of corne shall be carefullie seen unto
+and that there is no Badger (corn-dealer) licensed to carry corne out
+of this countrye nor any starch made of any kind of graine'. He adds
+that he had 'refrayned the maulsters from excessive making of mault,
+and had suppressed 20 alehouses'.[305] However, the senseless policy
+of preventing trade in corn received a severe blow from the statute 15
+Car. II, c. 7, which enacted that when corn was under 48s. persons
+were to be allowed to buy and store corn and sell the same again
+without penalty, provided they did not sell it in the same market
+within three months of buying it, a statute which Adam Smith said
+contributed more to the progress of agriculture than any previous law
+in the statute book.
+
+Gervase Markham, who was born about 1568 and died in 1637, gives us a
+description of the day's work of the English farmer. He is to rise at
+four in the morning, feed his cattle and clean his stable. While they
+are feeding he is to get his harness ready, which will take him two
+hours. Then he is to have his breakfast, for which half an hour is
+allowed. Getting the harness on his horses or cattle, he is to start
+by seven to his work and keep at it till between two and three in the
+afternoon. Then he shall bring his team home, clean them and give them
+their food, dine himself, and at four go back to his cattle and give
+them more fodder, and getting into his barn make ready their food for
+next day, not forgetting to see them again before going to his own
+supper at six. After supper he is to mend shoes by the fireside for
+himself and his family, or beat and knock hemp and flax, or pitch and
+stamp apples or crabs for cider or verjuice, or else grind malt, pick
+candle-rushes, or 'do some husbandry office within doors till it
+befall eight o'clock'. Then he shall take his lantern, visit his
+cattle once more, and go with all his household to rest. The farm
+roller of this time, according to Markham, was made of a round piece
+of wood 30 inches in circumference, 6 feet long, having at each end a
+strong pin of iron to which shafts were made fast.[306] He mentions
+wooden and iron harrows, but this refers only to the tines, the wooden
+ones being made of ash. From an illustration of a harrow which he
+gives, it appears it was much like Fitzherbert's and many used to-day:
+a wooden frame, with the teeth set perhaps more closely than ours; the
+single harrow 4 feet square drawn by one horse, the double harrow 7
+feet square by two oxen at least. Wheat he says, when the land is dug
+15 inches deep, and the seed dibbled in, will produce twelve times as
+much as when ploughed; but he admits the 'intricacy and trouble' of
+this method.[307] As to the question of mowing or reaping corn, he is
+of opinion that though 'it is a custom in many countries of this
+kingdom not to sheare the wheat but to mow it, in my conceit it is not
+so good, for it both maketh the wheate foule and full of weede'.
+Barley, however, should be mown close to the ground, though many reap
+it; oats too were to be mown. His directions for planting an
+orchard[308] are interesting, both as showing the kinds of fruit then
+grown, the number of different sorts planted together, and the growth
+of the olive in England.[309] The orchard, he says, should be a
+square, divided into four quarters by alleys, and in the first quarter
+should be apples of all sorts, in the second pears and wardens of all
+sorts, in the third quinces and chestnuts, in the fourth medlars and
+services. A wall is the best fence, and on the north wall, 'against
+which the sunne reflects, you shall plant the abricot, verdochio,
+peache, and damaske plumbe; against the east side the white muskadine
+grape, the pescod plumbe, and the Emperiale plumbe; against the west,
+the grafted cherries and the olive tree; and against the south side
+the almond and the figge tree.' As if this extraordinary mixture were
+not enough, 'round about the skirts of the alleys' were to be planted
+plums, damsons, cherries, filberts and nuts of all sorts, and the
+'horse clog' and 'bulleye', the two latter being inferior wild plums.
+Plums were to be 5 feet apart, apples and other large fruit 12 feet.
+
+Young trees should be watered morning and evening in dry summers, and
+old ones should have the earth dug away from the upper part of the
+roots from November to March, then the earth, mixed with dung or soap
+ashes, replaced. Moss was carefully to be scraped off the trees with
+the back of an old knife, and, to prevent it, the trees manured with
+swine's dung. Minute distinctions are given as to pruning and washing
+the trees with strong brine of water and salt, either with a garden
+pump placed in a tub or with 'squirtes which have many hoales', the
+forerunner of modern spraying.
+
+Cider was then mostly made in the west, as in Devonshire and Cornwall,
+and perry in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire; but he leaves out
+Herefordshire, where it was certainly made at this time.[310]
+
+A curious help to fattening beasts, says Markham, is a lean horse or
+two kept with them, for the beasts delight to feed with them.
+Fattening cattle were to have first bite at the pastures, then draught
+cattle, and then sheep; after Midsummer, when there is an
+extraordinary sweetness in the grass, suffer the cattle to eat the
+grass closer till Lammas (August 1). Though some do not hold with him,
+he thinks reading and writing not unprofitable to a husbandman, but
+not much material 'to his bailiff'; for there is more trust in an
+honest score chalked on a trencher than 'in a commen writen scrowle'.
+Landowners derived a good income from their woods and coppices. An
+acre of underwood of twenty-one years' growth, was at this time worth
+from £20 to £30; of twelve years' growth, £5 to £6; but on many of the
+best lands it was only cut every thirty years.[311]
+
+In 1742-3 oak timber was worth from 15d. to 18d. per cubic foot and
+ash about 10d. During the Napoleonic war oak sold for 4s. 6d. a foot.
+
+In Blyth's _Improver Improved_ we have one of the first accounts of
+covered drains. The draining trench was to be made deep enough to go
+the bottom of the 'cold spewing moist water' that feeds the flags and
+the rushes; as for the width 'use thine own liberty' but be sure make
+it as straight as possible. The bottom was to be filled in with
+faggots or stones to a depth of 15 inches, a method in some parts
+retained till comparatively modern times, with the top turf laid upon
+them grass downward, and the drain filled in with the earth dug out of
+it.
+
+A country gentleman at this date could keep up a good establishment on
+an income which to-day would compel him to live economically in a
+cottage. From the accounts of Mr. Master, a landowner near
+Chiselhurst, it appears that a man with an income of £300 or £400 a
+year could live in some luxury, keep a stud of horses, and a
+considerable number of servants.[312] Some of them had no scruples
+about adding to their incomes by turning corn-dealers, even selling
+such small quantities as pecks of peas, bushels of rye, and half pecks
+of oatmeal. From the accounts of one of them, Henry Best,[313] of
+Elmswell, we learn many valuable details concerning farming in
+Yorkshire about 1641. It was the custom to put the ram to the ewes
+about October 18, but Best did so about Michaelmas, and generally used
+one ram to 30 or 40 ewes, and he considered it necessary that the ewes
+should be two-shear. 'Good handsome ewes', he says, could have been
+bought at Kilham fair for 3s. 6d. each, a price far below the average
+of the time. As for wages, mowers of grass had 10d. a day, and found
+their own food and their scythes, which cost them about 2s. 3d. each.
+Haymakers got 4d. a day, and had to 'meat themselves' and find their
+own forks and rakes. Shearers or reapers were paid from 8d. to 10d.,
+and found their own sickles; binders and stackers, 8d.; mowers of
+'haver', or oats, 10d., a good mower cutting 4 acres a day. In 1641 he
+sold oats for 14s. a quarter, best barley for 22s., rye 27s. 6d.,
+wheat 30s.[314] The roads were dreadful, and produce nearly all sent
+to market on pack-horses. 'Wee seldome send fewer than 8 horse loads
+to the market at a time, and with them two men, for one man cannot
+guide the poakes (sacks) of above four horses. When wee sende oats to
+the market wee sack them up in 3 bushel poakes and lay 6 bushels on a
+horse; when wee sende wheate, rye, or masseldene (rye and wheat) and
+barley to market wee put it into mette poakes (2 bushel sacks),
+sometimes into half quarter sacks, and these we lay on horses that are
+short coupled and well backed.' When the servants got to market they
+were charged a halfpenny a horse for stabling and hay, but if they
+dined at the inn they paid nothing for their horses, and their dinners
+cost them 4d. a head. Butter was sold by the lb., or the 'cake' of 2
+lb., and in the beginning of Lent was 5d. a lb., by April 20, 3d., in
+the middle of May, 2-1/2d. When William Pinder took 50 acres of land
+'of my Lord Haye' he paid a fine of £60 and a rent of £40; but this
+must have been an extremely choice piece of land, for arable land
+rented apparently at less than 3s. an acre.[315] The rent of a cottage
+was usually 10s. a year, 'though they have not so much as a yard or
+any backe side belonging to them.' There is more evidence, if such
+were needed, of the beneficial effect of enclosure, which was said to
+treble the value of pasture. Good meadow land fetched a great price:
+'The medow Sykes is about 5 acres of grounde, and was letten in the
+year 1628 at £6 per annum, and in 1635 at £6 13s. 4d.
+
+The requirements of a foreman on a farm were that he could sow, mow,
+stack peas, go well with 4 horses, and be accustomed to marketing; and
+for this when hired by the year he received 5 marks, and perhaps half
+a crown as earnest money. The next man got 50s., the next 46s. 6d.,
+the fourth 35s. 'Christopher Pearson had the first year he dwelt here
+£3 5s. 0d. wages per annum and 5s. to a God's penny (earnest money);
+next year he had £4 wages, and he was both a good seedsman,' before
+the invention of drills a very valuable qualification, 'and did sow
+all our seed both the years. When you are about to hire a servant you
+are to call them aside and talk privately with them concerning their
+wage, and if the servants stand in the churchyard they usually call
+them aside and walk to the back side of the church and there treat of
+their wage. I heard a servant asked what he could do, who made this
+answer:
+
+     "I can sowe,
+     I can mowe,
+     And I can stacke;
+     And I can doe
+     My master too
+     When my master turns his backe".'
+
+If we are to judge by the food provided for the thatchers, who were
+little better than ordinary labourers, the Yorkshire farm-hand fared
+well on plenty of simple food, his three meals a day consisting of
+butter, milk, cheese, and either eggs, pies, or bacon, sometimes
+porridge instead of milk.
+
+Probably, however, few country gentlemen were such industrious farmers
+as Best; many of them passed their days mostly in hunting and fowling
+and their evenings in drinking, though we know too that there were
+exceptions who did not care for this rude existence. Deer hunting, and
+we must add deer poaching, was the great sport of the wealthy, but the
+smaller gentry had to be content with simpler forms of the chase. For
+fox hunting each squire had his own little pack, and hunted only over
+his own estate and those of his friends. He had also the otter, the
+badger, and the hare to amuse him. Fowling was conducted, as in the
+Middle Ages, by hawk or net, for the shot gun had not yet come into
+use, and was forbidden by an old law.[316] The partridge and pheasant,
+as now, were the chief game birds. After the Restoration the country
+gentlemen seem to have been infected by the dissipation of the Court,
+and farming was left to the tenant farmer and yeoman: 'our gentry',
+says Pepys, 'have grown ignorant of everything in good husbandry.'
+
+The middle of the seventeenth century was the Golden Age of the
+yeoman who owned and farmed his land; even at the end of the Stuart
+period, when their decline had already begun, Gregory King estimated
+their numbers at 160,000 families, or about one-seventh of the
+population. The class included all those between the man who owned
+freehold land worth 40s. a year and the wealthier yeoman who was
+hardly distinguishable from the small gentleman. Owning their own
+land they were a sturdy and independent class, and they 'took a jolly
+pride in voting as in fighting on the opposite side of the
+neighbouring squire'. 'The yeomanry', wrote Fuller, 'is an estate of
+people almost peculiar to England;' he 'wears russet clothes but
+makes golden payment, having tin in his buttons and silver in his
+pocket He seldom goes abroad, and his credit stretches farther than
+his travel.' The tenant farmers were nearly as numerous, King
+estimating them at 150,000 families; economically they were about on
+a level with the yeoman, their social standing, however, was
+considerably inferior.
+
+The greatest improvement of the seventeenth century, the introduction
+from Holland of turnips and clover, was over-estimated by its author,
+Sir Richard Weston; for he tells his sons that by sowing flax,
+turnips, and clover they might in five years improve 500 acres of poor
+land so as to bring in £7,000 a year.[317] To bring about this
+desirable consummation, he provides his sons with accounts as to the
+cost, one of which shows the cost of growing an acre of flax and the
+profit thereon, though this gentleman's estimates are clearly
+optimistic:
+
+                    DR.                          £   s.  d.
+
+  Devonshiring, i.e. paring and burning          1   0   0
+  Lime                                           0  12   0
+  Ploughing and harrowing                        0   6   0
+  3 bushels of seed                              2   0   0
+  Weeding                                        0   1   0
+  Pulling and binding                            0  10   0
+  Grassing the seed from the flax                0   6   0
+  Watering, drying, swinging, and beating        4  10   0
+                                                ----------
+                                                £9   5   0
+                                                ==========
+
+                    CR.                          £   s.  d.
+
+  900 lb. of flax                               40   0   0
+                                                 9   5   0
+                                               -----------
+                            Balance profit     £30  15   0
+                                               ===========
+
+Turnips were to come after flax, and were to be given to the cows as
+they did in Flanders; that is, wash them clean, put them in a trough
+where they were to be stamped together with a spitter or small spade;
+and the turnips were to be followed by clover. All these, says Weston,
+were already grown in England, but 'there is as much difference
+between what groweth here and there as is between the same thing which
+groweth in a garden and that which groweth wild in the fields'.
+Worlidge soon after recommended that clover be sown on barley or oats
+about the end of March or in April, and harrowed in, or by itself; and
+says, with optimism equal to Weston's, one acre of clover will feed
+you as many cows as 6 acres of ordinary grass and make the milk
+richer.[318]
+
+It has been noticed that the price of wool altered little during the
+century, and from the private accounts of Sir Abel Barker[319] of
+Hambleton, in the County of Rutland, we learn that in 1642 he sold his
+wool to his 'loving friend Mr. William Gladstone' for £1 a tod, though
+by 1648 it had gone up to 29s., a good price for those days. During
+the Civil War some of Barker's horses were carried off for the service
+of the State, and he values them at £8 a piece, a fair price then.
+Some years later, for mowing 44 acres of grass he sets down in his
+account £2 7s. 0d., for making the same £2 3s. 0d., and stacking it
+3s.
+
+Simon Hartlib, a Dutchman by birth and a friend of John Milton,
+published his _Legacy_ in 1651, containing both rash statements and
+useful information. We certainly cannot believe him when he states
+that pasture employs more hands than tillage. His estimate of a good
+crop of wheat was from 12 to 16 bushels per acre, and he speaks
+strongly of the great fluctuations in prices, for he had known barley
+sell at Northampton at 6d. a bushel, and within 12 months at 5s., and
+wheat in London in one year varied from 3s. 6d. to 15s. a bushel. The
+enormous number of dovecotes was still a great nuisance, and the
+pigeons were reckoned to eat 6,000,000 quarters of grain annually.
+Hartlib recommends his countrymen to sow 'a seed commonly called Saint
+Foine, which in England is as much as to say Holy Hay,' as they do in
+France: especially on barren lands, advice which some of them
+followed, and in Wilts., soon after, sainfoin is said to have so
+improved poor land that from a noble (6s. 8d.) per acre, the rent had
+increased to 30s.[320] They were also to use 'another sort of fodder
+which they call La Lucern at Paris for dry and barren grounds'. So
+wasteful were they of labour in some parts that in Kent were to be
+seen 12 horses and oxen drawing one plough.[321]
+
+The use of the spade was long looked askance at by English husbandmen;
+old men in Surrey had told Hartlib that they knew the first gardeners
+that came into those parts to plant cabbages and 'colleflowers', and
+to sow turnips, carrots, and parsnips, and that they gave £8 an acre
+for their land. The latter statement must be an exaggeration, as it is
+equivalent to a rent of about £40 in our money; but we may give some
+credence to him when he says that the owner was anxious lest the spade
+should spoil his ground, 'so ignorant were we of gardening in those
+days.' Though it was not the case in Elizabeth's time, by now the
+licorice, saffron, cherries, apples, pears, hops, and cabbages of
+England were the best in the world; but many things were deficient,
+for instance, many onions came from Flanders and Spain, madder from
+Zealand, and roses from France.[322] 'It is a great deficiency in
+England that we have not more orchards planted. It is true that in
+Kent, and about London, and in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and
+Worcestershire[323] there are many gallant orchards, but in other
+country places they are very rare and thin, I know in Kent some
+advance their ground from 5s. per acre to £5 by this means', and 30
+acres of cherries near Sittingbourne had realized £1,000 in one year.
+His recipe for making old fruit trees bear well savours of a time
+when old women were still burnt as witches. 'First split his root,
+then apply a compost of pigeon's dung, lees of wine, or stale wine,
+and a little brimstone'. The tithes of wine in Gloucestershire were
+'in divers parishes considerably great', and wine was then made in
+Kent and Surrey, notably by Sir Peter Ricard, who made 6 or 8
+hogsheads yearly.[324] There is no doubt that the vine has been grown
+in the open in England from very early times until comparatively
+recent ones. The Britons were taught to plant it by the Romans in A.D.
+280.[325] In Domesday there are 38 examples of vineyards, chiefly in
+the south central counties. Neckham, who wrote in the twelfth century,
+says the vineyard was an important adjunct to the mediaeval
+mansion.[326] William of Malmesbury praised the vines and wine of
+Gloucestershire; and says that the vine was either allowed to trail on
+the ground, or trained to small stakes fixed to each plant. Indeed,
+the mention of them in mediaeval chronicles is frequent.
+
+Two bushels of green grapes in 1332 fetched 7s. 6d.[327] Richard II
+planted vines in great plenty, according to Stow, within the upper
+park of Windsor, and sold some part to his people. The wine made in
+England was sweetened with honey, and probably flavoured and coloured
+with blackberries.[328] At the dissolution of the monasteries there
+was a vineyard at Barking Nunnery. 'We might have a reasonable good
+wine growing in many places of this realme', says Barnaby Googe, about
+1577, 'as doubtless we had immediately after the Conquest, tyll,
+partly by slothfulnesse, partly by civil discord long continued, it
+was left, and so with time lost.... There is besides Nottingham an
+ancient house called Chylwel in which remaineth yet as an ancient
+monument in a great wyndowe of glasse, the whole order of planting,
+proyning, stamping, and pressing of vines. Upon many cliffes and hills
+are yet to be seen the rootes and old remaines of vines.' Plot, in his
+_Natural History of Staffordshire_,[329] says 'the vine has been
+improved by Sir Henry Lyttelton at Over (Upper) Arley, which is
+situate low and warm, so that he has made wine there undistinguishable
+from the best French by the most judicious palates, but this I suppose
+was done only in some over hot summer, and Dr. Bathurst made very good
+claret at Oxon in 1685, a very mean year for the purpose.' In 1720 the
+famous vineyard at Bath of 6 acres, planted with the 'white muscadene'
+and the 'black Chester grape,' produced 66 hogsheads of wine worth £10
+a hogshead, but in unfavourable years grew very little.'[330] Mr.
+Peter Collinson, writing from Middlesex in 1747, says, 'the vineyards
+turn to good profit, much wine being made this year in England;' and
+again in 1748, 'my vineyards are very ripe; a considerable quantity of
+wine will this year be made in England.'[331] However, the attempt
+made to grow vines on the undercliff at Ventnor at the end of the
+eighteenth century by Sir Richard Worsley ended in dismal failure, and
+it is probable that the English climate in its normal years seldom
+produced good grapes out of doors whatever it may have done in
+exceptionally hot ones, unless we assume that it has changed
+considerably, for which there is little ground.
+
+Hartlib was no friend of commons; they made the poor idle and trained
+them for the gallows or beggary, and there were fewest poor where
+there were fewest commons,[332] as in Kent--a statement re-echoed by
+many observant writers; he also recommends enclosures, because they
+gave warmth and consequent fertility to the soil. He tells us that an
+effort had been made by James I to encourage the growth of mulberry
+trees and the breeding of silkworms, the lords-lieutenant of the
+different counties being urged to see to it, but it had little
+effect.[333]
+
+The number of different sorts of wheat was by this time considerable.
+Hartlib gives the white, red, bearded ('which is not subject to
+mildews as others'); some sorts with two rows, others with four and
+six; some with one ear on a stalk, others with two; the red stalk
+wheat of Bucks; winter wheat and summer wheat. There were also twenty
+varieties of peas that he knew, and the white, black, naked. Scotch,
+and Poland oats. Markham adds the whole straw wheat, the great brown
+pollard, the white pollard, the organ, the flaxen, and the chilter
+wheat.
+
+There was a sad lack of enterprise in the breeding of stock now and
+for many generations before; indeed, it may be doubted if this
+important branch of farming, except perhaps in the case of sheep, was
+much attended to until the time of Bakewell and the Collings. In
+Elizabeth's time a Frenchman had twitted England with having only
+3,000 or 4,000 horses worth anything, which was one of the reasons
+that induced the Spaniards to invade us.[334] 'We are negligent, too,
+in our kine, that we advance not the best species.'
+
+The size of cattle at this date, however, seems to have been greater
+than is often stated. The Report of the Select Committee on the
+Cultivation of Waste Lands in 1795, states that the average weight,
+dressed, of cattle at Smithfield in 1710 was only 370 lb.,[335] yet
+the Household Book of Prince Henry at the commencement of the
+seventeenth century says that an ox should weigh 600 lb. the four
+quarters, and cost about £9 10s., a sheep about 45 lb., so that the
+latter were apparently relatively smaller than the oxen. In 1603 oxen
+were sold at Tostock in Suffolk weighing 1,000 lb. apiece, dead
+weight.[336] According to the records of Winchester College, the oxen
+sold there in the middle of the century averaged, dressed, about 575
+lb.; in 1677, 35 oxen sold there averaged 730 lb. 'Some kine,' it was
+said at the end of the century, 'have grown to be very bulky and a
+great many are sold for £10 or £12 apiece; there was lately sold near
+Bury a beast for £30, and 'twas fatted with cabbage leaves. An ox near
+Ripon weighed, dressed, 13-1/4 cwt.'[337] They were, of course,
+chiefly valued as beasts of draught, and no doubt the one Evelyn saw
+in 1649, 'bred in Kent, 17 foot in length, and much higher than I
+could reach,' was a powerful animal for this purpose. The young ones
+were taught to draw by yoking two of them, together with two old ones
+before and two behind, with a man on each side the young ones, 'to
+keep them in order and speak them fair,' for if much beaten they
+seldom did well: for the first two or three days they were worked only
+three or four hours a day, but soon they worked as long as the older
+ones, that is from 6 to 11, then a bait of hay and rest till 1, with
+work again till 5, at least in Lancashire. They were kept in the yoke
+till nine or ten years old, then turned on to the best grass in May,
+and sold to the butcher.[338]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[286] _Surveyor's Dialogue_ (ed. 1608), p. 2.
+
+[287] _Surveyor's Dialogue_, p. 188.
+
+[288] Ibid. p. 207.
+
+[289] _Victoria County History: Devon, Agriculture_.
+
+[290] _Herefordshire Orchards a Pattern for All England_ (ed. 1724).
+
+[291] See infra, p. 136.
+
+[292] These extracts are from the original edition in the Bodleian
+Library.
+
+[293] 'The Flanders cherry excels', says Worlidge, _Syst. Agr._, p.
+97.
+
+[294] Bradley, in 1726, gives a long list of pears all with French
+names, hardly any of which are now known in England.
+
+[295] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 107.
+
+[296] _Annotation upon the Legacie of Husbandry_, 1651, p. 105.
+
+[297] Markham, i. 174 (ed. 1635).
+
+[298] _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 152.
+
+[299] Evelyn, _Pomona_ (ed. 1664), p. 2.
+
+[300] _Compleat Husbandman_ (ed. 1659), p. 75.
+
+[301] _Most Approved and Long Experienced Waterworks_. London, 1610.
+
+[302] See Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_ (ed. 1669), p. 155.
+
+[303] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 23.
+
+[304] _Life of Sir S. D'Ewes_, i. 180.
+
+[305] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1629-31, p. 414.
+
+[306] _Whole Art of Husbandry_ (ed. 1635), i. 50.
+
+[307] Ibid. i. 100.
+
+[308] Ibid. i. 121.
+
+[309] An astonishing statement; cf. Denton, _England in the Fifteenth
+Century_, p. 56, Neckham, _De Natura Rerum_, cap. clxvi. and above, p.
+93.
+
+[310] _Whole Art of Husbandry_ (ed. 1635), i. 173.
+
+[311] _Whole Art of Husbandry_ (ed. 1635), ii. 144. and MS. accounts
+of Mr. Chevallier of Aspall Hall, Suffolk.
+
+[312] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. 28.
+
+[313] _Farming and Account Books of Henry Best of Elmswell_, 1641,
+Surtees Society, xxxiii. 157.
+
+[314] Ibid. p. 99.
+
+[315] _Farming and Account Books of Henry Best of Elmswell_, 1641.
+Surtees Society, xxxiii. 124. Many districts in the north of England
+were still much behind the rest of the country.
+
+[316] Trevelyan, _England under the Stuarts_, 8 sq. Though, as we have
+seen, p. 157, the writer of the _Fruiterer's Secrets_ recommends the
+gun for scaring birds in 1604.
+
+[317] _The Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders_ (ed. 1652), p. 18.
+
+[318] _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 26.
+
+[319] MS. accounts of Sir Abel Barker, in the possession of G.W.P.
+Conant, Esq.
+
+[320] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 28.
+
+[321] _Compleat Husbandman_ (1659), p. 5.
+
+[322] Ibid. p. 9.
+
+[323] Cf. supra, p. 136.
+
+[324] _Compleat Husbandman_ (1659), p. 23.
+
+[325] _Archaeologia_, i. 324; iii. 53.
+
+[326] _De Natura Rerum_, Rolls Ser., lxi.
+
+[327] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, 57 n.
+
+[328] Ibid.
+
+[329] Ed. 1686, p. 380.
+
+[330] R. Bradley, _A General Treatise of Husbandry_ (ed. 1726), ii.
+52.
+
+[331] Tooke, _History of Prices_ i. 44. Brandy was made in the
+eighteenth century from grapes grown in the Beaulieu vineyards in
+Hampshire, and a bottle of it long kept at the abbey.--_Hampshire
+Notes and Queries_, vi. 62. There are two vineyards to-day, of 2-3/4
+and 4 acres respectively, on the estates of the Marquis of Bute in
+Glamorganshire; but a vintage is only obtained once in four or five
+years from them, and they are not profitable.
+
+[332] _Compleat Husbandman_, 1659, p, 42.
+
+[333] _Compleat Husbandman_, 1659, p. 57.
+
+[334] Ibid. p. 73.
+
+[335] In this apparently repeating Davenant's statement. See
+McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_, 1852, p. 271.
+
+[336] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. 332.
+
+[337] Houghton, _Collections for Improvement of Husbandry_, i. 294.
+
+[338] Ibid., _Collections for Husbandry and Trade_ (ed. 1728), iv.
+336.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE EVILS OF COMMON FIELDS.--HOPS.--IMPLEMENTS.--MANURES.--GREGORY
+KING--CORN LAWS
+
+
+From what has been said in the preceding pages, it will be gathered
+that a vast amount of compassion has been wasted on the enclosure of
+commons, for it is abundantly evident from contemporary writers that
+there were a large number of people dragging out a miserable existence
+on them, by living on the produce of a cow or two, or some sheep and a
+few poultry, with what game they could sometimes catch, and refusing
+regular work. Dymock, Hartlib's contemporary, questions 'whether
+commons do not rather make poore by causing idlenesse than maintaine
+them;' and he also asks how it is that there are fewest poor where
+there are fewest commons.
+
+In the common fields, too, there was continual strife and contention
+caused by the infinite number of trespasses that they were subject
+to.[339] The absence of hedges, too, in these great open fields was
+bad for the crops, for there was nothing to mitigate drying and
+scorching winds, while in the open waste and meadows the live stock
+must have sadly needed shelter and shade, 'losing more flesh in one
+hot day than they gained in three cool days.' Worlidge, a Hampshire
+man, joins in the chorus of praise of enclosures, for they brought
+employment to the poor, and maintained treble 'the number of
+inhabitants' that the open fields did; and he gives further proof of
+the enclosure of land in the seventeenth century, when he mentions
+'the great quantities of land that have within our memories lain open,
+and in common of little value, yet when enclosed have proved excellent
+good land.' Why then was this most obvious improvement not more
+generally effected? Because there was a great impediment to it in the
+numerous interests and diversity of titles and claims to almost every
+common field and piece of waste land in England, whereby one or more
+envious or ignorant persons could thwart the will of the
+majority.[340] Another hindrance, he says, was that many roads passed
+over the commons and wastes, which a statute was needed to stop.
+
+In the seventeenth century hop growing was not nearly so common in
+England as in the preceding, when Harrison had said, in his
+_Description of Britain_, 'there are few farmers or occupiers in the
+country which have not gardens and hops growing of their own, and
+those far better than do come from Flanders.' There seems, indeed, to
+have been a prejudice against the hop; Worlidge[341] says it was
+esteemed an unwholesome herb for the use it was usually put to, 'which
+may also be supplied with several other wholesome and better herbs.'
+John Evelyn was very much against them, probably because he was such
+an advocate of cider: 'It is little more than an age,' he says, 'since
+hopps transmuted our wholesome ale into beer, which doubtless much
+altered our constitutions. That one ingredient, by some not unworthily
+suspected, preserving drink indeed, and so by custom made agreeable,
+yet repaying the pleasure with tormenting diseases, and a shorter
+life, may deservedly abate our fondness for it, especially if with
+this be considered likewise the casualties in planting it, as seldom
+succeeding more than once in three years.'[342] The City of London
+petitioned against hops as spoiling the taste of drink.
+
+Yet its cultivation is said to have advanced the price of land to £40,
+£50, and sometimes £100 an acre, the latter an almost incredible price
+if we consider the value of money then. There were not enough planted
+to serve the kingdom, and Flemish hops had to be imported, though not
+nearly so good as English. A great deal of dishonesty, moreover, was
+shown by the foreign importers, so that in 1603 a statute (1 Jac. I,
+c. 18) was passed against the 'false packinge of forreine hops,' by
+which it appears that the sacks were filled up with leaves, stalks,
+powder, sand, straw, wood, and even soil, for increasing the weight,
+by which English growers it is said lost £20,000 a year. Such hops
+were to be forfeited, and brewers using them were to forfeit their
+value. The chief cause of their decrease was that few farmers would
+take the trouble and care required to grow them, in spite of the often
+excellent prices, which at Winchester at this date averaged from 50s.
+to 80s. a cwt., sometimes, however, reaching over 200s., as in 1665
+and 1687, though then as now they were subject to great fluctuations,
+and in 1691 were only 31s. Many, too, were discouraged by the fact
+'they are the most of any plant that grows subject to the various
+mutations of the air, mildews sometimes totally destroying them,' no
+doubt an allusion to the aphis blight. Hop yards were often protected
+at this early date by hedges of tall trees, usually ash or poplar, the
+elm being disapproved of as contracting mildews. Markham[343] says
+that Hertfordshire then contained as good hops as he had seen
+anywhere, and there the custom was 250 hills to every rood, 'and every
+hill will bear 2-1/2 lb., worth on an average 4 nobles a cwt. (a noble
+= 6s. 8d.);' hills were to be 6 ft. apart at least, poles 16 to 18 ft.
+long and 9 or 10 inches in circumference at the butt, of ash, oak,
+beech, alder, maple or willow.
+
+Some planted the hills in 'plain squares chequerwise, which is the
+best way if you intend to plough with horses between the hills. Others
+plant them in form of a quincunx, which is better for the hop, and
+will do very well where your ground is but small that you may overcome
+it with either the breast plough or spade.' The manure recommended by
+Worlidge was good mould, or dung and earth mixed. The hills were like
+mole-hills 3 feet high, and sometimes were large enough to have as
+many as 20 poles, so that some hop yards must have looked very
+different then from what they do now, even when poles are retained;
+but from two to five poles per hill was the more usual number.
+Cultivation was much the same as in Reynold Scott's time, and picking
+was still done on a 'floor' prepared by levelling the hills, watering,
+treading, and sweeping the ground, round which the pickers sat and
+picked into baskets, but the hop crib was also used.
+
+It was considered better not to let the hops get too ripe, as the
+growers were aware of the value of a fresh, green-looking sample; and
+Worlidge advises the careful exclusion of leaves and stalks, though
+Markham does not agree with him. Kilns were of two sorts: the English
+kiln made of wood, lath, and clay; the French of brick, lime, and
+sand, not so liable to burn as the former and therefore better.[344]
+One method of drying was finely to bed the kiln with wheat straw laid
+on the hair-cloth, the hops being spread 8 inches thick over this,
+'and then you shall keepe a fire a little more fervent than for the
+drying of a kiln full of malt,' the fire not to be of wood, for that
+made the hops smoky and tasted the beer, but of straw! Worlidge,
+strangely, recommended the bed of the kiln to be covered with tin, as
+much better than hair-cloth, for then any sort of fuel would do as
+well as charcoal, since the smoke did not pass through the hops.
+
+Besides Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Leicestershire,
+and Rutlandshire; Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire were recommended by
+Markham for hop growing, the great hop counties of to-day being passed
+over by him.
+
+The growth of hemp and flax had by this time considerably decayed,
+owing to the want of encouragement to trade in these commodities, the
+lack of experience in growing them, and the tithes which in some years
+amounted to more than the profits.[345] An acre of good flax was worth
+from £7 to £12; but if 'wrought up fit to sell in the market' from £15
+to £20.
+
+Woad was considered a 'very rich commodity', but according to Blyth it
+robbed the land if long continued upon it, although if moderately used
+it prepared land for corn, drawing a 'different juice from what the
+corn requires'. It more than doubled the rent of land, and had been
+sold at from £6 to £20 a ton, the produce of an acre. John Lawrence,
+who wrote in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, says woad
+was in his time cultivated by companies of people, men, women, and
+children, who hired the land, built huts, and grew and prepared the
+crop for the dyer's use, then moved on to another place.[346]
+
+There were proofs that man's inventive genius was at work among farm
+implements. Worlidge mentions[347] an engine for setting corn,
+invented by Gabriel Plat, made of two boards bored with wide holes 4
+in. apart, set in a frame, with a funnel to each hole. It was fitted
+with iron pins 5 in. long to 'play up and down', and dibble holes into
+which the corn was to go from the funnels. This machine was so
+intricate and clumsy that Worlidge found no use for it. However, he
+recommends another instrument which certainly seems to anticipate
+Tull's drill, though Tull is said to have stated when Bradley showed
+him a cut of it that it was only a proposal and it never got farther
+than the cut.[348] It consisted of a frame of small square pieces of
+timber 2 inches thick; the breadth of the frame 2 feet, the height 18
+inches, length 4 feet, placed on four good-sized wheels. In the middle
+of the frame a coulter was fixed to make a furrow for the corn, which
+fell through a wooden pipe behind, that dropped the corn out of a
+hopper containing about a bushel, the fall of the corn from the hopper
+being regulated by a wooden wheel in its neck. The same frame might
+contain two coulters, pipes, and hoppers, and the instrument could be
+worked with one horse and one man. It was considered a great advance
+on sowing broadcast, and by the use of it 'you may also cover your
+grain with any rich compost you shall prepare for that purpose, either
+with pigeon dung, dry or granulated, or any other saline or lixirial
+(alkaline, or of potash) substance, which may drop after the corn from
+another hopper behind the one that drops the corn, or from a separate
+drill'. The corn thus sown in rows was found easier to weed and hoe,
+so that it is clear that this advantage was well understood before
+Tull's time.
+
+There was a great diversity of ploughs at this date, almost every
+county having some variation.[349] The principal sorts were the
+double-wheel plough, useful upon hard land, usually drawn with horses
+or oxen two abreast, the wheels 18 in. to 20 in. high. The one-wheel
+plough, which could be used on almost any sort of land; it was very
+'light and nimble', so that it could be drawn by one horse and held by
+one man, and thus ploughed an acre a day.
+
+Then there was a 'plain plough without either wheel or foot', very
+easy to work and fit for any lands; a double plough worked by four
+horses and two men, of two kinds, one ploughing a double furrow, the
+other a double depth.
+
+There were also ploughs with a harrow attached, others constructed to
+plough, sow, and harrow, but not of much value; and a turfing plough
+for burning sod. Carts and waggons were of many sorts, according to
+the locality, the greater wheels of the waggon being usually 18 feet
+in circumference the lesser 9 feet. A useful implement was the
+trenching plough used on grass land to cut out the sides of trenches
+or drains, with a long handle and beam and with a coulter or knife
+fixed in it and sometimes a wheel or wheels. The following is a list
+of other implements then considered necessary for a farm.
+
+  _For the field._
+
+    Harrows          Mole spear        Beetles
+    Forks            Mole traps        Roller
+    Sickles          Weedhooks         Cradle scythe
+    Reaphooks        Pitchforks        Seedlip[350]
+    Sledds           Rakes
+
+  _For the barn and stable._
+
+    Flails           Pannels (pillions)   Pails
+    Winnowing fan    Pack-saddles         Mane combs
+    Sieves           Cart lines           Goads
+    Sacks            Ladders              Yokes
+    Bins             Corn measures        Wanteyes[351]
+    Curry combs      Brooms               Suffingles (surcingles?)
+    Whips            Skeps (baskets)      Screens for corn.
+    Harness
+
+  _For the meadows and pastures._
+
+    Scythes          Pitchforks           Cutting spade for hayrick
+    Rakes            Fetters and clogs    Horse-locks.
+                     Besides many tools.
+
+A considerable variety of manures were in use, chalk, lime, marl,
+fuller's earth, clay, sand, sea-weed, river-weed, oyster shells, fish,
+dung, ashes, soot, salt, rags, hair, malt dust, bones, horns, and the
+bark of trees. Of the oyster shells Worlidge says, 'I am credibly
+informed that an ingenious gentleman living near the seaside laid on
+his lands great quantities, which made his neighbours laugh at him (as
+usually they do at anything besides their own clownish road or custom
+of ignorance),' and after a year or two's exposure to the weather
+'they exceedingly enriched his land for many years after.' The bones
+then used were marrow-bones and fish bones, or 'whatever hath any
+oiliness or fatness in it', but the bones of horses and other animals
+were also used, burnt before being applied to the land, crushing not
+being thought of till many years after.
+
+In 1688 Gregory King,[352] who was much more accurate than most
+statisticians of his time, gave the following estimate of the land of
+England and Wales:--
+
+                                   Acres.                Per acre.
+
+  Arable                         9,000,000 worth to rent 5s. 6d.
+  Pasture and meadow            12,000,000   "      "    8s. 8d.
+  Woods and coppices             3,000,000   "      "    5s.
+  Forests and parks              3,000,000   "      "    3s. 8d.
+  Barren land                   10,000,000   "      "    1s.
+  Houses, gardens, churches, &c. 1,000,000
+  Water and roads                1,000,000
+                                ----------
+                      Total:    39,000,000
+
+He valued the live stock of England and Wales at £18-1/4 millions, and
+estimated the produce of the arable land in England at:
+
+                 Million          Value
+                bushels.       per bushel.
+
+    Wheat          14            3s. 6d.
+    Rye            10            2s. 6d.
+    Barley         27            2s. 0d.
+    Oats           16            1s. 6d.
+    Peas            7            2s. 6d.
+    Beans           4            2s. 6d.
+    Vetches         1            2s. 6d.
+
+The same statistician drew up a scheme of the income and expenditure
+of the 'several families' in England in 1688, the population being
+5-1/2 millions[353]:--
+
+    No. of
+   families             Class.                          Income.
+   in class.
+
+      160          Temporal lords                   £3,200  0  0
+      800          Baronets                            880  0  0
+      600          Knights                             650  0  0
+    3,000          Esquires                            450  0  0
+   11,000          Gentlemen                           280  0  0
+    2,000          Eminent merchants                   400  0  0
+    8,000          Lesser merchants                    198  0  0
+   10,000          Lawyers                             154  0  0
+    2,000          Eminent clergy                       72  0  0
+    8,000          Lesser clergy                        50  0  0
+                   Yeoman:
+   40,000            Freeholders of the better sort     91  0  0
+  120,000            Freeholders of the lesser sort     55  0  0
+  120,000          (Tenant) farmers                     42 10  0
+   50,000          Shopkeepers and tradesmen            45  0  0
+   60,000          Artisans                             38  0  0
+  364,000          Labouring people and outservants     15  0  0
+  400,000          Cottagers and paupers                 6 10  0
+
+He calculated that the freeholder of the better sort saved on an
+average £8 15s. 0d. a year per family of 7; and the lesser sort £2
+15s. 0d. a year with a family of 5-1/2. The tenant farmer with a
+family of 5, only saved 25s. a year, while labouring families who, he
+said, averaged 3-1/2 (certainly an under estimate), lost annually 7s.,
+and cottagers and paupers with families of 3-1/4 (also an under
+estimate) lost 16s. 3d. a year. It will thus be seen that the tenant
+farmers, labourers, and cottagers, the bulk of those who worked on the
+land, were very badly off; the tenant farmer saved considerably less
+than the artisan. It will also be noticed that the rural population of
+England was about three-quarters of the whole.[354]
+
+The winter of 1683-4 was marked by one of the severest frosts that
+have ever visited England. Ice on the Thames is said to have been
+eleven inches thick; by Jan. 9 there were streets of booths on it; and
+by the 24th, the frost continuing more and more severe, all sorts of
+shops and trades flourished on the river, 'even to a printing press,
+where the people and ladies took a fancy to have their names printed
+and the day and year set down when printed on the Thames.' Coaches
+plied, there was bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and
+interludes, tippling 'and other lewd places'--a regular carnival on
+the water.[355] Altogether the frost which began at Christmas lasted
+ninety-one days and did much damage on land, many of the trees were
+split as if struck by lightning, and men and cattle perished in some
+parts. Poultry and other birds and many plants and vegetables also
+perished. Wheat, however, was little affected, as the average price
+was under 40s. a quarter. In 1692 a series of very bad seasons
+commenced, lasting, with a break in 1694, until 1698, always known as
+the 'ill' or 'barren' seasons, and the cause was the usual one in
+England, excessive cold and wet. In 1693 wheat was over 60s. a
+quarter, and in Kent turnips were made into bread for the poor.[356]
+The difference in the price of farm produce in various localities was
+striking, and an eloquent testimony to the wretched means of
+communication. At Newark, for instance, in 1692-3 wheat was from 36s.
+to 40s. a quarter, while at Brentford it touched 76s.; next year in
+the same two places it was 32s. and 86s. respectively. In 1695-6 hay
+at Newark was 13s. 4d. a ton, at Northampton it was from 35s. to 40s.
+
+In 1662 was passed the famous statute of parochial settlement, 14 Car.
+II, c. 12, which forged cruel fetters for the poor, and is said to
+have caused the iron of slavery to enter into the soul of the English
+labourer.[357] The Act states, that the reason for passing it was the
+continual increase of the poor throughout the kingdom, which had
+become exceeding burdensome owing to the defects in the law. Poor
+people, moreover, wandered from one parish to another in order 'to
+settle where there is the best Stocke, the largest commons or wastes
+to build cotages, and the most woods for them to burn and
+destroy.'[358] It was therefore determined to stop these wanderings,
+and most effectually was it done. Two justices were empowered to
+remove any person who settled in any tenement under the yearly value
+of £10 within forty days to the place where he was last legally
+settled, unless he gave sufficient security for the discharge of the
+parish in case he became a pauper.
+
+It is true that certain relaxations were subsequently made. The Act of
+1691, 3 W. & M., c. 2, allowed derivative settlements on payment of
+taxes for one year, serving an annual office, hiring for a year, and
+apprenticeship; while the Act of 1696, 8 & 9 Wm. III, c. 30, allowed
+the grant of a certificate of settlement, under which safeguard the
+holder could migrate to a district where his labour was required, the
+new parish being assured he would not become chargeable to it, and
+therefore not troubling to remove him till there was actual need: but
+the statute acted as an effectual check on migration and prevented the
+labourer carrying his work where it was wanted.[359] It became the
+object of parishes to have as few cottages and therefore as few poor
+as possible. In 'close' parishes, i.e. where all the land belonged to
+one owner, as distinguished from 'open' ones where it belonged to
+several, all the cottages were often pulled down so that labourers
+coming to work in it had to travel long distances in all weathers. We
+shall see further relaxation in the law in 1795, but it was not until
+modern times that this abominable system was destroyed. The
+agricultural labourer's difficulty in building a house was aggravated
+by the statute 31 Eliz., c. 7, before noticed, which in order to
+restrain the building of cottages enacted that none, except in towns
+and certain other places, were to be built unless 4 acres of land were
+attached to them, under a penalty of £10, and 40s. a month for
+continuing to maintain it. This Act was not repealed until the reign
+of George III. However, it seems to have been frequently winked at. In
+Shropshire, for instance, the fine often was only nominal; in the
+seventeenth century orders authorizing the building of cottages on the
+waste were freely given by the Court of Quarter Sessions, and orders
+were also made by the Court for the erection of cottages
+elsewhere.[360]
+
+At the restoration of Charles II the corn laws had practically been
+unaltered since 1571,[361] when it had been enacted that corn might be
+exported from certain ports in certain ships at all times when
+proclamation was not made to the contrary, on a payment of 12d. a
+quarter on wheat and 8d. a quarter on other grain. Now both export and
+import were subjected to heavy duties, but these caused such high
+prices in corn that they were reduced in 1663; yet high duties were
+again imposed in 1673, which continued until the revolution. Then,
+owing to good crops and low prices, which brought distress on the
+landed interest, a new policy was introduced: export duties were
+abolished and the other extreme resorted to, viz. a bounty on export
+of 5s. in the quarter as long as the home price did not exceed 48s. At
+the same time import duties remained high, and this system lasted till
+1773. Never had the corn-growers of England been so thoroughly
+protected, yet, owing to causes over which the legislators had no
+control, namely bountiful seasons, the prices of wheat for the next
+seventy years was from 15 to 20 per cent. cheaper than in the previous
+forty. Modern economists have described this system as one of the
+worst instances of a class using their legislative power to subsidize
+themselves at the expense of the community. As a matter of fact it was
+the firm conviction of the statesmen and economists of the time, that
+husbandry, being the main industry and prop of England, and the
+foundation on which the whole political power of the country was
+based, should receive every encouragement. At all events, in many ways
+the policy was successful.[362] It encouraged investment in land, and
+materially assisted the agricultural improvement for which the
+eighteenth century was noted, the export too employed English
+shipping, and thus aided industry. Arthur Young said it was the
+singular felicity of this country to have devised a plan which
+accomplished the strange paradox of at once lowering the price of corn
+and encouraging agriculture, for by the system in vogue till 1773 if
+corn was scarce it was imported, while if there was a glut at home
+export was assisted so that great fluctuations in price were
+prevented.[363] It seemed of the utmost importance to men of that time
+that England should be self-supporting and independent of possible
+adversaries for the necessaries of life; the wisdom of the policy was
+never questioned, and was accepted by statesmen of every party.[364]
+To blame the landowners for adopting what seemed the wisest course to
+every sensible person is merely an instance of partisan spite.
+
+At the Peace of Paris in 1763 the question as to whether England or
+France was to be the great colonizing country of the world was finally
+settled, and a great development of English trade ensued. It was
+accompanied by a great increase of population, exports of corn were
+largely reduced, and the balance began to incline the other way, so
+that the next Act of importance was that of 1773 which permitted the
+import of foreign wheat at a nominal duty of 6d. a quarter when it was
+over 48s., but prohibited export and the bounty on export when wheat
+was at or above 44s. This was the nearest approach to free trade
+before 1846.
+
+The time, however, was not yet ripe for this, and the nominal duty on
+imports was too small for landlords and farmers, so that in 1791 the
+price when the same nominal duty was to come into force was raised to
+54s., while between 50s. and 54s. a duty of 2s. 6d. was imposed, and
+under 50s. a duty of 24s. 3d.; and export was allowed without bounty
+when wheat was under 46s. Export of corn, however, by this time had
+become a matter of little moment, England having definitely ceased to
+be an exporting country after 1789.
+
+Not only were English landowners after the Restoration anxious to
+protect their corn, but they also took alarm at the imports of Irish
+cattle which they said lowered English rents, so that in 1665 and 1680
+(18 Car. II, c. 2, and 32 Car. II, c. 2) laws were framed absolutely
+prohibiting the import of Irish cattle, sheep, and swine, as well as
+of beef, pork, bacon, and mutton, and even butter and cheese. The
+statute 12 Car. II, c. 4, also virtually excluded Irish wool from
+England by duties amounting to prohibition. It was not until 1759 that
+free imports of cattle from Ireland were allowed for five years,[365]
+a period prolonged by 5 Geo. III, c. 10, and a statute of 1772.
+
+In 1699 wool was allowed to be shipped from six specified ports in
+Ireland to eight specified ports in England,[366] and by 16 Geo. II,
+c. 11, wool might be sent from Ireland to any port in England under
+certain restrictions.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[339] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_ (ed. 1669), p. 10.
+
+[340] Ibid. p. 124.
+
+[341] Ibid. p. 124.
+
+[342] _Pomona_ (ed. 1664), p. 1.
+
+[343] Ed. 1635, Book i, p. 175.
+
+[344] Markham, _op. cit._ i. 188.
+
+[345] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 38. Plot, however, in his
+_Natural History of Staffordshire_, 1686, says hemp and flax were sown
+in small quantities all over the county, p. 109.
+
+[346] _New System of Agriculture_ (ed. 1726), p. 113. Woad is still
+grown 'in some districts in England' (Morton, _Cyclopaedia of
+Agriculture_, ii. 1159), but in the Agricultural Returns of 1907
+apparently occupies too small an acreage to entitle it to a separate
+mention.
+
+[347] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 43.
+
+[348] Tull, in his _Horseshoeing Husbandry_ (p. 147), speaks of the
+drill as if already in use.
+
+[349] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 205.
+
+[350] The seedlip was a long-shaped basket suspended from the sower's
+shoulder and was usually made of wood.
+
+[351] Horse-girths for securing pack-saddles.
+
+[352] Houghton, about the same time, said England contained 28 to 29
+million acres, of which 12 millions lay waste (_Collections_, iv. II).
+In 1907 the Board of Agriculture returned the total area of England
+and Wales, excluding water, at 37,130,344 acres.
+
+[353] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 228.
+
+[354] If we allow that most of the two last classes enumerated were
+country folk. For the decline of the yeoman class, see chap. xviii.
+
+[355] Evelyn's _Diary_.
+
+[356] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 23.
+
+[357] Fowle, _Poor Law_, p. 63.
+
+[358] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 66, says, 'the abuses complained of in
+the preamble (of the Act) did actually exist.'
+
+[359] Hasbach, _op. cit._ pp. 67, 134, says the statute of 1662 did
+not entail so much evil by hindering migration as is generally
+supposed.
+
+[360] _Shropshire County Records_: Abstracts of the orders made by the
+Court of Quarter Sessions, 1638-1782, pp. xxiv, xxv.
+
+[361] See above, p. 70. 13 Eliz., c. 13. McCulloch, _Commercial
+Dictionary_ (1852), p. 412.
+
+[362] Cunningham, _English Industry and Commerce_, ii. 371.
+
+[363] _Political Arithmetic_, pp. 27-34, 193, 276.
+
+[364] Lecky, _England in the Eighteenth Century_, vi. 192.
+
+[365] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, iii. 311.
+
+[366] Ibid. ii. 706; iii. 221, 293.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+1700-1765
+
+GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.--CROPS.--CATTLE.--
+DAIRYING.--POULTRY.--TULL AND THE NEW HUSBANDRY.--BAD TIMES.
+--FRUIT-GROWING
+
+
+The history of agriculture in the eighteenth century is remarkable for
+several features of great importance. It first saw the application of
+capital in large quantities to farming, the improvements of the time
+being largely initiated by rich landowners whom Young praises rightly
+as public-spirited men who deserved well of their country, though
+Thorold Rogers attributes a meaner motive for the improvement of their
+estates, namely, their desire not to be outshone by the wealthy
+merchants.[367] They were often ably assisted by tenant farmers, many
+of whom were now men with considerable capital, for whom the smaller
+farms were amalgamated into large ones. After the agricultural
+revolution of the latter half of the century, the tendency to
+consolidate small holdings into large farms grew apace and was looked
+on as a decided mark of progress. This agricultural revolution was
+largely a result of the industrial revolution that then took place in
+England. Owing to mechanical inventions and the consequent growth of
+the factory system, the great manufacturing towns arose, whence came a
+great demand for food, and, to supply this demand, farms, instead of
+being small self-sufficing holdings just growing enough for the
+farmer and his family and servants, grew larger, and became
+manufactories of corn and meat. The century was also remarkable for
+another great change. England, hitherto an exporting country, became
+an importing one. The progress of the century was furthered by a band
+of men whose names are, or ought to be, household words with English
+farmers: Jethro Tull, Lord Townshend, Arthur Young, Bakewell, Coke of
+Holkham, and the Collings. Further the century witnessed a great
+number of enclosures, especially when it was drawing to its close.
+According to the Report of the Committee on Waste Lands in 1797, the
+number of Enclosure Acts was: under Anne, 2 Acts, enclosing 1,439
+acres; under Geo. I, 16 Acts, enclosing 17,960 acres; under Geo. II,
+226 Acts, enclosing 318,778 acres; from 1760 to 1797, 1,532 Acts,
+enclosing 2,804,197 acres.
+
+The period from 1700 to 1765 has been called the golden age of the
+agricultural classes, as the fifteenth century has been called the
+golden age of the labourer, but the farmer and landlord were often
+hard pressed; rates were low, wages were fair, and the demand for the
+produce of the farm constant owing to the growth of the population,
+yet prices for wheat, stock, and wool were often unremunerative to the
+farmer, and we are told in 1734, 'necessity has compelled our farmers
+to more carefulness and frugality in laying out their money than they
+were accustomed to in better times.'[368] The labourer's wages varied
+according to locality. The assessment of wages by the magistrates in
+Lancashire for 1725 remains, and according to that the ordinary
+labourer earned 10d. a day in the summer and 9d. in the winter months,
+with extras in harvest, and this may be taken as the average pay at
+that date. Threshing and winnowing wheat by piece-work cost 2s. a
+quarter, oats 1s. a quarter. Making a ditch 4 feet wide at the top, 18
+inches wide at the bottom, and 3 feet deep, double set with quicks,
+cost 1s. a rood (8 yards), 10d. if without the quick.[369] The
+magistrates remarked in their proclamation on the plenty of the times
+and were afraid that for the northern part of the county, which was
+then very backward, the wages were too liberal. Wheat was,
+unfortunately, that year 46s. 1d. a quarter, but a few years before
+and after that date it was cheap--20s., 24s., 28s. a quarter--and
+fresh meat was only 3d. a lb., so that their wages went a long
+way.[370] A considerable portion of the wages was paid in kind, not
+only in drink but in food, though this custom became less frequent as
+the century went on.[371]
+
+As for his food, Eden tells us[372] that the diet of Bedford workhouse
+in 1730 was much better than that of the most industrious labourer in
+his own home, and this was the diet: bread and cheese or broth for
+breakfast, boiled beef hot or cold, sometimes with suet pudding for
+dinner, and bread and cheese or broth for supper. This must have been
+sufficiently monotonous, and we may be sure the labourer at home very
+seldom had boiled beef for dinner; but in the north he was much
+cleverer than his southern brother in cooking cereal foods such as
+oatmeal porridge, crowdie (also of oatmeal), frumenty or barley milk,
+barley broth, &c.[373]
+
+The village of the first half of the eighteenth century contained a
+much better graded society than the village of to-day. It had few
+gaps, so that there was a ladder from the lowest to the highest ranks,
+owing to the existence of many small holders of various degree, soon
+to be diminished by enclosure and consolidation.[374]
+
+There was a great increase in the number of live stock owing to the
+spread, gradual though it was, of roots and clover, which increased
+the winter food; 'of late years,' it was said in 1739, 'there have
+been improvements made in the breed of sheep by changing of rams, and
+sowing of turnips, grass seeds, &c.'[375] Crops, too, were improving;
+and enclosed lands about 1726 were said to produce over 20 bushels of
+wheat to the acre.[376]
+
+Though the number of Enclosure Acts at the beginning of the century
+was nothing like the number at the end, the process was steadily going
+on, often by non-parliamentary enclosure, and was approved by nearly
+every one. Some, however, were opposed to it. John Cowper, who wrote
+an essay on 'Enclosing Commons' in 1732, said, a common was often the
+chief support of forty or fifty poor families, and even though their
+rights were bought out they were under the necessity of leaving their
+old homes, for their occupation was gone; but he says nothing of the
+well-known increased demand for labour on the enclosed lands. The
+force of his arguments may be gauged from his answer to Lawrence's
+statement that enclosure is the greatest benefit to good husbandry,
+and a remedy for idleness. On the contrary, says he, who among the
+country people live lazier lives than the grazier and the dairyman?
+All the dairyman has to do is to call his cows together to be milked!
+
+Worlidge in 1669 had lamented that turnips were so little grown by
+English farmers in the field, and that it was a plant 'usually
+nourished in gardens',[377] and in a letter to Houghton in 1684, he is
+the first to mention the feeding of turnips to sheep.[378] However, in
+1726 it was said that nothing of late years had turned to greater
+profit to the farmer, who now found it one of his chief treasures; and
+there were then three sorts: the round which was most common, the
+yellow, and the long.[379] For winter use they were to be sown from
+the beginning of June to the middle of August, on fallow which had
+been brought to a good tilth, the seed harrowed in with a bush harrow,
+and if necessary rolled. When the plants had two or three leaves each
+they were to be hoed out, leaving them five or six inches apart,
+though some slovenly farmers did not trouble to do this; but there is
+no mention of hoeing between the rows. The fly was already recognized
+as a pest, and soot and common salt were used to fight it. Folding
+sheep in winter on turnips was then little practised, though Lawrence
+strongly recommends it. According to Defoe,[380] Suffolk was
+remarkable for being the first county where the feeding and fattening
+of sheep and other cattle with turnips was first practised in England,
+to the great improvement of the land, 'whence', he says, 'the practice
+is spread over most of the east and south, to the great enriching of
+farmers and increase of fat cattle.' There were great disputes as to
+collecting the tithe, always a sore subject, on turnips; and the
+custom seems to have been that if they were eaten off by store sheep
+they went tithe free, if sheep were fattened on them the tithe was
+paid.[381]
+
+Clover, the other great novelty of the seventeenth century, was now
+generally sown with barley, oats, or rye grass, about 15 lb. per acre.
+This amount, sown on 2 acres of barley, would next year produce 2
+loads worth about £5. The next crop stood for seed, which was cut in
+August, the hay being worth £9, and the seed out of it, 300 lb., was
+sold much of it for 16d. a lb., the sum realized in that year from the
+2 acres being £30, without counting the aftermath. At this time most
+of the seed was still imported from Flanders.[382] Much of the common
+and waste land of England, not previously worth 6d. an acre, had been
+by 1732 vastly improved through sowing artificial grasses on it, so
+that various people had gained considerable estates.[383]
+
+Carrots were also now grown as a field crop in places, especially near
+London, two sorts being known, the yellow and red, used chiefly by
+farmers for feeding their hogs.[384] Of wheat the names were many, but
+there were apparently only seven distinct sorts, the Double-eared,
+Eggshell, Red or Kentish, Great-bearded, Pollard, Grey, and Flaxen or
+Lammas.[385] The growth of saffron had declined, though the English
+variety was the best in the world, according to Lawrence, and except
+in Cambridgeshire and about Saffron Walden it was little known.
+
+Though it was still some time before the days of Bakewell, increased
+attention was given to cattle-breeding; it was urged that a
+well-shaped bull be put to cows, one that had 'a broad and curled
+forehead, long horns, fleshy neck, and a belly long and large.'[386]
+Such in 1726 was the ideal type of the long-horns of the Midland and
+the north, but it was noticed that of late years and especially in the
+north the Dutch breed was much sought after, which had short horns and
+long necks, the breed with which the Collings were to work such
+wonders. The then great price of £20 had been given for a cow of this
+breed. Bradley, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, and a well-known
+writer on agriculture, divided the cattle of England into three sorts
+according to their colour: the black, white, and red.[387] The black,
+commonly the smallest, was the strongest for labour, chiefly found in
+mountainous countries; also bred chiefly in Cheshire, Yorkshire,
+Lancashire, and Derbyshire, sixty years before this, and in those days
+Cheshire cheese came from these cattle, apparently very much like the
+modern Welsh breed.[388] The white were much larger, and very common
+in Lincolnshire at the end of the seventeenth century. They gave more
+milk than the black sort but went dry sooner. They were also found in
+Suffolk and Surrey.
+
+The red cattle were the largest in England, their milk rich and
+nourishing, so much so that it was given specially to consumptives.
+They were first bred in Somerset, where in Bradley's time particular
+attention was paid to their breeding, and were evidently the ancestors
+of the modern Devons. About London these cows were often fed on
+turnips, given them tops and all, which made their milk bitter. They
+were also found in Lincolnshire and some other counties, where 'they
+were fed on the marshes', and Defoe saw, in the Weald of Kent, 'large
+Kentish bullocks, generally all red with their horns crooked inward.'
+Bradley gives the following balance sheet for a dairy of nine cows:[389]
+
+            DR.                                       £   s. d.
+
+  6 months' grass keep at 1s. 6d. per week per head   17 11  0
+  6 months' winter keep (straw, hay, turnips, and
+     grains) at 2s. per week per head                 23  8  0
+                                                     ---------
+                                                     £40 19  0
+                                                     =========
+            CR.
+  13,140 gallons of milk                             136 17  6
+                                                      40 19  0
+                                                     ---------
+                                    Balance (profit) £95 18  6
+                                                     =========
+
+A correspondent, however, pointed out to Bradley that this yield and
+profit was far above the average, which was about £5 a cow, on whom
+Bradley retorted that it could be made, though it was exceptional.
+
+In the eighteenth century the great trade of driving Scottish cattle
+to London began, Walter Scott's grandfather being the pioneer. The
+route followed diverged from the Great North Road in Yorkshire in
+order to avoid turnpikes, and the cattle, grazing leisurely on the
+strips of grass by the roadside, generally arrived at Smithfield in
+good condition.[390]
+
+Defoe tells us that most of the Scottish cattle which came yearly
+into England were brought to the village of S. Faiths, north of
+Norwich, 'where the Norfolk graziers go and buy them. These Scots
+runts, coming out of the cold and barren highlands, feed so eagerly on
+the rich pasture in these marshes that they grow very fat. There are
+above 40,000 of these Scots cattle fed in this county every year. The
+gentlemen of Galloway go to England with their droves of cattle and
+take the money themselves.'[391] It was no uncommon thing for a
+Galloway nobleman to send 4,000 black cattle and 4,000 sheep to
+England in a year, and altogether from 50,000 to 60,000 cattle were
+said to come to England from Galloway yearly. Gentlemen on the Border
+before the Union got a very pretty living by tolls from these cattle;
+and the Earl of Carlisle made a good income in this way.
+
+Cattle were sometimes of a great size. In 1697, in the park of Sir
+John Fagg near Steyning, Defoe saw four bullocks of Sir John's own
+breeding for which was refused in Defoe's hearing £26 apiece. They
+were driven to Smithfield and realized £25 each, having probably sunk
+on the way, but dressed they weighed 80 stone a quarter![392] These
+weights must have been very exceptional, but go to prove that cattle
+then could be grown to much greater size than is generally credited. A
+good price for a bullock in the first half of the eighteenth century
+was from £7 to £10.
+
+The best poultry at the same date (1736) were said to be 'the
+white-feathered sort', especially those that had short and white legs,
+which were esteemed for the whiteness of their flesh; but those that
+had long yellow legs and yellow beaks were considered good for
+nothing.[393] Care was to be used in the choice of a cock, for those
+of the game kind were to be avoided as unprofitable. Bradley gives a
+balance sheet for 12 hens and 2 cocks who had a free run in a farmyard
+and an orchard:[394]
+
+               DR.                         £   s.  d.
+
+  39 bushels of barley                     3   5   0
+  Balance, profit                             16   0
+                                          ----------
+                                          £4   1   0
+                                          ==========
+
+               CR.                         £   s.  d.
+
+  Eggs (number unfortunately not given)    1   5   0
+  20 early chickens at 1s.                 1   0   0
+  72 late chickens at 6d.                  1  16   0
+                                          ----------
+                                          £4   1   0
+                                          ==========
+
+He also recommends that in stocking a farm of £200 a year the
+following poultry should be purchased:
+
+                                    £  s. d.
+
+  24 chickens at 4d.                   8  0
+  20 geese                          1  0  0
+  20 turkeys                        1  0  0
+  24 ducks                            12  0
+  6 pair of pigeons                   12  0
+
+The best way to fatten chickens, according to Bradley, was to put them
+in coops and feed them with barley meal, being careful to put a small
+quantity of brickdust in their water to give them an appetite.[395]
+
+On this farm were 20 acres of cow pasture besides common, and this
+with some turnips kept 9 cows, which gave about three gallons of milk
+a day at least, the milk being worth 1d. a quart. His pigs were of the
+'Black Bantham' breed, which were better than the large sort common in
+England, for the flesh was much more delicate.
+
+Suffolk was famous for supplying London with turkeys.[396] Three
+hundred droves of turkeys, each numbering from 300 to 1000, had in one
+season passed over Stratford Bridge on the road from Ipswich to
+London. Geese also travelled on foot to London in prodigious numbers
+from Norfolk, Suffolk, and the Fen country, often 1,000 to 3,000 in a
+drove, starting in August when harvest was nearly over, so that the
+geese might feed on the stubble by the way; 'and thus they hold on to
+the end of October, when the roads begin to be too stiff and deep for
+their broad feet and short legs to march on.' There was, however, a
+more rapid method of getting poultry to the great market, by means of
+carts of four stages or stories, one above another, to carry the birds
+in, drawn by two horses, which by means of relays travelled night and
+day, and covered as much as 100 miles in two days and one night, the
+driver sitting on the topmost stage.
+
+Hop growing in 1729, according to Richard Bradley, paid well; he says,
+'ground never esteemed before worth a shilling an acre per annum, is
+rendered worth forty, fifty, or sometimes more pounds a year by
+planting hops judiciously. An acre of hops shall bring to the owner
+clear profit about £30 yearly; but I have known hop grounds that have
+cleared above £50 yearly per acre.' At this date 12,000 acres in
+England were planted with hops.
+
+The great market for hops was Stourbridge Fair, once the greatest mart
+in England and still preserving much of its former importance: 'there
+is scarce any price fixed for hops in England till they know how they
+sell in Stourbridge Fair.'[397] Thither they came from Chelmsford,
+Canterbury, Maidstone, and Farnham, where the bulk of the hops in
+England were then grown, though some were to be found at Wilton near
+Salisbury, in Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. Round Canterbury
+Defoe says there were 6,000 acres of hops, all planted within living
+memory[398]; but the Maidstone district was called 'the mother of hop
+grounds', and with the country round Feversham was famous for apples
+and cherries.
+
+The finest wool still, it seems, came from near Leominster, where the
+sheep in Markham's time were described as small-boned and black-faced,
+with a light fleece, and apparently they still had the same appearance
+at the beginning of the eighteenth century[399]; and large-boned
+sheep with coarser wool were to be found in the counties of Warwick,
+Leicester, Buckingham, Northampton, and Nottingham; in the north of
+England too were big-boned sheep with inferior wool, the largest with
+coarse wool being found in the marshes of Lincolnshire.
+
+About this time wool had fallen much in price: 'Has nobody told you,'
+writes a west country farmer to his absentee landlord in 1737, 'that
+wool has fallen to near half its price, and that we cannot find
+purchasers for a great part of it at any price whatsoever. When most
+of our estates (farms) were taken wool was generally 7d., 8d., or more
+by the pound; the same is now 4d. and still falling.'[400] But the
+latter price was exceptionally low; Smith[401] gives the following
+average prices per tod of 28 lb.:
+
+  1706             17s. 6d.
+  1717-8         23s. to 27s.
+  1737-42        11s. to 14s.
+  1743               20s.
+  1743-53            24s.
+
+After 1753 it fell again, largely owing to the great plague among
+cattle, which brought about a 'prodigious increase of sheep'[402];
+and about 1770 Young[403] favoured corn rather than wool, for there
+was always a market for the former, but the foreign demand for cloth
+was diminishing, especially in the case of France, besides prohibition
+of export kept down the price.[404] Yet although wool was being
+deserted for corn it had in Young's time 'been so long supposed the
+staple and foundation of all our wealth, that it is somewhat dangerous
+to hazard an opinion not consonant to its encouragement'.
+
+At the end of the century, however, there was a rapid increase in the
+price, partly due to increased demand by spinners and weavers who,
+owing to machinery, were working more economically; and partly to the
+enclosure of commons, and the ploughing up of land for corn.[405]
+
+Cheshire had long been famous for cheese. Barnaby Googe, in the last
+quarter of the sixteenth century, says, 'in England the best cheese is
+the Cheshyre and the Shropshyre, then the Banbury cheese, next the
+Suffolk and the Essex, and the very worst the Kentish cheese.' Camden,
+who died in 1623, tells us that 'the grasse and fodder (in Cheshire)
+is of that goodness and vertue that cheeses be made here in great
+number, and of a most pleasing and delicate taste such as all England
+again affordeth not the like, no though the best dairywomen otherwise
+and skillfullest in cheese making be had from hence;' and a little
+later it was said no other county in the realm could compare with
+Cheshire, not even that wonderful agricultural country Holland from
+which England learnt so much.[406] In Lawrence's time Cheddar cheese
+was also famous, and there it had long been a custom for several
+neighbours to join their milk together to make cheeses, which were of
+a large size, weighing from 30 lb. to 100 lb. Good cheese came also
+from Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. The Cheshire men sent great
+quantities by sea to London, a long and tedious voyage, or else by
+land to Burton-on-Trent, and down that river to Hull and then by sea
+to London. The Gloucestershire men took it to Lechlade and sent it
+down the Thames; from Warwickshire it went by land all the way, or to
+Oxford and thence down the Thames to London. Stilton, too, had lately
+become famous, and was considered the best of all, selling for the
+then great price of 1s. a lb. on the farm, and 2s. 6d. at the Bell
+Inn, Stilton, where it seems to have first been sold in large
+quantities, though Leicestershire perhaps claims the honour of first
+making it.[407]
+
+The eastern side of Suffolk was, in Defoe's time, famous for the best
+butter and perhaps the worst cheese in England, the butter being
+'barrelled and sometimes pickled up in small casks'.[408]
+
+Rabbits were occasionally kept in large numbers for profit; at Auborne
+Chase in Wilts, there was a warren of 700 acres surrounded by a
+wall--a most effective way of preventing escape, but somewhat
+expensive. In winter time they were fed on hay, and hazel branches
+from which they ate the bark. They were never allowed to get below
+8,000 head, and from these, after deducting losses by poachers,
+weazles, polecats, foxes, &c., 24,000 were sold annually. These
+rabbits, owing to the quality of the grass, were famous for the
+sweetness of their flesh. The proprietor, Mr. Gilbert, began to kill
+them at Bartholomewtide, Aug. 24, and from then to Michaelmas obtained
+9s. a dozen for them delivered free in London; but those from
+Michaelmas to Christmas realized 10s. 6d. a dozen.
+
+The difference in price at the two periods is accounted for by the
+fact that their skins were much better in the latter, and the rabbits
+kept longer when killed; they must also have been larger. A skin
+before Michaelmas was only worth 1d., but soon after nearly 6d.; and
+in Hertfordshire was a warren where rabbit skins with silvery hair
+fetched 1s. each.[409]
+
+We have now reached the period when the result of Jethro Tull's
+labours was given to the world, his _Horse-hoeing Husbandry_ appearing
+in 1733. It is no exaggeration to say that agriculture owes more to
+Tull than to any other man; the principles formulated in his famous
+book revolutionized British agriculture, though we shall see that it
+took a long time to do it. He has indeed been described as 'the
+greatest individual improver agriculture ever knew'. He first realized
+that deep and perfect pulverization is the great secret of vegetable
+nutrition, and was thus led on to perfect the system of drilling seed
+wide enough apart to admit of tillage in the intervals, and abandoning
+the wide ridges in vogue, laid the land into narrow ridges 5 feet or 6
+feet wide. He was born at Basildon in Berkshire, heir to a good
+estate, and was called to the bar in 1699, but on his marriage in the
+same year settled on the paternal farm of Howberry in Oxfordshire. In
+his preface to his book he throws a flash of light on country life at
+a time when the roads were nearly as bad as in the Middle Ages, so
+that they effectually isolated different parts of England, when he
+speaks of 'a long confinement within the limits of a lonely farm, in a
+country where I am a stranger, having debarred me from all
+conversation'.[410]
+
+He took to agriculture more by necessity than by choice, for he knew
+too much 'the inconveniency and slavery attending the exorbitant power
+of husbandry servants', and he further gives this extraordinary
+character of the farm labourer of his day: ''Tis the most formidable
+objection against our agriculture that the defection of labourers is
+such that few gentlemen can keep their land in their own hands, but
+let them for a little to tenants who can bear to be insulted,
+assaulted, kicked, cuffed, and Bridewelled, with more patience than
+gentlemen are endowed with.'[411] Tull wrote just before it became the
+fashion for gentlemen to go into farming, and laments that the lands
+of the country were all, or mostly, in the hands of rack-renters,
+whose supposed interest it was that they should never be improved for
+fear of fines and increased rents. Gentlemen then knew so little of
+farming that they were unable to manage their estates. No doubt his
+scathing remarks helped to initiate the well-known change in this
+respect, and soon, over all England, gentlemen of education and
+position were engaged in removing this reproach from their class. The
+same complaint as to their ignorance of matters connected with their
+land crops up again during the great French war, but they then had a
+good excuse, as they were busy fighting the French.
+
+Tull invented his drill about 1701 at Howberry. The first occasion for
+making it, he says, was that it 'was very difficult to find a man that
+could sow clover tolerably; they had a habit to throw it once with the
+hand to two large strides and go twice in each cast; thus, with 9 or
+10 lb. of seed to an acre, two-thirds of the ground was unplanted. To
+remedy this I made a hopper, to be drawn by a boy, that planted an
+acre sufficiently with 6 lb. of seed; but when I added to this hopper
+an exceeding light plough that made 6 channels eight inches asunder,
+into which 2 lb. to an acre being drilled the ground was as well
+planted. This drill was easily drawn by a man, and sometimes by a
+boy.'
+
+His invention was largely prompted by his desire to do without the
+insolent farm servant whom he has described above, and the year after
+it was invented he certainly had his wish, for they struck in a body
+and were dismissed: 'it were more easy to teach the beasts of the
+field than to drive the ploughman out of his way.'
+
+His ideas were largely derived from the mechanism of the organ which,
+being fond of music, he had mastered in his youth--a rotary mechanism,
+which is the foundation of all agricultural sowing implements. His
+first invention may be described as a drill plough to sow wheat and
+turnip seed in drills three rows at a time, a harrow to cover the seed
+being attached. Afterwards he invented a turnip drill, so arranged as
+regards dropping the seed and its subsequent covering with soil that
+half the seed should come up earlier than the rest, to enable a
+portion at least to escape the dreaded fly. He was a great believer in
+doing everything himself, and worked so hard at his drill that he had
+to go abroad for his health. He was somewhat carried away by his
+invention, and asserts that the expense of a drilled crop of wheat was
+one-ninth of that sown in the old way, giving the following figures to
+prove his assertion:
+
+  _The Old Way_
+                                                 £  s. d.
+
+  Seed, 2-1/2 bushels, at 3s.                       7  6
+  Three ploughings, harrrowing, and sowing         16  0
+  Weeding                                           2  0
+  Rent of preceding fallow                         10  0
+  Manure                                         2 10  0
+  Reaping                                           4  6
+                                               ---------
+                                               £ 4 10  0[412]
+                                               =========
+
+  _The New Way_
+
+
+  Seed, 3 pecks                                     2  3
+  Tillage                                           4  0
+  Drilling                                             6
+  Weeding                                              6
+  Uncovering (removing clods fallen on the wheat)      2
+  Brine and lime                                       1
+  Reaping                                           2  6
+                                                   -----
+                                                   10  0
+                                                   =====
+
+It should be noted that he has omitted to charge rent for the year in
+which the crop was grown in both cases.
+
+He considered fallowing and manure unnecessary, and grew without
+manure 13 successive wheat crops on the same piece of ground, getting
+better crops than his neighbours who pursued the ordinary course of
+farming. His three great principles, indeed, were drilling, reduction
+of seed, and absence of weeds, and he saw that dung was a great
+carrier of the latter but lacked a due appreciation of its chemical
+action. Of course, like all _improvers_, he was met with unlimited
+opposition, and on the publication of his book he was assailed with
+abuse, which, being a sensitive man, caused him extreme annoyance. His
+health was bad, his troubles with his labourers unending, his son a
+spendthrift, and he died at his now famous home, Prosperous Farm, near
+Hungerford, in 1741, having said not long before his death, 'Some,
+allowed as good judges, have upon a full view and examination of my
+practice declared their opinion that it would one day become the
+general husbandry of England.'[413] Scotland was the first to perceive
+the merits of the system, and it gradually worked southwards into
+England, but for many years had to fight against ignorance and
+prejudice, even so intelligent a man as Arthur Young being opposed to
+it.
+
+Farm leases had by this time assumed their modern form, and
+cultivation clauses were numerous. In one of 1732, at Hawsted, the
+tenant was to keep the hedges in repair, being allowed bushes and
+stakes for so doing. He was also to bestow on some part of the lands
+one load of good rotten muck over and above what was made on the farm
+for every load of hay, straw, or stover (fodder) which he should carry
+off.[414] In another of 1740, he was to leave in the last year of the
+tenancy one-third of the arable land summer tilled, ploughed, and
+fallowed, for which he was to be paid according to the custom of the
+country. In 1753, in the lease of Pinford End Farm, there was a
+penalty of £10 an acre for breaking up pasture; a great increase in
+the amount of the penalty. All compost, dung, soil, and ashes arising
+on the farm were to be bestowed upon it.
+
+Only two crops successively were to be taken on any of the arable
+land, but land sown with clover and rye-grass, if fed off, or with
+turnips which were fed on some part of the farm, were not to count as
+crops.
+
+The ashes mentioned were those from wood, which were now carefully
+looked after, as it had become the custom to sell them to the
+soap-boilers, who came round to every farm collecting them. This is
+the earliest mention in a Hawsted lease of rye-grass, clover, and
+turnips, though clover and turnips had been first cultivated there
+about 1700, and soon spread.
+
+The winter of 1708-9 was very severe, a great frost lasting from
+October until the spring; wheat was 81s. 9d. a quarter, and high
+prices lasted until 1715.[415]
+
+From 1715 to 1765 was an era of good seasons and low prices generally;
+in that half-century Tooke says there were only five bad seasons. In
+1732 prices of corn were very low, wheat being about 24s. a quarter,
+so that we are not surprised to find that its cultivation often did
+not pay at all.[416]
+
+At Little Gadsden in Hertfordshire, in that year a fair season, and on
+enclosed land, the following is the balance sheet for an acre:
+
+                             DR.                      £  s. d.
+
+  Rent                                                  12  0
+  Dressing (manuring)                                 1  0  0
+  2-1/2 bushels of seed                                  7  6
+  Ploughing first time                                   6  0
+      "     twice more                                   8  0
+  Harrowing                                                 6
+  Reaping and carrying                                   6  6
+  Threshing                                              3  9
+                                                     --------
+                                                      3  4  3
+                                                     ========
+
+                             CR.            £   s. d.
+
+  15 bushels of wheat (a poor crop, as
+    20 bushels was now about the average)    2  2  0
+  Straw                                        11  6
+
+                                                      2 13  6
+                                                     --------
+                             _LOSS_                     10  9
+                                                     ========
+
+On barley, worth about £1 a quarter, the loss was 3s. 6d. an acre; on
+oats, worth 13s. a quarter, however, the profit was 21s.; on beans,
+26s. 6d., these being that year exceptionally good and worth 20s. a
+quarter.[417] Ellis objected to the new mode of drilling wheat
+because, he said, the rows are more exposed to the violence of the
+winds, rains, &c., by growing apart, than if close together, when the
+stalks support each other.[418] This estimate may be compared to that
+of Tull for the 'old way' of sowing wheat,[419] and to the following
+estimate of fifty years later in Surrey, when wheat was a much better
+price:--
+
+                            DR.                    £  s. d.
+
+  Rent, tithe, taxes                               1  0  0
+  Team, &c.                                        1  0  0
+  2 bushels of seed                                  10  0
+  Carting and spreading manure and water furrowing    2  6
+  Brining                                                6
+  Weeding                                             1  6
+  Reaping and carrying                                9  0
+  Threshing and cleaning                              7  6
+  Binding straw                                       1  6
+                                                 ---------
+                                                  £3 12  6[420]
+                                                 =========
+
+                            CR.
+  20 bushels at 5s.                                5  0  0
+  1-1/2 loads of straw                             1  2  6
+                                                 ---------
+                                                  £6  2  6
+                                                 =========
+
+The profit was thus £2 10s. 0d. an acre, and for barley it was £3 3s.
+6d., for oats £1 19s. 10d., for beans £1 13s. 0d.[421]
+
+This crop of wheat was not very good, as the average in that district
+was from 20 to 25 bushels per acre, and Young before this saw crops of
+30 bushels per acre growing. The over frequent use of fallows, which
+had so long marked agriculture, was in the early half of the
+eighteenth century beginning to be strongly disapproved of. Bradley
+advocated the continuous cultivation of the ground with different
+kinds of crops, 'for I find', he said, 'by experience that if such
+crops are sown as are full of fibrous roots, such roots greatly help
+to open the parts of grounds inclining to too much stiffness.'[422]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[367] _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 472.
+
+[368] See Baker, _Record of Seasons and Prices_, p. 185.
+
+[369] Eden, _State of the Poor_, iii p. cvii; Thorold Rogers, _Work
+and Wages_, p. 396.
+
+[370] In Herefordshire at this time it was 1-1/2d. per lb.
+
+[371] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 86.
+
+[372] Eden, _op. cit._ i. 286.
+
+[373] Ibid. i. 498.
+
+[374] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 71.
+
+[375] Smith, _Memoirs of Wool_, ii. 93.
+
+[376] John Lawrence, _New System of Agriculture_, p. 45. In 1712, a
+normal season, 48 acres of wheat at Southwick in Hants produced 16
+bushels per acre, 45 acres of barley 12 bushels per acre, 30 acres of
+oats 24 bushels per acre; at the same place 240 sheep realized 8s.
+each, cows 65s., calves £1, horses £6, hay 25s. a ton (_Hampshire
+Notes and Queries_, iii. 120).
+
+[377] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 42.
+
+[378] _Collections_, iv. 142.
+
+[379] Lawrence, _New System of Agriculture_, p. 109.
+
+[380] _Tour_ (ed. 1724), i. 87.
+
+[381] Ellis, _Chiltern and Vale Farming_, p. 353.
+
+[382] Bradley, _General Treatise_, i. 175.
+
+[383] Ellis, _Chiltern and Vale Farming_, p. 260.
+
+[384] J. Lawrence, _New System of Agriculture_, p. 112.
+
+[385] Ibid. p. 92. About 1757 Lucerne, hitherto little grown in
+England, took its place in the rotation of crops.
+
+[386] Ibid. p. 130.
+
+[387] _A General Treatise on Husbandry_ (1726), i. 72; cf. c.
+
+[388] The black cattle seem to have been spread very generally over
+England, according to previous writers and to Defoe, who often
+mentions them. He saw a 'prodigious quantity' in the meadows by the
+Waveney in Norfolk.--_Tour_, i. 97.
+
+[389] Bradley, _General Treatise_, i. 76.
+
+[390] Slater, _English Peasantry_, p. 52.
+
+[391] _Tour_ (ed. 1724), i. (1) 97, and iii. (2) 73.
+
+[392] Ibid. i. 63.
+
+[393] J. Lawrence, _New System of Agriculture_, p. 151.
+
+[394] Bradley, _General Treatise_, i. 110.
+
+[395] _Country Gentleman and Farmer's Director_ (1726), p. 7.
+
+[396] Defoe, _Tour_, i. 87.
+
+[397] Defoe, _Tour_ (3rd ed.), i. 81.
+
+[398] Defoe, _Tour_ (ed. 1724), ii. 1, 134.
+
+[399] Bradley, _General Treatise_, i. 160; see also Smith, _Memoirs of
+Wool_, ii. 169, where the sheep of Leominster, of Cotteswold, and of
+the Isle of Wight are said to be the best in 1719. The great market
+for sheep was Weyhill Fair, and Stourbridge Fair was a great wool
+market.
+
+[400] _The West Country Farmer, a Representation of the Decay of
+Trade_, 1737.
+
+[401] _Memoirs of Wool_, ii. 243.
+
+[402] Ibid. ii. 399.
+
+[403] _Farmer's Letters_ (3rd ed.), p. 27.
+
+[404] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, ii. 384.
+
+[405] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, ii. 458.
+
+[406] Ormerod, _Cheshire_, i. 129. These words were written about
+1656.
+
+[407] See _Victoria County History: Rutland, Agriculture_. Stilton was
+eaten in the same condition as many prefer it now, 'with the mites
+round it so thick that they bring a spoon for you to eat them.'
+
+[408] Defoe, _Tour_, i. (1) 78. Cheshire cheese was 2d. to 2-1/2d. per
+lb., Cheddar 6d. to 8d. in 1724, an extraordinary difference.
+
+[409] Bradley, i. 172.
+
+[410] Preface to _Horse-hoeing Husbandry_, (ed. 1733).
+
+[411] _Horse-hoeing Husbandry_, p. vi.
+
+[412] _The West Country Farmer_, above quoted, says wheat growing (in
+1737) paid little. Before a bushel can be sold it costs £4 an acre,
+and the crop probably fetches half the money.
+
+[413] _R.A.S.E. Journ._ (3rd Ser.), ii. 20.
+
+[414] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 216.
+
+[415] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 35.
+
+[416] Wheat averaged:
+
+1718-22 about 27s. 1730 about 30s. 1750 about 30s. 1724 " 36s. 1732 "
+24s. 1755 " 35s. 1725 " 46s. 1736 " 30s. 1760 " 38s. 1726 " 35s. 1740
+" 42s. 1765 " 42s. 1728 " 52s. 1744 " 23s.
+
+
+[417] Ellis, _Chiltern and Vale Farming_, p. 209. Nothing is charged
+for tithe and taxes.
+
+[418] Ibid. p. 352.
+
+[419] See above, p. 177, also p. 199 for Young's estimate in 1770.
+
+[420] Nothing is charged for the manure which was carted and spread.
+
+[421] John Trusler, _Practical Husbandry_, p. 28.
+
+[422] _Country Gentleman and Farmer's Director_ (1726), p. xiii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+1700-1765
+
+TOWNSHEND.--SHEEP-ROT.--CATTLE PLAGUE. FRUIT-GROWING
+
+
+In 1730 Charles, second Viscount Townshend, retired from politics, on
+his quarrel with his brother-in-law Walpole, who remarked that 'as
+long as the firm was Townshend and Walpole the utmost harmony
+prevailed, but it no sooner became Walpole and Townshend than things
+went wrong'. He devoted himself to the management of his Norfolk
+estates and set an example to English landlords in wisely and
+diligently experimenting in farm practice which was soon followed on
+all sides, the names of Lords Ducie, Peterborough, and Bolingbroke
+being the best known of his fellow-labourers. A generation afterwards
+Young wrote, 'half the County of Norfolk within the memory of man
+yielded nothing but sheep feed, whereas those very tracts of land are
+now covered with as fine barley and rye as any in the world and great
+quantities of wheat besides.'[423] There can be no doubt from this
+statement, made by an eyewitness of exceptional capacity, that he
+commenced the work so nobly carried on by Coke. The same authority
+tells us that when Townshend began his improvements near Norwich much
+of the land was an extensive heath without either tree or shrub, only
+a sheepwalk to another farm; so many carriages crossed it that they
+would sometimes be a mile abreast of each other in pursuit of the best
+track. By 1760 there was an excellent turnpike road, enclosed on each
+side with a good quickset hedge, and all the land let out in
+enclosures and cultivated on the Norfolk system in superior style; the
+whole being let at 15s. an acre, or ten times its original value.
+Townshend's two special hobbies were the field cultivation of turnips,
+and improvement in the rotation of crops. Pope says his conversation
+was largely of turnips, and he was so zealous in advocating them that
+he was nicknamed 'Turnip Townsend'.[424] He initiated the Norfolk or
+four-course system of cropping, in which roots, grasses, and cereals
+were wisely blended, viz. turnips, barley, clover and rye grass,
+wheat. He also reintroduced marling to the light lands of Norfolk, and
+followed Tull's system of drilling and horse-hoeing turnips, with the
+result that the poor land of which his estate was largely composed was
+converted into good corn and cattle-growing farms. Like all the
+progressive agriculturists of the day, he was an advocate of
+enclosures, and he had no small share in the growth of the movement by
+which, in the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges, 244 enclosure
+Acts were passed and 338,177 acres enclosed. The progress of enclosure
+was alleged as a proof that England was never more prosperous than
+under Walpole; the number of private gentlemen in Britain of ample
+estates was said to exceed that of any country in the world
+proportionately, and was far greater than in the reign of Charles II.
+The value of land at twenty-six or twenty-seven years' purchase was a
+conclusive proof of the wealth of England.[425]
+
+Though, however, the first half of the century was generally
+prosperous there were bad times for farmer and landlord. We have seen
+that wheat-growing paid little, although from 1689 to 1773 the farmer
+was protected against imports and aided by a bounty on exports. In
+1738 Lord Lyttelton wrote: 'In most parts of England, gentlemen's
+rents are so ill paid and the weight of taxes lies so heavy upon them
+that those who have nothing from the Court can scarce support their
+families.'[426] Sheep in the damp climate of England have always been
+subject to rot, and in 1735 there was, according to Ellis, the most
+general rot in the memory of man owing to a very wet season; and, as
+in the disastrous year of 1879, which must be fresh in many farmers'
+memories, other animals, deer, hares, and rabbits, were affected also;
+and the dead bodies of rotten sheep were so numerous in road and field
+that the stench was offensive to every one. Another bad outbreak
+occurred in 1747. It is well known that farmers are always grumblers,
+probably with an eye to the rent; but even in these much praised times
+they apparently made small profits. The west country farmer quoted
+before, who had been fifty years on the same estate, and writes with
+the stamp of sincerity, admits in 1737 that 'with all the skill and
+diligence in the world he can hardly keep the cart upon the wheels.
+Wool had gone down, wheat didn't pay and graziers were doing badly;
+tho' formerly our cattle and wool was always a sure card'. He says
+that the profits of grazing were reckoned at one-third of the
+improvement that ensued from the grazing, but the grazier was not now
+getting this. He attributed much of the distress, however, to the
+extravagance of the times. Landlords, including his own, preferred
+London to the country, and spent their money there. How different was
+the behaviour of his landlord's grandfather. 'Many a time would his
+worship send for me to go a-hunting or shooting with him; often would
+he take me with him on his visits and would introduce me as his
+friend. The country gentlewoman and the parson's wife, that used to
+stitch for themselves, are now so hurried with dressings and visits
+and other attractions that they hire an Abigail to do it.'
+
+He thought, too, the labourers were getting too high wages; 'they are
+so puffed up by our provender as to offer us their heels and threaten
+on any occasion to leave us to do our work ourselves.' One would like
+to hear the labourers' opinion on this point, but they were dumb. In
+spite of higher wages the young men and young women flocked to the
+cities, and those who remain were lazy and extravagant, even the
+country wenches contending about 'double caps, huge petticoats, clock
+stockings, and other trumpery'.[427]
+
+The bounty now paid on the export of wheat was naturally resented by
+the common people, as it raised the price of their bread. In 1737 a
+load belonging to Farmer Waters of Burford, travelling along the road
+to Redbridge for exportation, was stopped near White parish by a crowd
+of people who knocked down the leading horse, broke the wagon in
+pieces, cut the sacks, and strewed about the corn, with threats that
+they would do the like to all who sold wheat to export.[428] While
+England was paying farmers to export wheat she was also importing,
+though in plentiful years importers had a very bad time. In 1730 there
+were lying at Liverpool 33,000 windles (a windle--220 lb.) of imported
+corn, unsaleable owing to the great crop in England.[429] The year
+1740 was distinguished by one of the severest winters on record. From
+January 1 to February 5 the thermometer seldom reached 32°, and the
+cold was so intense that hens and ducks, even cattle in their stalls
+died of it, trees were split asunder, crows and other birds fell to
+the ground frozen in their flight. This extraordinary winter was
+followed by a cold and late spring; no verdure had appeared by May; in
+July it was still cold, and thousands of acres of turnips rotted in
+the ground. Among minor misfortunes may be noticed the swarms of
+grasshoppers who devastated the pastures near Bristol at the end of
+August 1742,[430] and the swarms of locusts who came to England in
+1748 and consumed the vegetables.[431]
+
+The cattle plague of 1745[432] was so severe that owing to the
+scarcity of stock great quantities of grass land were ploughed up,
+which helped to account for the fact that in 1750 the export of corn
+from England reached its maximum; though the main cause of this was
+the long series of excellent seasons that set in after 1740.[433] The
+cattle plague also raged in 1754 in spite of an Order in Council that
+all infected cattle should be shot and buried 4 ft. deep, and pitch,
+tar, rosin, and gunpowder burnt where infected cattle had died, and
+cow-houses washed with vinegar and water. Such were the sanitary
+precautions of the time.[434] In 1756 came another bad year, corn was
+so scarce that there were many riots; the king expressed to Parliament
+his concern at the suffering of the poor, and the export of corn was
+temporarily prohibited. The fluctuations in price are remarkable: in
+1756, before the deficiency of the harvest was realized, wheat was
+22s. and it went up at the following rate: Jan., 1757, 49s.; Feb.,
+51s.; March, 54s.; April, 64s.; June, 72s.
+
+About the middle of the century, if we may judge from the _Compleat
+Cyderman_ written in 1754 by experienced hands living in Devon,
+Cornwall, Herefordshire, and elsewhere, fruit-growing received an
+amount of attention which diminished greatly in after years. The
+authors fully realized that an orchard under tillage causes apple
+trees to grow as fast again as under grass, and this was well
+understood and practised in Kent, where crops of corn were grown
+between the trees.
+
+A Devonshire 'cyderist' urged that orchards should be well sheltered
+from the east winds, which 'bring over the narrow sea swarms of
+imperceptible eggs, or insects in the air, from the vast tracts of
+Tartarian and other lands, from which proceeded infinite numbers of
+lice, flies, bugs, caterpillars, cobwebs, &c.' The best protection
+was a screen of trees, and the best tree for the purpose, a perry pear
+tree. In the hard frosts of 1709, 1716, and 1740 great numbers of
+fruit and other trees had been destroyed. In Devon what was called the
+'Southams method' was used for top-dressing the roots of old apple
+trees, which was done in November with soil from the roads and
+ditches, or lime or chalk, laid on furze sometimes, 6 inches thick,
+for 4 or 5 ft. all round the trees. Great attention was paid there to
+keeping the heads of fruit trees in good order, so that branches did
+not interfere with each other,[435] and the heads were made to spread
+as much as possible. Many of the trees were grown with the first
+branches commencing 4 ft. 6 in. from the ground. It was claimed that
+Devon excelled all other parts of England in the management of fruit
+trees, a reputation that was not maintained, according to the works of
+half a century later. The best cider apple In the county then was the
+White-sour, white in colour, of a middling size, and early ripe; other
+good ones were the 'Deux-Anns, Jersey, French Longtail, Royal Wilding,
+Culvering, Russet, Holland Pippin, and Cowley Crab.' In Herefordshire
+it was the custom to open the earth about the roots of the apple trees
+and lay them bare and exposed for the 'twelve days of the Christmas
+holidays', that the wind might loosen them. Then they were covered
+with a compost of dung, mould, and a little lime. 'The best way' to
+plant was to take off the turf and lay it by itself, then the next
+earth or virgin mould, to be laid also by itself. Next put horse
+litter over the bottom of the hole with some of the virgin mould on
+that, on which place the tree, scattering some more virgin mould over
+the roots, then spread some old horse-dung over this and upon that the
+turf, leaving it in a basin shape. The ground between the trees in
+Devonshire in young orchards was first planted with cabbage plants,
+next year with potatoes, next with beans, and so on until the heads of
+the trees became large enough, when the land was allowed to return to
+pasture, a proceeding which was quite contrary to their previously
+quoted assertion that tillage was best for fruit trees. The
+cider-makers were quite convinced, as many are to-day, that rotten
+apples were invaluable for cider, and the lady who was famous for the
+best cider in the county never allowed one to be thrown away. A
+generation later than this Marshall[436] noted that in Herefordshire
+the management of orchards and their produce was far from being well
+understood, though 'it has ever borne the name of the first cider
+county'. All the old fruits were lost or declining in quality, the
+famous Red Streak Apple was given up and the Squash Pear no longer
+made to flourish.
+
+As for prices, in 1707 apples were selling at Liverpool for 2s. 6d. a
+bushel,[437] a very good price if we allow for the difference in the
+value of money, but prices then were entirely dependent on the English
+seasons; no foreign apples were imported, and a night's frost would
+treble prices in a day. In 1742 at Aspall Hall, Suffolk, apples,
+apparently for cider, were 10d. a bushel, in 1745 1s. a bushel, in
+1746 only 4d., and in 1747 cider there was worth 6d. a gallon.[438] At
+the end of the century, in 'the great hit' of 1784, common apples were
+less than 6d. a bushel, the best about 2s. in 1786 the price was twice
+as high, owing to a short crop. Incidentally there is mentioned in the
+_Compleat Cyderman_ a novel implement, 'a most profitable new invented
+five-hoe plough, that after the ground has been once ploughed with a
+common plough will plough four or five acres in one day with only four
+horses, and by a little alteration is fitted to hoe turnips or rape
+crops as it is now practised by the ordinary farmers'; much too
+favourable an estimate of the ordinary farmer, as Young found
+horse-hoeing rare.
+
+An acre of good orchard land at this time was let at £2 an acre; and
+this is a fair balance sheet for an acre[439]:--
+
+                     DR.                              £   s. d.
+
+  Rent of one acre                                    2   0  0
+  Tithe on 10 hogsheads, @ 6d.                            5  0
+  Gathering, making, and carriage to and
+       from the pound, @ 3s. 6d. a hogshead           1  15  0
+  Racking twice, @ 6d.                                    5  0
+  Casks and cooperage                                     8  0
+                                                     ---------
+                                                     £4  13  0
+                                                     =========
+
+                     CR.                              £   s. d.
+
+  10 hogsheads diminished by racking
+     and waste to 8, @ 12s. 6d.                       5   0  0
+                                                      ========
+
+Leaving a balance of 7s. for spoiling, &c., so there was not much
+profit in cider-making then. The same authority sets down the cost of
+planting an acre of apples as:--
+
+                                                           £ s. d.
+
+  132 trees, @ 2s.                                        13  4  0
+      (The custom had been to plant 160 trees to
+      the acre, but this was considered too close.)
+  Carriage per tree, @ 2d.; manure per tree, @ 3d.;
+      planting per tree, @ 3d.                             4  8  0
+  Interest on £17 12s. 0d. for fifteen years before
+      orchard is profitable, @ 5 per cent.                13  2  6
+  Loss of half the rent of the land for
+      the same period, @ 10s. an acre                      7 10  0
+  Building cellarage for product per acre                  5  0  0
+                                                         ---------
+                                                         £43  4  6
+                                                         =========
+
+For this outlay the landowner would gain an additional rent of £1 a
+year, so that, according to this authority, growing cider fruit at
+that time paid neither landlord nor tenant.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[423] _Farmer's Letters_, i. 10.
+
+[424] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (3rd Series), iii. 1.
+
+[425] See the _Hyp Doctor_, No. 49.
+
+[426] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 42.
+
+[427] Cf. this and Tull's character of servants with Defoe's
+accusation of their laziness.
+
+[428] Salisbury newspaper, quoted by Baker, _Seasons and Prices_, p.
+187.
+
+[429] See _Autobiography of Wm. Stout_, ed. by J. Harland.
+
+[430] _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1742.
+
+[431] Baker, _op. cit._ p. 194.
+
+[432] _A Defence of the Farmers of Great Britain_ (1814), p. 30.
+
+[433] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 42.
+
+[434] See a curious pamphlet called _An Exhortation to all People to
+Consider the Afflicting Hand of God_ (1754), p. 6. The plague lasted
+from 1745 to 1756.
+
+[435] _The Compleat Cyderman_, p. 46.
+
+[436] _Rural Economy of Gloucestershire_ (1788), ii. 206.
+
+[437] Blundell's _Diary_, p. 55.
+
+[438] MS. accounts of Mr. Chevallier, of Aspall Hall.
+
+[439] _The Case with the County of Devon with respect to the New
+Excise Duty on Cider_ (1763). The duty was 4s. a hogshead, but the
+opposition was so strong it was taken off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+1765-1793
+
+ARTHUR YOUNG.--CROPS AND THEIR COST.--THE LABOURERS' WAGES AND DIET.--THE
+PROSPERITY OF FARMERS.--THE COUNTRY SQUIRE.--ELKINGTON.--BAKEWELL.--THE
+ROADS.--COKE OF HOLKHAM.
+
+
+The history of English agriculture in the latter half of the
+eighteenth century has been so well described by Arthur Young that any
+account of it at that time must largely be an epitome of his writings.
+The greatest of English writers on agriculture was born in 1741, and
+began farming early; but, as he confesses himself, was a complete
+failure. When he was twenty-six he took a farm of 300 acres at Samford
+Hall in Essex, and after five years of it paid a farmer £100 to take
+it off his hands, who thereupon made a fortune out of it. He had
+already begun writing on agriculture, and it must be confessed that he
+began to advise people concerning the art of agriculture on a very
+limited experience. It paid him, however, much better than farming,
+for between 1766 and 1775 he realized £3,000 on his works, among which
+were _The Farmer's Letters_, _The Southern_, _Northern_, and _Eastern
+Tours_. These are his qualifications for writing on agriculture, from
+his own pen: 'I have been a farmer these many years' (he was not yet
+thirty), 'and that not in a single field or two but upon a tract of
+near 300 acres most part of the time. I have cultivated on various
+soils most of the vegetables common in England and many never
+introduced into field husbandry. I have always kept a minute register
+of my business in every detail of culture, expenses, and produce, and
+an accurate comparison of the old and new husbandry.'[440] It is said
+that though he really understood the theory and practice of farming he
+failed utterly in small economies. He was also far too vivacious and
+fond of society for the monotonous work of the plain farmer. At the
+same time his failures gave his observant mind a clear insight into
+the principles of agriculture. He was indefatigable in inquiries,
+researches, and experiments; and the best proof of the value of his
+works is that they were translated into Russian, German, and French.
+He tells us in the preface to _Rural Economy_ that his constant
+employment for the previous seven years, 'when out of my fields, has
+been registering experiments.' His pet aversions were absentee
+landlords, obsolete methods of cultivation, wastes and commons, and
+small holdings (though towards the end of his life he changed his
+opinion as to the last); and the following, according to him, were the
+especially needed improvements of the time:--
+
+The knowledge of good rotations of crops so as to do away with
+fallows, which was to be effected by the general use of turnips,
+beans, peas, tares, clover, &c., as preparation for white corn;
+covered drains; marling, chalking, and claying; irrigation of meadows;
+cultivation of carrots, cabbages, potatoes, sainfoin, and lucerne;
+ploughing, &c., with as few cattle as possible; the use of harness for
+oxen; cultivation of madden liquorice, hemp, and flax where
+suitable.[441] Above all, the cultivation of waste lands, which he was
+to live to see so largely effected.
+
+There was little knowledge of the various sorts of grasses at this
+time, and to Young is due the credit of introducing the cocksfoot, and
+crested dog's tail.
+
+In 1790 he contemplated retiring to France or America, so heavy was
+taxation in England. 'Men of large fortune and the poor', he said, in
+words which many to-day will heartily endorse, 'have reason to think
+the government of this country the first in the world; the middle
+classes bear the brunt.' Perhaps to-day 'men of large fortune' have
+altered their opinion and only 'the poor' are satisfied. However, he
+only visited France, and gave us his vivid picture of that country
+before the great revolution.
+
+In 1793 the Board of Agriculture was formed, and Young was made
+secretary with a salary of £400 a year.
+
+About 1810 he wrote that the preceding half-century had been by far
+the most interesting in the progress of agriculture, and ascribes the
+increase of interest in it to the publication of his _Tours_. George
+III told him he always took with him the _Farmer's Letters_. The
+improvement, Young said, had been largely due to individual effort,
+for commerce had been predominant in Parliament and agriculture had
+begun to be neglected; a statement which, seeing that Parliament was
+then almost entirely composed of landowners, must be accepted with
+some reserve.
+
+Young died in 1820, having been totally blind for some time, a
+misfortune which did not prevent him working hard. In his well-known
+_Tours_ he often had much difficulty in obtaining information, and
+confesses that he was forced to make more than one farmer drunk before
+he got anything out of him.
+
+The exodus from the country to the towns then, as so often in history,
+was noted by thinking people, but Young says it was merely a natural
+consequence of the demand for profitable employment and was not to be
+regretted; but he wrote in a time when the country population was
+still numerous, and there was little danger of England becoming, what
+she is to-day, a country without a solid foundation, with no reservoir
+of good country blood to supply the waste of the towns.
+
+When Young began to write, the example of Townshend and his
+contemporaries was being followed on all sides, and this good movement
+was stimulated by Young's writings. Farming was the reigning taste of
+the day. There was scarce a nobleman without his farm, most of the
+country gentlemen were farmers, and attended closely to their business
+instead of leaving it to stewards, 'who governed in matters of wheat
+and barley as absolutely as in covenants of leases,' and the squire
+delighted in setting the country a staring at the novelties he
+introduced. Even the stable and the kennel were ousted by farming from
+rural talk,[442] and citizens who breathed the smoke of London five
+days a week were farmers the other two, and many young fellows of
+small fortune who had been brought up in the country took farms, and
+the fashion was followed by doctors, lawyers, clergymen, soldiers,
+sailors, and merchants. The American and French War of 1775-83 and the
+great conflict with France from 1793 to 1815 were, however, to divert
+many of the upper classes from agriculture, for they very properly
+thought their duty was then to fight for their country; so that we
+again have numerous complaints of agents and stewards managing estates
+who knew nothing whatever about their business. It was not to be
+wondered at that all this activity brought about considerable
+progress. 'There have been,' said Young about 1770, 'more experiments,
+more discoveries, and more general good sense displayed within these
+ten years than in a hundred preceding ones,' a statement which perhaps
+did not attach sufficient importance to the work of Townshend and his
+contemporaries, and to the 'new husbandry' of Tull, which Young did
+not appreciate at its full value.[443]
+
+The place subsequently taken by the Board of Agriculture, and in our
+time by the Royal Agricultural Society, was then occupied by the
+Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce,
+which offered premiums for such objects as the cultivation of carrots
+in the field for stock, then little practised; for gathering the
+different sorts of grass seeds and keeping them clean and free from
+all mixture with other grasses, a very rare thing at that time; for
+experiments in the comparative merits of the old and new husbandry;
+for the growth of madder; £20 for a turnip-slicing machine, then
+apparently unknown, and for experiments whether rolling or harrowing
+grass land was better, 'at present one of the most disputed points of
+husbandry.'
+
+In spite of this progress, many crops introduced years before were
+unknown to many farmers. Sainfoin, cabbages, potatoes, carrots, were
+not common crops in every part of England, though every one of them
+was well known in some part or other; not more than half, or at most
+two-thirds, of the nation cultivated clover. Many, however, of the
+nobility and gentry in the north had grown cabbages with amazing
+success, lately, 30 guineas an acre being sometimes the value of the
+crop.
+
+Half the cultivated lands, in spite of the progress of enclosure for
+centuries, were still farmed on the old common-field system. When
+anything out of the common was to be done on common farms, all common
+work came to a standstill. 'To carry out corn stops the ploughs,
+perhaps at a critical season; the fallows are frequently seen overrun
+with weeds because it is seed time; in a word, some business is ever
+neglected.'[444] As for the outcry against enclosing commons and
+wastes, people forgot that the farmers as well as the poor had a right
+of common and took special care by their large number of stock to
+starve every animal the poor put on the common.[445]
+
+About the same time that Young wrote these words there appeared a
+pamphlet written by 'A Country Gentleman' on the advantages and
+disadvantages of enclosing waste lands and common fields, which puts
+the arguments against enclosure very forcibly.[446] The writer's
+opinion was that it was clearly to the landowner's gain to promote
+enclosures, but that the impropriator of tithes reaped most benefit
+and the small freeholder least, because his expenses increased
+inversely to the smallness of his allotment. As to diminution of
+employment, he reckoned that enclosed arable employed about ten
+families per 1,000 acres, open field arable twenty families, a
+statement opposed to the opinion of nearly all the agricultural
+writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is surely an
+incontestable fact that enclosed land meant much better tillage, and
+better tillage meant more labour, the excessive amount of fallow
+necessary under the common-field system, from the inability to grow
+roots except by special arrangement, is alone enough to prove this.
+The same writer admitted that common pastures, wastes, &c., employed
+only one family per 2,000 acres, but enclosed pasture five families
+per 1,000 acres, and enclosed wastes sixteen families.
+
+A 'Country Farmer', who wrote in 1786, states that many of the small
+farmers displaced by enclosures sold their few possessions and
+emigrated to America.[447] The growing manufacturing towns also
+absorbed a considerable number. That there was a considerable amount
+of hardship inflicted on small holders and commoners is certain, but
+industrial progress is frequently attended by the dislocation of
+industry and consequent distress; the introduction of machinery, for
+instance, often causing great suffering to hand-workers, but
+eventually benefiting the whole community. How many men has the
+self-binding reaping machine thrown for a time out of work? So
+enclosure caused distress to many individuals, but was for the good of
+the whole nation. The history of enclosure is really the history of
+progress in farming; the conversion of land badly tilled in the old
+common fields, and of waste land little more valuable than the
+prairies; into well-managed fruitful farms. That much of the
+common-field land when enclosed was laid down to grass is certainly
+true, and certainly inevitable if it paid best under grass.[448] No
+one can expect the holders of land naturally best suited for grass to
+keep it under tillage for philanthropic purposes. A vast number of the
+commoners too were idle thriftless beings, whose rights on a few acres
+enabled them to live a life of pilfering and poaching; and it was a
+very good thing when such people were induced to lead a more regular
+and respectable existence. The great blot on the process was that it
+made the English labourer a landless man. Compensation was given him
+at the time of enclosure in the shape of allotments or sums of money,
+but the former he was generally compelled to give up owing to the
+expense he had been put to at allotment, and the latter he often spent
+in the public-house.
+
+At this date the proprietors of large estates who wished to enclose by
+Act of Parliament, generally settled all the particulars among
+themselves before calling any meeting of the rest of the proprietors.
+The small proprietor had very little say either in regulating the
+clauses of the Act, or in the choice of commissioners. Any owner of
+one-fifth of the land, however, could negative the measure and often
+used his right to impose unreasonable clauses. It is well known that
+the legal expenses and fencing were very costly. The enclosure
+commissioners too often divided the land in an arbitrary and ignorant
+manner, and there was no appeal from them except by filing a bill in
+Chancery. Accounts were hardly ever shown by the commissioners, and if
+a proprietor refused to pay the sums levied they were empowered to
+distrain immediately. All these evils attending enclosure made many
+who were eager to benefit by it very chary in commencing it.[449]
+
+Then, as now, one of the commonest errors of farmers was that of
+taking too much land for their capital; Young considered £6 an acre
+necessary on an average, equal to more than £12 to-day; a sum which
+few farmers at any time have in hand when they take a farm. As for
+gentlemen farmers, who were then rushing into the business, they were
+warned that they had no chance of success if they kept any company or
+amused themselves with anything but their own business, unless perhaps
+they had a good bailiff.
+
+Lime, one of the most ancient of manures, was then the most commonly
+used in England, 80 to 100 loads an acre being a common dressing, but
+many farmers were very ignorant of its proper use. Marl, which to-day
+is seldom used, was considered to last for twenty years, though for
+the first year no benefit was observable, and very little the second
+and the third, its value then becoming very apparent. In the last five
+years, however, its value was nearly worn out. But it was much to be
+questioned whether marl in its best state anywhere yields an increase
+of produce equal to that which a good manuring of dung will give.[450]
+Marl was applied in huge quantities on arable and grass, and often
+made the latter look like arable land so thickly was it spread.
+
+At this date (1770) the average crops on poor, and on good land were[451]:
+
+  On land worth 5s. an acre:
+
+    Wheat                         12 bushels per acre.
+    Rye                           16    "       "
+    Barley                        16    "       "
+    Oats                          20    "       "
+    Turnips, to the value of £1.
+    Clover         "         "
+
+  On land worth 20s. an acre:
+
+    Wheat                         28 bushels per acre.
+    Barley                        40     "      "
+    Oats                          48     "      "
+    Beans                         40     "      "
+    Turnips, to the value of £3.
+    Clover         "       "
+
+The cost of cultivating the latter, which may be given in full, as it
+affords an excellent example of the price of growing various crops,
+and the methods of their cultivation at this period, was as follows:
+
+  First year, turnips:              £   s.  d.
+
+    Rent                            1   0   0
+    Tithe and 'town charges'            8   0
+    Five ploughings, @ 4s.          1   0   0
+    Three harrowings                    1   0
+    Seed                                    6
+    Sowing                                  3
+    Twice hand-hoeing                   7   0
+                                  -----------
+                                  £2   16   9
+                                  ===========
+
+It will be noticed there was no horse-hoeing.
+
+  Second year, barley:              £   s.  d.
+
+    Rent, tithe, &c.                1   8   0
+    Three ploughings                   12   0
+    Three harrowings                    1   0
+    Seed                                8   0
+    Sowing                                  3
+    Mowing and harvesting               3   0
+    Water furrowing                         6
+    Threshing, @ 1s. a quarter          5   0
+                                  -----------
+                                   £2  17   9
+                                  ===========
+
+  Third year, clover:               £   s.  d.
+
+    Rent, &c.                       1   8   0
+    Seed                                5   0
+    Sowing                                  3
+                                   ----------
+                                   £1  13   3
+                                   ==========
+
+  Fourth year,[452] wheat:          £   s.  d.
+
+    Rent, &c.                       1   8   0
+    One ploughing                       4   0
+    Three harrowings                    1   0
+    Seed                               10   0
+    Sowing                                  3
+    Water furrowing                         9
+    Thistling                           1   6
+    Reaping and harvesting              7   0
+    Threshing, @ 2s. a quarter          7   0
+                                   ----------
+                                   £2  19   6
+                                   ==========
+
+  Fifth year, beans:                £   s.  d.
+
+    Rent, &c.                       1   8   0
+    Two ploughings                      8   0
+    Seed, 2 bushels                     8   0
+    Sowing                                  6
+    Twice hand-hoeing                  12   0
+    Twice horse-hoeing                  3   0
+    Reaping and harvesting              8   0
+    Threshing                           5   0
+                                   ----------
+                                   £3  12   6
+                                   ==========
+
+  Sixth year, oats:                 £   s.  d.
+
+    Rent, &c.                       1   8   0
+    Once ploughing                      4   0
+    Two harrowings                          8
+    Four bushels of seed                6   0
+    Sowing                                  3
+    Mowing and harvesting               3   0
+    Threshing, @ 1s. a quarter          6   0
+                                   ----------
+                                   £2   7  11
+                                   ==========
+
+Good land at a high rent is always better than poor land at a low
+rent; the average profit per acre on 5s. land was then about 8s. 8d.,
+on 20s. land, 29s.
+
+Grass was much more profitable than tillage, the profit on 20 acres of
+arable in nine years amounted to £88, whereas on grass it was £212, or
+9s. 9d. an acre per annum for the former and 23s. for the latter.[453]
+Yet dairying, at all events, was then on the whole badly managed and
+unprofitable. The average cow ate 2-1/2 acres of grass, and the rent
+of this with labour and other expenses made the cost £5 a year per
+cow, and its average produce was not worth more than £5 6s. 3d.[454]
+This scanty profit was due to the fact that few farmers used roots,
+cabbages, &c., for their cows, and to their wrong management of pigs,
+kept on the surplus dairy food. By good management the nett return
+could be made as much as £4 15s. 0d. per cow.
+
+The management of sheep in the north of England was wretched. In
+Northumberland the profit was reckoned at 1s. a head, partly derived
+from cheese made from ewes' milk. The fleeces averaged 2 lb., and the
+wool was so bad as not to be worth more than 3d. or 4d. per lb.[455]
+
+Pigs could be made to pay well, as the following account testifies:
+
+Food and produce of a sow in one year (1763), which produced seven
+pigs in April and eleven in October:
+
+            DR.              £   s.  d.
+
+  Grains                        10   4
+  Cutting a litter               1   6
+  5 quarters peas            5   2   0
+  10 bushels barley          1   0   0
+  Expenses in selling[456]      11   6
+  10 bushels peas            1   6   3
+                            ----------
+                            £8  11   7
+                            ==========
+
+        CR.                 £   s.  d.
+
+  A pig                         2   3
+  A fat hog                 1   9   0
+  Another, 110 lb. wt.      1  12   9
+  Another, 116 lb. wt.      2   0   0
+  Heads                         5   3
+  3 fat hogs                6   7   0
+  1 fat hog                 2   0   0
+  10 young pigs             4  16   6
+                          -----------
+                          £18   12  9
+                            8   11  7
+                          -----------
+     Profit               £10    1  2
+                          ===========
+
+We have seen that Young thought little of the 'new husbandry'; he does
+not even give Tull the credit of inventing the drill: 'Mr. Tull
+perhaps _again_ invented it. He practised it upon an extent of ground
+far beyond that of any person preceding him: the spirit of drilling
+died with Mr. Tull and was not revived till within a few years.'[457]
+It was doubtful if 50 acres of corn were then annually drilled in
+England. Lately drilling had been revived and there were keen disputes
+as to the old and new methods of husbandry, the efficacy of the new
+being far from decided. The cause of the slow adoption of drill
+husbandry was the inferiority of the drills hitherto invented. They
+were complex in construction, expensive, and hard to procure. It
+seemed impossible to make a drill or drill plough as it was called,
+for such it then was--a combination of drill, plough, and
+harrow--capable of sowing at various depths and widths, and at the
+same time light enough for ordinary use. All the drills hitherto made
+were too light to stand the rough use of farm labourers: 'common
+ploughs and harrows the fellows tumble about in so violent a manner
+that if they were not strength itself they would drop to pieces. In
+drawing such instruments into the field the men generally mount the
+horses, and drag them after them; in passing gateways twenty to one
+they draw them against the gate post.' Some of 'these fellows' are
+still to be seen!
+
+Another defect in drilling was that the drill plough filled up all the
+water furrows, which, at a time when drainage was often neglected,
+were deemed of especial importance, and they all had to be opened
+again.
+
+Further, said the advocates of the old husbandry, it was a question
+whether all the horse-hoeings, hand-hoeings, and weedings of the new
+husbandry, though undoubtedly beneficial, really paid. It was very
+hard to get enough labourers for these operations. With more reason
+they objected to the principles of discarding manure and sowing a
+large number of white straw crops in succession, but admitted the new
+system was admirably adapted for beans, turnips, cabbages, and
+lucerne.
+
+However, there were many followers of Tull. The Author of
+_Dissertations on Rural Subjects_[458] thought the drill plough an
+excellent invention, as it saved seed and facilitated hoeing; but he
+said Tull's drill was defective in that the distances between the rows
+could not be altered, a defect which the writer claims to have
+remedied. Young's desire for a stronger drill seems to have been soon
+answered, as the same writer says the barrel drill invented by
+Du-Hamel and improved by Craik was strong, cheap, and easily managed.
+
+The tendency of the latter half of the century was decidedly in favour
+of larger farms; it was a bad thing for the small holders, but it was
+an economic tendency which could not be resisted. The larger farmers
+had more capital, were more able and ready to execute improvements;
+they drained their land, others often did not; having sufficient
+capital they were able both to buy and sell to the best advantage and
+not sacrifice their produce at a low price to meet the rent, as the
+small farmer so often did and does. They could pay better wages and so
+get better men, kept more stock and better, and more efficient
+implements. They also had a great advantage in being able by their
+good teams to haul home plenty of purchased manure, which the small
+farmer often could not do. The small tenants, who had no by-industry,
+then, as now, had to work and live harder than the ordinary labourer
+to pay their way.
+
+Young calculated as early as 1768 that the average size of farms over
+the greater part of England was slightly under 300 acres.[459] In his
+_Tour in France_ Young, speaking of the smallness of French farms as
+compared with English ones, and of the consequent great inferiority of
+French farming, says, 'Where is the little farmer to be found who will
+cover his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 to 150 tons per
+acre; who will drain his land at the expense of £2 to £3 an acre; who
+will, to improve the breed of his sheep, give 1,000 guineas for the
+use of a single ram for a single season; who will send across the
+kingdom to distant provinces for new implements and for men to use
+them? Deduct from agriculture all the practices that have made it
+flourishing in this island, and you have precisely the management of
+small farms.' In 1868 the _Report of the Commission on the Agriculture
+of France_[460] agreed with Young, noting the grave consequences of
+the excessive subdivision of land, loss of time, waste of labour,
+difficulties in rotation of crops, and of liberty of cultivation.
+
+For stocking an arable farm of 70 acres Young considered the following
+expenditure necessary, the items of which give us interesting
+information as to prices about 1770:--
+
+                                                       £    s.  d.
+
+  Rent, tithe, and town charges for first year         70   0   0
+  Household furniture                                  30   0   0
+  Wagon                                                25   0   0
+  Cart with ladders                                    12   0   0
+  Tumbril                                              10   0   0
+  Roller for broad lands (of wood)                      2   0   0
+       "     narrow   "      "                          1  15   0
+  Cart harness for 4 horses                             8  17   0
+  Plough     "     "                                    2  16   0
+  2 ploughs                                             3   0   0
+  A pair of harrows                                     1  15   0
+  Screen, bushel, fan, sieves, forks, rakes, &c.        8   0   0
+  Dairy furniture                                       3   0   0
+  20 sacks                                              2  10   0
+  4 horses                                             32   0   0
+  Wear and tear, and shoeing one year                  13   0   0
+  Keep of 4 horses from Michaelmas to May Day, @
+      2s. 6d. each a week                              14   0   0
+  5 cows                                               20   0   0
+  20 sheep                                              5  10   0
+  One sow                                                  15   0
+  One servant's board and wages for one year           15   0   0
+  A labourer's wages for one year                      20   0   0
+  Seed for first year, 42 acres, @ 11s. 6d.            24   3   0
+  Harvest labour                                        1  10   0
+                                                     ------------
+                                                     £326  11   0
+                                                     ============
+
+Or nearly £5 an acre.
+
+About the same date the _Complete English Farmer_ reckoned that the
+occupier of a farm of 500 acres (300 arable, 200 pasture), ought to
+have a capital of £1,500, and estimated that, after paying expenses
+and maintaining his family, he could put by £50 a year; 'but this
+capital was much beyond what farmers in general can attain to.'[461]
+
+The controversy of horses versus oxen for working purposes was still
+raging, and Young favoured the use of oxen; for the food of horses
+cost more, so did their harness and their shoeing, they are much more
+liable to disease, and oxen when done with could be sold for beef. One
+stout lad, moreover, could attend to 8 or 10 oxen, for all he had to
+do was to put their fodder in the racks and clean the shed; no
+rubbing, no currying or dressing being necessary. No beasts fattened
+better than oxen that had been worked. A yoke of oxen would plough as
+much as a pair of horses and carry a deeper and truer furrow, while
+they were just as handy as horses in wagons, carts, rollers, &c.
+William Marshall, the other great agricultural writer of the end of
+the eighteenth century, agreed with Young, yet in spite of all these
+advantages horses were continually supplanting oxen.
+
+Among the improvements in agriculture was the introduction of
+broad-wheeled wagons; narrow-wheeled ones were usual, and these on the
+turnpikes were only allowed to be drawn by 4 horses so that the load
+was small, but broad-wheeled wagons might use 8 horses. The cost of
+the latter was £50 against £25 for the former.[462]
+
+Young's opinion of the labouring man, like Tull's, was not a high one.
+'I never yet knew', he says, 'one instance of any poor man's working
+diligently while young and in health to escape coming to the parish
+when ill or old.' This is doubtless too sweeping. There must have been
+others like George Barwell, whom Marshall tells of in his _Rural
+Economy of the Midlands_, who had brought up a family of five or six
+sons and daughters on a wage of 5s. to 7s. a week, and after they were
+out in the world saved enough to support him in his old age. The
+majority, however, long before the crushing times of the French War,
+seem to have been thoroughly demoralized by indiscriminate parish
+relief, and habitually looked to the parish to maintain them in
+sickness and old age. Cullum[463] a few years later, remarks on the
+poor demanding assistance without the scruple and delicacy they used
+to have, and says 'the present age seems to aim at abolishing all
+subordination and dependence and reducing all ranks as near a level as
+possible.'! Idleness, drunkenness, and what was then often looked on
+with disgust and contempt, excessive tea-drinking, were rife. Tea then
+was very expensive, 8s. or 10s. a lb. being an ordinary price, so that
+the poor had to put up with a very much adulterated article, most
+pernicious to health. The immoderate use of this was stated to have
+worse effects than the immoderate use of spirits. The consumption of
+it was largely caused by the deficiency of the milk supply, owing to
+the decrease of small farms; the large farmers did not retail such
+small commodities as milk and butter, but sent them to the towns so
+that the poor often went without.[464]
+
+In 1767 Young found wages differing according to the distance from
+London[465]:--
+
+                                                     s.  d.
+
+       20 miles from London they were per week      10   9
+  From 20 to 60       "       "       "              7   8
+   "   60 to 110      "       "       "              6   4
+   "  110 to 170      "       "       "              6   3
+
+Giving an average of 7s. 9d. which, however, was often exceeded as
+there was much piece-work which enabled the men to earn more.
+
+Young drew up a dietary for a labourer, his wife, and a family of
+three children, which he declared to be sufficient:--
+
+                                                         £  s.  d.
+
+  Food, 6s. per week[466]; per year                     15  12  0
+  Rent                                                   1  10  0
+  Clothes                                                2  10  0
+  Soap and candles                                       1   5  0
+  Loss of time through illness, and medicine             1   0  0
+  Fuel                                                   2   0  0
+                                                       ----------
+                                                       £23  17  0
+                                                       ==========
+
+                                                         £  s.  d.
+
+  The man's wages were, @ 1s. 3d. a day, for the year   19  10  0
+  The woman's, @ 3-3/4d. a day, for the year             4  17  6
+  The boy of fifteen could earn                          9   0  0
+  The boy of ten could earn                              4   7  6
+                                                       ----------
+                                                       £37  15  0
+                                                       ==========
+
+Which would give the family a surplus of £13 18s. 0d. a year.
+
+What the man's food should consist of is shown by a list of 'seven
+days' messes for a stout man':--
+
+                                                              s. d.
+
+  1st day.  2 lb. of bread made of wheat, rye, and
+              potatoes--'no bread exceeds it'                 2
+            Cheese, 2 oz. @ 4d. a lb                            1/2
+            Beer, 2 quarts                                    1
+  2nd day.  Three messes of soup                              2
+  3rd day.  Rice pudding                                      2-1/2
+  4th day.  1/4 lb. of fat meat and potatoes baked together   2-3/4
+            Beer                                              1
+  5th day.  Rice milk                                         2
+  6th day.  Same as first day                                 3-1/2
+  7th day.  Potatoes, fat meat, cheese, and beer              4
+                                                          ---------
+                                                          1   9-1/4
+                                                          =========
+
+As Young was a man of large practical experience we may assume that
+this, though it seems a very insufficient diet, was not unlike the
+food of some labourers at that date. However, the bread he recommends
+was not that eaten by a large number of them. Eden[467] states that in
+1764 about half the people of England were estimated to be using
+wheaten bread, and at the end of the century, although prices had
+risen greatly, he says that in the Home Counties wheaten bread was
+universal among the peasant class. Young, indeed, acknowledges that
+many insisted on wheaten bread.[468] In Suffolk, according to
+Cullum,[469] pork and bacon were the labourer's delicacies, bread and
+cheese his ordinary diet.
+
+The north of England was more thrifty than the south. At the end of
+the eighteenth century barley and oaten bread were much used there.
+Lancashire people fed largely on oat bread, leavened and unleavened;
+the 33rd Regiment, which went by the name of the 'Havercake lads', was
+usually recruited from the West Riding where oat bread was in common
+use, and was famous for having fine men in its ranks.[470] The
+labourers of the north were also noted for their skill in making soups
+in which barley was an important ingredient. In many of the southern
+counties tea was drunk at breakfast, dinner, and supper by the poor,
+often without milk or sugar; but alcoholic liquors were also consumed
+in great quantities, the southerner apparently always drinking a
+considerable amount, the northerner at rare intervals drinking deep.
+The drinking in cider counties seems always to have been worse as far
+as quantity goes than elsewhere, and the drink bills on farms were
+enormous. Marshall says that in Gloucestershire drinking a gallon
+'bottle', generally a little wooden barrel, at a draught was no
+uncommon feat; and in the Vale of Evesham a labourer who wanted to be
+even with his master for short payment emptied a two-gallon bottle
+without taking it from his lips. Even this feat was excelled by 'four
+well-seasoned yeomen, who resolved to have a fresh hogshead tapped,
+and setting foot to foot emptied it at one sitting.'[471] Yet in the
+beer-drinking counties great quantities were consumed; a gallon a day
+per man all the year round being no uncommon allowance.[472]
+
+The superior thrift of the north was shown in clothes as well as food,
+the midland and southern labourer at the end of the century buying all
+his clothes, the northerner making them almost all at home; there were
+many respectable families in the north who had never bought a pair of
+stockings, coat, or waistcoat in their lives, and a purchased coat was
+considered a mark of extravagance and pride.
+
+Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Young's dietary is that green
+vegetables are absolutely ignored. The peasant was supposed to need
+them as little as in the Middle Ages.
+
+However, Young admits that very few labourers lived as cheaply as
+this, and he found the actual ordinary budget for the same family to
+be:--
+
+                                         £   s. d.
+
+  Food, per week, 7s. 6d.; per year     19  10  0
+  Beer      "     1s. 6d.     "          3  18  0
+  Soap and candles                       1   5  0
+  Rent                                   1  10  0
+  Clothes                                2  10  0
+  Fuel                                   2   0  0
+  Illness, &c.                           1   0  0
+  Infant                                 2  12  0
+                                       ----------
+                                       £34   5  0
+                                       ==========
+
+This, with the same Income as before, left him with a surplus of £3
+10s. 0d.; but as it was not likely his wife could work all the year
+round, or that both his eldest children should be boys, it appears
+that his expenses must often have exceeded his income. This being so,
+it is not surprising that he was often drunken and reckless, and ready
+to come on the parish for relief. To labour incessantly, often with
+wife and boys, to live very poorly, yet not even make both ends meet,
+was enough to kill all spirit in any one.
+
+A great evil from which the labourer suffered was the restrictions
+thrown on him of settling in another parish. If he desired to take his
+labour to a better market he often found it closed to him. His
+marriage was discouraged,[473] because a single man did not want a
+cottage and a married one did. To ease the rates there was open war
+against cottages, and many were pulled down.[474] If a labourer in a
+parish to which he did not legally belong signified his intention of
+marrying, he immediately had notice to quit the parish and retire to
+his own, unless he could procure a certificate that neither he nor his
+would be chargeable. If he went to his own parish he came off very
+badly, for they didn't want him, and cottages being scarce he probably
+had to put up with sharing one with one or more families. Sensible men
+cried out for the total abolition of the poor laws, the worst effects
+of which were still to be felt.
+
+Yet there was a considerable migration of labour at harvest time when
+additional hands were needed. Labourers came from neighbouring
+counties, artisans left their workshops in the towns, Scots came to
+the Northern counties, Welshmen to the western, and Irishmen appeared
+in many parts; and they were as a rule supplied by a contractor.[475]
+
+London was regarded as a source of great evil to the country by
+attracting the young and energetic thither. It used, men said, to be
+no such easy matter to get there when a stage coach was four or five
+days creeping 100 miles and fares were high; but in 1770 a country
+fellow 100 miles from London jumped on a coach in the morning and for
+8s. or 10s. got to town by night, 'and ten times the boasts are
+sounded in the ears of country fools by those who have seen London to
+induce them to quit their healthy clean fields for a region of dirt,
+stink, and noise.' A prejudice might well have been entertained
+against the metropolis at this time, for it literally devoured the
+people of England, the deaths exceeding the births by 8,000 a year.
+One of the causes that had hitherto kept people from London was the
+dread of the small-pox, but that was now said to be removed by
+inoculation. Among the troubles farmers had to contend with were the
+audacious depredations caused by poachers, generally labourers, who
+swarmed in many villages. They took the farmer's horses out of his
+fields after they had done a hard day's work and rode them all night
+to drive the game into their nets, blundering over the hedges,
+sometimes staking the horses, riding over standing corn, or anything
+that was cover for partridges, and when they had sold their ill-gotten
+game spent the money openly at the nearest alehouse. Then they would
+go back and work for the farmers they had robbed, drunk, asleep, or
+idle the whole day. The subscription packs of foxhounds were also a
+great nuisance, many of the followers being townsmen who bored through
+hedges and smashed the gates and stiles, conduct not unknown to-day.
+In spite of these drawbacks the long period of great abundance from
+1715 to 1765 and the consequent cheapness of food with an increase of
+wages was attended with a great improvement in the condition and habits
+of the people. Adam Smith refers to 'the peculiarly happy circumstances
+of the country'; Hallam described the reign of George II as 'the most
+prosperous period that England has ever experienced'[476]; and it was
+Young's opinion about 1770 that England was in a most rich and
+flourishing situation, 'her agriculture is upon the whole good and
+spirited and every day improving, her industrious poor are well fed,
+clothed, and lodged at reasonable rates, the prices of all necessaries
+being moderate, our population increasing, the price of labour
+generally high.'[477] The great degree of luxury to which the country
+had arrived within a few years 'is not only astonishing but almost
+dreadful to think of. Time was when those articles of indulgence which
+now every mechanic aims at the possession of were enjoyed only by the
+baron or lord.'[478] Great towns became the winter residence of those
+who could not afford London, and the country was said to be everywhere
+deserted, an evil largely attributed to the improvement of posting and
+coaches. The true country gentleman was seldom to be found, the
+luxuries of the age had softened down the hardy roughness of former
+times and the 'country, like the capital, is one scene of dissipation.'
+The private gentleman of £300 or £400 a year must have his horses,
+dogs, carriages, pictures, and parties, and thus goes to ruin. The
+articles of living, says the same writer, were 100 per cent. dearer
+than some time back. This is a very different picture from that in
+which Young represents every one rushing into farming, but no doubt
+depicts one phase of national life.
+
+An excellent observer[479] noticed in 1792 that the preceding forty or
+fifty years had witnessed the total destruction in England of the once
+common type of the small country squire. He was:--
+
+     'An independent gentleman of £300 per annum who commonly
+     appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver buttons, a
+     jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels never
+     exceeded the distance of the county town, and that only at
+     assize or session time, or to attend an election. Once a week
+     he commonly dined at the next market town with the attorneys
+     and justices. He went to church regularly, read the weekly
+     journal, settled the parochial disputes, and afterwards
+     adjourned to the neighbouring alehouse, where he generally got
+     drunk for the good of his country. He was commonly followed by
+     a couple of greyhounds and a pointer, and announced his arrival
+     at a neighbour's house by smacking his whip and giving a view
+     halloo. His drink was generally ale, except on Christmas Day,
+     the Fifth of November, or some other gala day, when he would
+     make a bowl of strong brandy. The mansion of one of these
+     squires was of plaster striped with timber, not unaptly called
+     callimanco work, or of red brick with large casemented bow
+     windows; a porch with seats in it and over it a study: the
+     eaves of the house well inhabited by swallows, and the court
+     set round with hollyhocks; near the gate a horse-block for
+     mounting. The hall was furnished with flitches of bacon, and
+     the mantelpiece with guns and fishing-rods of different
+     dimensions, accompanied by the broadsword, partisan, and dagger
+     borne by his ancestor in the Civil Wars. Against the wall was
+     posted King Charles's _Golden Rules_, Vincent Wing's _Almanac_
+     and a portrait of the Duke of Marlborough; in his window lay
+     Baker's _Chronicle_, Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_, Glanvill _On
+     Apparitions_, Quincey's _Dispensatory_, _The Complete Justice_,
+     and a _Book of Farriery_. In a corner by the fireside stood a
+     large wooden two-armed chair with a cushion, and within the
+     chimney corner were a couple of seats. Here at Christmas he
+     entertained his tenants, assembled round a glowing fire made of
+     the roots of trees; and told and heard the traditionary tales
+     of the village about ghosts and witches while a jorum of ale
+     went round. These men and their houses are no more.'
+
+The farmer, in some parts at all events, was becoming a more civilized
+individual; the late race had lived in the midst of their enlightened
+neighbours like beings of another order[480]; in their personal labour
+they were indefatigable, in their fare hard, in their dress homely, in
+their manners rude. The French and American War of 1775-83 was a very
+prosperous time, and the farmer's mode of living greatly improved.
+Farmhouses in England, it was noticed, were in general well furnished
+with every convenient accommodation. Into many of them a 'barometer
+had of late years been introduced'. The teapot and the mug of ale
+jointly possessed the breakfast table, and meat and pudding smoked on
+the board every noon. Formerly one might see at church what was the
+cut of a coat half a century ago, now dress was spruce and
+modern.[481] As a proof of the spirit of improvement among farmers,
+Marshall instances the custom in the Midlands of placing their sons as
+pupils on other farms to widen their experience. 'Their entertainments
+are as expensive as they are elegant, for it is no uncommon thing for
+one of these new-created farmers to spend £10 or £12, at one
+entertainment, and to have the most expensive wines; to set off the
+entertainment in the greatest splendour an elegant sideboard of plate
+is provided in the newest fashion.'[482] As to dress, no one could
+tell the farmer's daughter from the duke's. Marshall noticed that in
+Warwickshire the harness of the farmer's teams was often ridiculously
+ornamented, and the horses were overfed and underworked to save their
+looks. Before enclosure the farmer entertained his friends with bacon
+fed by himself, washed down with ale brewed from his own malt, in a
+brown jug, or a glass if he was extravagant. He wore a coat of woollen
+stuff, the growth of his own flock, spun by his wife and daughters,
+his stockings came from the same quarter, so did the clothes of his
+family.
+
+Some of these farmers were doing their share in helping the progress
+of agriculture. In 1764 Joseph Elkington, of Princethorpe in
+Warwickshire, was the first to practise the under drainage of sloping
+land that was drowned by the bursting of springs. He drained some
+fields at Princethorpe which were very wet, and dug a trench 4 or 5
+feet deep for this purpose; but finding this did not reach the
+principal body of subjacent water, he drove an iron bar 4 feet below
+the bottom of his trench and on withdrawing it the water gushed out.
+He was thus led to combine the system of cutting drains, aided when
+necessary by auger holes. His main principles were three: (1) Finding
+the main spring, or cause of the mischief. (2) Taking the level of
+that spring and ascertaining its subterranean bearings, for if the
+drain is cut a yard below the line of the spring the water issuing
+from it cannot be reached, but on ascertaining the line by levelling
+the spring can be cut effectually. (3) Using the auger to tap the
+spring when the drain was not deep enough for the purpose.[483] It was
+owing to the Board of Agriculture at the end of the century that he
+obtained the vote of £1,000 from Parliament, and a skilful surveyor
+was appointed to observe his methods and give them to the public, for
+he was too ignorant himself to give an intelligible account of his
+system. After the publication of the report his system was followed
+generally until Smith of Deanston in 1835 gave the method now in use
+to his country.
+
+Robert Bakewell, who did more to improve live stock than any other
+man, was born at Dishley, Leicestershire, in 1735, and succeeding to
+the management of his father's farm in 1760 began to make experiments
+in breeding.[484] He scorned the old idea that the blood must be
+constantly varied by the mixture of different breeds, and his new
+system differed from the old in two chief points: (1) small versus
+large bone, and consequently a greater proportion of flesh and a
+greater tendency to fatten; (2) permissible in-breeding versus
+perpetual crossing with strange breeds. He took immense pains in
+selecting the best animals to breed from, and had at Dishley a museum
+of skeletons and pickled specimens for the comparison of one
+generation with another, and he conducted careful post-mortem
+examinations on his stock. His great production was the new Leicester
+breed of sheep,[485] which in half a century spread over every part of
+the United Kingdom, as well as to Europe and America, and gave England
+2 lb. of meat where she had one before. Sheep at this time were
+divided into two main classes: (1) short-woolled or field sheep, fed
+in the open fields; (2) long-woolled or pasture sheep, fed in
+enclosures. That they were not at a very high state of perfection may
+be gathered from this description of the chief variety of the latter,
+the 'Warwickshire' breed: 'his frame large and loose, his bones heavy,
+his legs long and thick, his chine as well as his rump as sharp as a
+hatchet, his skin rattling on his ribs like a skeleton covered with
+parchments.' The origin of the new Leicester sheep is uncertain, but
+apparently the old Lincoln breed was the basis of it, though this,
+like other large breeds of English sheep, was itself an introduction
+of the last half century. The new sheep was described as having a
+clean head, straight broad flat back, barrel-like body, fine small
+eyes, thin feet, mutton fat, fine-grained and of good flavour, wool 8
+lb. to the fleece, and wethers at two years old weighed from 20 to 30
+lb. a quarter.
+
+By 1770 his rams were hired for 25 guineas a season, and soon after he
+made £3,000 a year by their hire, one named 'Two-pounder' bringing him
+1,200 guineas in one year.
+
+One of his theories was that the poorer the land the more it demanded
+well-made sheep, which is no doubt true to a certain extent; but it
+has been proved conclusively since that the quality of the breed
+gradually drops to the level of the land unless artificially assisted.
+At his death he left two distinct breeds of sheep, for he improved on
+his own new Leicester, so that the improved became the 'New Leicester'
+and the former the 'Old Leicester.' However, at the time and,
+afterwards, his sheep were generally called 'New Leicesters', and
+sometimes the 'Dishley breed'. There was much prejudice among farmers
+against the new breed; in the Midlands most of the farmers would have
+nothing to do with them, and 'their grounds were stocked with
+creatures that would disgrace the meanest lands in the kingdom.' Yet
+in April, 1786, yearling wethers of the new breed were sold for 28s.
+while those of the old were 16s.
+
+The cattle which he set to work to improve were the famous old longhorn
+breed, the prevailing breed of the Midlands, which had already been
+considerably improved by Webster of Canley in Warwickshire, and
+others, especially in Lancashire and the north. The kind of cattle
+esteemed hitherto had been 'the large, long-bodied, big-boned, coarse,
+flat-sided kind, and often lyery or black-fleshed.'[486] He founded
+his herd upon two heifers of Webster's and a bull from Westmoreland,
+and from these bred all his cattle. The celebrated bull 'Twopenny' was
+a son of the Westmoreland bull and one of these heifers, who came to
+be celebrated in agricultural history as 'Old Comely', for she was
+slaughtered at the age of twenty-six. He bred his cattle so that they
+produced an enormous amount of fat, as hitherto there had been a
+difficulty in producing animals to fatten readily; but this he pushed
+to too great an extreme, so that there has been a reaction. The
+following is a description of a six-year-old bull, got by 'Twopenny'
+out of a Canley cow: 'His head, chest, and neck remarkably fine and
+clean; his chest extraordinarily deep; his brisket bearing down to his
+knees; his chine thin, loin narrow at the chine, but remarkably wide
+at the hips. Quarters long, round bones snug, but thighs rather full
+and remarkably let down. The carcase throughout, chine excepted,
+large, roomy, deep, and well spread.'[487] The new longhorn, however
+good for the grazier, was not a good milker. Bakewell was a great
+believer in straw as a food, and strongly objected to having it
+trodden into manure; his beasts were largely fed on it, in such small
+quantities that they greedily ate what was before them and wasted
+little. His activity was not confined to the breeding of cattle and
+sheep, for he also produced a breed of black horses, thick and short
+in the body, with very short legs and very powerful, two ploughing 4
+acres a day, a statement which seems much exaggerated; and was famous
+for his skill in irrigating meadows, by which he could cut grass four
+times a year. He was a firm believer in the wisdom of treating stock
+gently and kindly, and his sheep were kept as clean as racehorses. A
+visitor to Dishley saw a bull of huge proportions, with enormous
+horns, led about by a boy of seven. He travelled much, and admired the
+farms of Norfolk most in England, and those of Holland and Flanders
+abroad, founding his own system on these. It was his opinion that the
+Devon breed of cattle were incapable of improvement by a cross of any
+other breed, and that from the West Highland heifer the best breed of
+cattle might be produced.
+
+He died in 1795, and apparently did not keep what he made, owing
+largely to his boundless hospitality, which had entertained Russian
+princes, German royal dukes, English peers, and travellers from all
+countries. His breed of cattle has completely disappeared, unless
+traces survive in the lately resuscitated longhorn breed, but his
+principles are still acted upon, viz. the correlation of form, and the
+practice of consanguineous breeding under certain conditions.
+
+Bakewell's earliest pupil was George Culley, who devoted himself to
+improving the breed of cattle, and became one of the most famous
+agriculturists at the end of the eighteenth and the commencement of
+the nineteenth centuries. Another farmer to whom English agriculture
+owes much was John Ellman of Glynde, born in 1753, who by careful
+selection firmly established the reputation of the Southdown sheep
+which had previously been hardly recognized. He was one of the
+founders of the Smithfield Cattle Show in 1793, which helped
+materially to improve the live stock of the country.
+
+The relations between landlord and tenant, judging from the accounts
+of contemporary writers, were generally good. Leases were less
+frequent than agreements voidable by six months' notice on either
+side, and when there was a tenancy-at-will the tenant who entered as a
+young man was often expected to hand on the holding to his posterity,
+and therefore executed improvements at his own cost, so complete was
+the trust between landlord and tenant. Tenants then did much that they
+would refuse to do to-day, as the following lease, common in the
+Midlands in 1786, shows[488]:
+
+  Tenant agrees to take, &c., and to pay the stipulated rent
+    within forty days, without any deduction for taxes, and
+    double rent so long as he continues to hold after notice
+    given.
+
+  To repair buildings, accidents by fire excepted.
+
+  To repair gates and fences.
+
+  When required, to cut and plash the hedges, and make the
+    ditches 3 feet by 2 feet, or pay or cause to be paid to
+    the landlord 1s. per rood for such as shall not be done
+    after three months' notice has been given in writing.
+
+  Not to break up certain lands specified in the schedule,
+    'under £20 an acre.'
+
+  Not to plough more than a specified number of acres of the
+    rest of the land in any one year, under the same penalty.
+
+  To forfeit the same sum for every acre that shall be ploughed
+    for any longer time than three crops successively, without
+    making a clean summer fallow thereof after the third
+    crop.
+
+  And the like sum for every acre over and above a specified
+    number (clover excepted) that shall be mown in any one
+    year.
+
+  At the time of laying down arable lands to grass he shall
+    manure them with 8 quarters of lime per acre, and sow
+    the same with 12 lb. of clover seeds, and one bushel of
+    rye-grass per acre.
+
+  Shall spend on the premises all hay, straw, and manure, or
+      leave them at the end of the term.
+
+  Tenant on quitting to be allowed for hay left on the premises,
+      for clover and rye-grass sown in the last year, and for all
+      fallows made within that time.'[489]
+
+A striking picture of the conditions prevailing in many parts of
+England at this period is given by Mr. Loch in his account of the
+estates of the Marquis of Stafford.[490] When this nobleman inherited
+his property in Staffordshire and Shropshire, much of the land, as in
+other parts of England, was held on leases for three lives, a system
+said to have been ruinous in its effects. Although the farms were held
+at one-third of their value, nothing could be worse than the course of
+cultivation pursued, no improvements were carried out, and all that
+could be hoped for was that the land would not be entirely run out
+when the lease expired. The closes were extremely small and of the
+most irregular shape; the straggling fences occupied a large portion
+of the land; the crookedness of the ditches, by keeping the water
+stagnant, added to, rather than relieved, the wetness of the soil.
+Farms were much scattered, and to enable the occupiers to get at their
+land, lanes wound backwards and forwards from field to field, covering
+a large quantity of ground.
+
+It is to the great credit of the Marquis of Stafford that this
+miserable state of things was swept away. Lands were laid together,
+the size of the fields enlarged, hedges and ditches straightened, the
+drainage conducted according to a uniform plan, new and substantial
+buildings erected, indeed the whole countryside transformed.
+
+Another evil custom on the estate had been to permit huts of miserable
+construction to be erected to the number of several hundreds by the
+poorest, and in many instances the most profligate, of the population.
+They were not regularly entered in the rental account, but had a
+nominal payment fixed upon them which was paid annually at the court
+leet. These cottages were built on the sides of the roads and on the
+lord's waste, which was gradually absorbed by the encroachment, which
+the occupiers of these huts made from time to time by enclosing the
+land that lay next them. These wretched holdings gradually fell into
+the hands of a body of middlemen, who underlet them at an extravagant
+rent to the occupiers; and these men began to consider that they had
+an interest independent of the landlord, and had at times actually
+mortgaged, sold, and devised it. This abuse was also put an end to,
+the cottagers being made immediate tenants of the landlord, to their
+great gain, but to this day small aggregations of houses in Shropshire
+called 'Heaths' mark the encroachments of these squatters on the
+roadside wastes. This class, indeed, has been well known in England
+since the Middle Ages. Norden speaks of them in 1602, and so do many
+subsequent writers. Numbers of small holdings exist to-day obtained in
+this manner, and the custom must to some extent have counteracted the
+effect of enclosure.[491]
+
+The roads of England up to the end of the eighteenth century were
+generally in a disgraceful condition. Some improvement was effected in
+the latter half of the century, but it was not until the days of
+Telford and Macadam that they assumed the appearance with which we are
+familiar; and long after that, though the main roads were excellent,
+the by-roads were often atrocious, as readers of such books as
+_Handley Cross_, written in the middle of the nineteenth century, will
+remember.
+
+Defoe in his tour in 1724 found the road between S. Albans and
+Nottingham 'perfectly frightful,' and the great number of horses
+killed by the 'labour of these heavy ways a great charge to the
+country'. He notes, however, an improvement from turnpikes. Many of
+the roads were much worn by the continual passing of droves of heavy
+cattle on their way to London. Sheep could not travel in the winter to
+London as the roads were too heavy, so that the price of mutton at
+that season in town was high. Breeders were often compelled to sell
+them cheap before they got to London, because the roads became
+impassable for their flocks when the bad weather set in.[492]
+
+In 1734 Lord Cathcart wrote in his diary: 'All went well until I
+arrived within 3 miles of Doncaster, when suddenly my horse fell with
+a crash and with me under him. I fancied myself crushed to death. I
+slept at Doncaster and had a bad night. I was so bad all day, that I
+could get no further than Wetherby. Next day I was all right again. I
+had another terrible fall between North Allerton and Darlington, but
+was not a bit the worse.'[493]
+
+It was owing to this defective condition of the roads that the prices
+of corn still differed greatly in various localities; there would be a
+glut in one place and a deficiency in another, with no means of
+equalizing matters. To the same cause must be attributed in great
+measure the slow progress made in the improvement of agriculture. New
+discoveries travelled very slowly; the expense of procuring manure
+beyond that produced on the farm was prohibitive; and the uncertain
+returns which arose from such confined markets caused the farmer to
+lack both spirit and ability to exert himself in the cultivation of
+his land.[494] Therefore farming was limited to procuring the
+subsistence of particular farms rather than feeding the public. The
+opposition to better roads was due in great measure to the landowners,
+who feared that if the markets in their neighbourhood were rendered
+accessible to distant farmers their estates would suffer. But they
+were not alone in their opposition; in the reign of Queen Anne the
+people of Northampton were against any improvement in the navigation
+of the Nene, because they feared that corn from Huntingdon and
+Cambridge would come up the river and spoil their market.[495] Horner
+was very enthusiastic over the improvement recently effected: 'our
+very carriages travel with almost winged expedition between every town
+of consequence in the kingdom and the metropolis' and inland
+navigation was soon likely to be established in every part, in
+consequence of which the demand for the produce of the land increased
+and the land itself became more valuable and rents rose. 'There never
+was a more astonishing revolution accomplished in the internal system
+of any country'; and the carriage of grain was effected with half the
+former number of horses.
+
+It is clear, however, that he was easily satisfied, and this opinion
+must be compared with the statements of Young and Marshall, who were
+continually travelling all over England some time after it was
+written, and found the roads, in many parts, in a very bad state.
+
+Even near London they were often terrible. 'Of all the cursed roads
+that ever disgraced this kingdom in the very ages of barbarism, none
+ever equalled that from Billericay to the King's Head at Tilbury.[496]
+It is for near 12 miles so narrow that a mouse cannot pass by any
+carriage. I saw a fellow creep under his wagon to assist me to lift,
+if possible, my chaise over a hedge. The ruts are of an incredible
+depth, and everywhere chalk wagons were stuck fast till 20 or 30
+horses tacked to each drew them out one by one' Others said that
+turnpike roads were the enemies of cheapness; as soon as they opened
+up secluded spots, low prices vanished and all tended to one level.
+Owing to the work of Telford and Macadam, the high roads by the first
+quarter of the nineteenth century attained a high pitch of excellence;
+and were thronged with traffic, coaches, postchaises, private
+carriages, equestrians, carts and wagons: so animated a sight that our
+forefathers built small houses called 'gazebos' on the sides of the
+road, where they met to take tea and watch the ever varying stream. It
+should not be forgotten, too, that the inns, where numbers of horses
+put up, were splendid markets for the farmers' oats, hay, and straw.
+
+The seasons in the latter part of the eighteenth century were
+distinguished for being frequently bad. In 1774 Gilbert White wrote,
+'Such a run of wet seasons as we have had the last ten or eleven years
+would have produced a famine a century or two ago.' Owing to the
+dearness of bread in 1767 riots broke out in many places, many lives
+were lost, and the gaols were filled with prisoners.[497] 1779 was,
+however, a year of great fertility and prices were low all round:
+wheat 33s. 8d., barley 26s., oats 13s. 6d., wool 12s. a tod of 28 lb.:
+and there were many complaints of ruined farmers and distressed
+landlords. Though England was now becoming an importing country, the
+amount of corn imported was insufficient to have any appreciable
+effect on prices, which were mainly influenced by the seasons, as the
+following instance of the fluctuations caused by a single bad season
+(1782) testifies[498]:
+
+  Prices after harvest of 1781.      Prices after harvest of 1782.
+
+                         £ s. d.                             £  s. d.
+
+  Wheat, per bushel        5  0       Wheat, per bushel        10  6
+  Barley     "             2  9       Barley     "              7  2
+  Dutch oats for seed      1  8       Dutch oats for seed       3  6
+  Clover seed, per cwt. 1 11  6       Clover seed, per cwt.  5 10  0
+
+The summer of 1783 was amazing and portentous and full of horrible
+phenomena, according to White, with a peculiar haze or smoky fog
+prevailing for many weeks. 'The sun at noon looked as blank as a
+clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferruginous light on the ground
+and floors of rooms.' This was succeeded by a very severe winter, the
+thermometer on December 10 being 1° below zero; the worst since
+1739-40.
+
+In 1788 occurred a severe drought in the summer, 5,000 horned cattle
+perishing for lack of water.[499] In 1791 there was a remarkable
+change of temperature in the middle of June, the thermometer in a few
+days falling from 75° to 25°, and the hills of Kent and Surrey were
+covered with snow.
+
+We have now to deal with one of those landowners whose great example
+is one of the glories of English agriculture. Coke of Holkham began
+his great agricultural work about 1776 on an estate where, as old Lady
+Townshend said, 'all you will see will be one blade of grass and two
+rabbits fighting for that;' in fact it was little better than a rabbit
+warren. It has been said that all the wheat consumed in the county of
+Norfolk was at this time imported from abroad; but this is in direct
+contradiction to Young's assertion, already noted, that there were in
+1767 great quantities of wheat besides other crops in the county.
+Coke's estate indeed seems to have been considerably behind many parts
+of the shire when he began his farming career.[500] When Coke came
+into his estate, in five leases which were about to expire the farms
+were held at 3s. 6d. an acre; and in the previous leases they had been
+1s. 6d. an acre. We may judge of the quality of this land by comparing
+it with the average rent of 10s. which Young says prevailed at this
+time. With a view to remedy this state of things he studied the
+agriculture of other counties, and his observations thereon reveal a
+very poor kind of farming in many places: in Cheshire the rich pasture
+was wasted and the poor impoverished by sheer ignorance, in Yorkshire
+luxuriant grass was understocked, in Shropshire there were hardly any
+sheep; in his own part of Norfolk the usual rotation was three white
+straw crops and then broadcast turnips.[501] This Coke changed to two
+white crops and two years pasture, and he dug up and brought to the
+surface the rich marl which lay under the flint and sand, so that
+clover and grasses began to grow. So successful was he in this that in
+1796 he cut nearly 400 tons of sainfoin from 104 acres of land
+previously valued at 12s. an acre. He increased his flock of sheep
+from 800 worthless animals with backs as narrow as rabbits, the
+description of the Norfolk sheep of the day, to 2,500 good Southdowns.
+Encouraged by the Duke of Bedford, another great agriculturist, he
+started a herd of North Devons, and, fattening two Devons against one
+Shorthorn, found the former weighed 140 stone, the latter 110, and the
+Shorthorn had eaten more food than the two Devons. However, a single
+experiment of this kind is not very conclusive.
+
+The ploughs of Norfolk were, as in many other counties, absurdly
+over-horsed, from three to five being used when only two were
+necessary; so Coke set the example of using two whenever possible, and
+won a bet with Sir John Sebright by ploughing an acre of stiff land in
+Hertfordshire in a day with a pair of horses. He transformed the bleak
+bare countryside by planting 50 acres of trees every year until he had
+3,000 acres well covered, and in 1832 had probably the unique
+experience of embarking in a ship which was built of oak grown from
+the acorns he had himself planted.[502] Between 1776 and 1842 (the
+date of his death) he is said to have spent £536,992 on improving his
+estate, without reckoning the large sums spent on his house and
+demesne, the home farm, and his marsh farm of 459 acres. This
+expenditure paid in the long run, but when he entered upon it, it must
+have seemed very doubtful if this would be the case. A good
+understanding between landlord and tenant was the basis of his policy,
+and to further this he let his farms on long leases, at moderate
+rents, with few restrictions. When farmers improved their holdings on
+his estate the rent was not raised on them, so that the estate
+benefited greatly, and good tenants were often rewarded by having
+excellent houses built for them; so good, indeed, that his political
+opponents the Tories, whom he, as a staunch Whig detested, made it one
+of their complaints against him that he built palaces for farmhouses.
+At first he met with that stolid opposition to progress which seems
+the particular characteristic of the farmer. For sixteen years no one
+followed him in the use of the drill, though it was no new thing; and
+when it was adopted he reckoned its use spread at the rate of a mile a
+year. Yet eventually he had his reward; his estate came to command the
+pick of English tenant farmers, who never left it except through old
+age, and would never live under any other landlord. Even the Radical
+Cobbett, to whom, as to most of his party, landlords were, and are,
+the objects of inveterate hatred, said that every one who knew him
+spoke of him with affection. Coke was the first to distinguish between
+the adaptability of the different kinds of grass seeds to different
+soils, and thereby made the hitherto barren lands of his estate better
+pasture land than that of many rich counties. Carelessness about the
+quality of grasses sown was universal for a long time. The farmer took
+his seeds from his own foul hayrick, or sent to his neighbour for a
+supply of rubbish; even Bakewell derived his stock from his hayloft.
+It was not until the Society for the Encouragement of Arts offered
+prizes for clean hay seeds that some improvement was noticeable. In
+Norfolk, as in other parts of England, there was at this time a strong
+prejudice against potatoes; the villagers of Holkham refused to have
+anything to do with them, but Coke's invincible persistency overcame
+this unreasoning dislike and soon they refused to do without them.
+
+Coke was a great advocate for sowing wheat early and very thick in the
+rows, and for cutting it when ear and stem were green and the grain
+soft, declaring that by so doing he got 2s. a quarter more for it; he
+also believed in the early cutting of oats and peas. It was his custom
+to drill 4 bushels of wheat per acre, which he said prevented
+tillering and mildew. He was the first to grow swedes on a large
+scale.[503] The famous Holkham Sheep-shearings, known locally as
+'Coke's Clippings', which began in 1778 and lasted till 1821, arose
+from his practice of gathering farmers together for consultation on
+matters agricultural, and developed into world-famous meetings
+attended by all nationalities and all ranks, men journeying from
+America especially to attend them, and Lafayette expressed it as one
+of his great regrets that he had never attended one. At these
+gatherings all were equal, the suggestion of the smallest tenant
+farmer was listened to with respect, and the same courtesy and
+hospitality were shown to all whether prince or farmer. At the last
+meeting in 1821 no less than 7,000 people were present. His skill,
+energy, and perseverance worked a revolution in the crops; his own
+wheat crops were from 10 to 12 coombs an acre, his barley sometimes
+nearly 20. The annual income of timber and underwood was £2,700, and
+from 1776 to 1816 he increased the rent roll of his estate from £2,200
+to £20,000, which, even after allowing for the great advance in prices
+during that period, is a wonderful rise. It is a very significant fact
+that there was not an alehouse on the estate, and in connexion with
+this, and with the fact that his improvements made a constant demand
+for labour, we are not surprised to learn that the workhouse was
+pulled down as useless, for it was always empty, and this at a time
+when the working-classes of England were pauperized to an alarming
+degree. The year 1818 was one of terrible distress all over England in
+country and town, yet at his sheep-shearing of that year Coke was
+enabled to say he had trebled the population of his estate and not a
+single person was out of employment, though everywhere else farmers
+were turning off hands and cutting down wages. Principally through his
+agency, between 1804 and 1821, no less than 153 enclosures took place
+in Norfolk, while between 1790 and 1810, 2,000,000 acres of waste land
+in England were brought under cultivation largely by his efforts. He
+is said, indeed, to have transformed agriculture throughout England,
+and, but for that, the country would not have been able to grow enough
+food for its support during the war with Napoleon, and must have
+succumbed.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[440] _Northern Tour_, i. 9. For an interesting account of Young, see
+_R.A.S.E. Journal_ (3rd Series), iv. 1.
+
+[441] In 1726 Bradley had urged the use of liquorice, madder, woad,
+and caraway as improvers of the land in the Preface to the _Country
+Gentleman_.
+
+[442] _Rural Economy_ (1771), pp. 173-5. Trusler, who wrote in 1780,
+mentions 'the general rage for farming throughout the
+kingdom.'--_Practical Husbandry_, p. I.
+
+[443] In 1780 Sir Thomas Bernard, travelling through Northumberland,
+saw 'luxuriant plantations, neat hedges, rich crops of corn,
+comfortable farmhouses' in a county whereof the greater part was
+barren moor dearly rented at 1s. 6d. an acre thirty years before, and
+he said the county had increased in annual value fourfold,
+(Contemporary MS., unpublished.)
+
+[444] _Rural Economy_, p. 26.
+
+[445] _Farmer's Letters_ (3rd ed.), p. 89.
+
+[446] Slater, _English Peasantry and Enclosure_, p. 95.
+
+[447] Ibid. p. 101.
+
+[448] Young, _Northern Tour_, iv. 340, about 1770 estimates the
+cultivated land of England to be half pasture and half arable, and, in
+the absence of reliable statistics, his opinion on this point is
+certainly the best available. The conversion of a large portion of the
+richer land from arable to grass in the eighteenth century was
+compensated for, according to Young, by the conversion, on enclosure,
+of poor sandy soils and heaths or moors into corn land. Hasbach, _op.
+cit._ pp. 370-1.
+
+[449] Young, _Northern Tour_, i. 222.
+
+[450] _Rural Economy_, p. 252.
+
+[451] Ibid. p. 271.
+
+[452] Cf. above, p. 180.
+
+[453] _Farmer's Letters_ (3rd ed), p. 372.
+
+[454] _Northern Tour_, iv. 167.
+
+[455] Ibid. iv. 186.
+
+[456] This large item is explained by the fact that a bailiff was
+employed to sell, and no bailiff could find customers 'without feeling
+the same drought as stage coachmen when they see a sign'.--Young,
+_Farmer's Letters_, p. 403.
+
+[457] _Rural Economy_, p. 314.
+
+[458] 1775, pp. x-xiii.
+
+[459] _Northern Tour_, iv. 192-202.
+
+[460] See _Parliamentary Reports Commission_ (1881), xvi. 260.
+
+[461] _Dissertations on Rural Subjects_, p. 278.
+
+[462] _Farmer's Letters_, p. 433.
+
+[463] _History of Hawsted_, p. 169.
+
+[464] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 127; Kent, _Hints to Gentlemen_, p. 152.
+
+[465] _Southern Tour_, p. 324. He says nothing of the manufacturing
+towns, which had not yet began to influence the wages of farm
+labourers near them as they soon afterwards did.
+
+[466] Some prices at this time were: bread per lb., 2d.; butter,
+5-1/2d. to 8d.; cheese, 3-1/2d. to 4d.; beef, 3d. to 5d.; mutton,
+3-1/2d. to 5d.
+
+[467] _State of the Poor_, i. 562.
+
+[468] According to Walter Harte, though the yeoman in the middle of
+the seventeenth century ate bread of rye and barley (maslin), in 1766
+even the poor cottagers looked upon it with horror and demanded best
+wheaten bread. Yet in 1766 the quartern loaf in London was 1s.
+6d.--Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 68.
+
+[469] _History of Hawsted_, p. 184.
+
+[470] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 513.
+
+[471] _Rural Economy of Gloucestershire_, i. 53.
+
+[472] Eden, _op. cit._ i. 547.
+
+[473] _Farmer's Letters_, i. 300
+
+[474] The pulling down of cottages began to be complained of in the
+seventeenth century; they harboured the poor, who were a charge upon
+the parish, and repairs were saved.--_Transactions Royal Historical
+Society_ (New Series), xix. 120.
+
+[475] Hasbach, _op. cit._ 82; Clarke, _General View of Herefordshire_,
+p. 29; Marshall, _Review of Northern Department_, p. 375.
+
+[476] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 50; Hallam, _Constitutional
+History_, iii. 302.
+
+[477] _Northern Tour_, iv. 420. The increase in population in the
+first half of the eighteenth century was slow; after the Peace of
+Paris in 1763, when the commerce and manufactures of the country were
+extended in an unprecedented degree, it was rapid.
+
+[478] _The Way to be Rich and Respectable_, London, 1780.
+
+[479] Grose, _Olio_, pp. 41-4; Lecky, _History of England in
+Eighteenth Century_, vi. 169 et. seq.
+
+[480] Cullum, _History of Hawsted_, p. 219.
+
+[481] Cullum, _History of Hawsted_, p. 225.
+
+[482] _Thoughts on Enclosure, by a Country Farmer_ (1786), p. 21.
+
+[483] Johnstone, _Account of Elkington's Draining_ (1797), pp. 8-9.
+
+[484] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1894), p. 11, from which this account of
+Bakewell is mainly taken.
+
+[485] According to some, Joseph Allom originated the breed, and
+Bakewell vastly improved it. We may safely give the chief credit to so
+careful and gifted a breeder as Bakewell.
+
+[486] _Culley on Live Stock_ (1807), p. 56.
+
+[487] Marshall, _Rural Economy of the Midland Counties_, i. 273.
+
+[488] _Victoria County History: Warwickshire, Agriculture_.
+
+[489] In Lancashire at this date it was not uncommon, when a tenant
+wished for his farm or a particular field to be improved by draining,
+marling, liming, or laying down to grass, to hand it over to the
+landlord for the process; who, when completed, returned it to the
+tenant with an advanced rent of 10 per cent. upon the
+improvements.--Marshall, _Review of Reports to Board of Agriculture_
+(under Lancashire).
+
+[490] 1820, p. 173 et seq.
+
+[491] See Hasbach, _op. cit._ pp. 77 sq.; _Annals of Agriculture_,
+xxxvi. 497; Scrutton, _Commons and Common Fields_, p. 139.
+
+[492] Defoe, _Tour_, ii. 178 et seq.
+
+[493] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (3rd Ser.), ii. 9.
+
+[494] Horner, _Inquiry into the Means of Preserving the Public Roads_
+(1767), pp. 4 et seq.
+
+[495] _Victoria County History: Northants._, ii. 250.
+
+[496] Young, _Southern Tour_ (ed. 2), p. 88.
+
+[497] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 68. It is difficult to understand
+the price of the quartern loaf, 1s. 6d. in 1766, as wheat was only
+43s. 1d. a quarter. Prices of wheat in these years were:
+
+            s.  d.
+
+     1767   47  4
+     1768   53  9
+     1769   40  7
+     1770   43  6
+     1771   47  2
+     1772   50  8
+     1773   51  0
+     1774   52  8
+     1775   48  4
+     1776   38  2
+     1777   45  6
+     1778   42  0
+     1779   33  8
+
+These returns differ from those of the Board of Agriculture; see
+Appendix III.
+
+[498] _Annals of Agriculture_, iii. 366.
+
+[499] Baker, _Seasons and Prices_, pp. 224 et seq.
+
+[500] A. Stirling, _Coke of Holkham_, i. 249.
+
+[501] But in other parts of it the cultivation of turnips was well
+understood, for the _Complete Farmer_, s.v. _Turnips_ (ed. 3), says
+that about 1750 Norfolk farmers boasted that turnips had doubled the
+value of their holdings, and Norfolk men were famous for understanding
+hoeing and thinning, which were little practised elsewhere. Further,
+Young, _Southern Tour_, p. 273, says: 'the extensive use of turnips is
+known but little of except in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. I found no
+farmers but in these counties that understood anything of fatting
+cattle with them; feeding lean sheep being the only use they put them
+to.'
+
+[502] A. Stirling, _op. cit._ i. 264.
+
+[503] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1895), p. 12.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+1793-1815
+
+THE GREAT FRENCH WAR.--THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.--HIGH PRICES, AND
+HEAVY TAXATION.
+
+
+This period, that of the great war with France, was one generally of
+high prices and prosperity for landowners and farmers. It was a
+prosperity, however, that was largely fictitious, and when the high
+prices of the war time were over, it was succeeded by many disastrous
+years. The prosperity, too, was also largely neutralized by a crushing
+weight of taxation and rates, while the labourer, although his wages
+were increased, found prices grow at a much greater rate, and it was,
+as Thorold Rogers has said, the most miserable period in his history.
+
+Its commencement was marked by the foundation of the Board of
+Agriculture. On May 15, 1793, Sir John Sinclair[504] moved in the
+House of Commons, 'that His Majesty would take into his consideration
+the advantages which might be derived from the establishment of such a
+board, for though in some particular districts improved methods of
+cultivating the soil were practised, yet in the greatest part of these
+kingdoms the principles of agriculture are not sufficiently
+understood, nor are the implements of husbandry or the stock of the
+farmer brought to that perfection of which they are capable. His
+Majesty's faithful Commons were persuaded that if it were founded a
+spirit of improvement might be encouraged, which would result in
+important national benefits.
+
+The motion was carried by 101 to 26. By its charter the board
+consisted of a president, 16 ex-officio and 30 ordinary members, with
+honorary and corresponding members. It was not a Government department
+in the modern sense of the term, but a society for the encouragement
+of agriculture, as the Royal Society is for the encouragement of
+science. It was, indeed, supported by parliamentary grants, receiving
+a sum of £3,000 a year, but the Government had only a limited control
+over its affairs through the ex-officio members, among whom were the
+Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Lord Chancellor, the First
+Lord of the Admiralty, and the Speaker.
+
+The first president was Sir John Sinclair, and the first secretary
+Arthur Young, with a salary of £400 a year, which he thought
+insufficient.[505] The first task of the new board was that of
+preparing statistical accounts of English agriculture, and it was
+intended to take in hand the commutation of tithes, which would have
+been a great boon to farmers, with whom the prevailing system of
+collecting tithes was very unpopular; but the Primate's opposition
+stopped this. The board appointed lecturers, procured a reward for
+Elkington for his draining system, encouraged Macadam in his plans for
+improving roads, and Meikle the inventor of the thrashing machine, and
+obtained the removal of taxes on draining tiles, and other taxes
+injurious to agriculture. It also recommended the allotment system,
+and Sinclair desired 3 acres and a cow for every industrious cottager.
+During the abnormally high prices of provisions from 1794-6, the
+quartern loaf in London in 1795 being 1s. 6d., though next year it
+dropped to 7-3/4d.,[506] the board made experiments in making bread
+with substitutes for wheat, which resulted in a public exhibition of
+eighty different sorts of bread. Its efforts were generally followed
+by increased zeal among agriculturists; but Sinclair, an able but
+impetuous man,[507] appears to have taken things too much into his own
+hands and pushed them too speedily.
+
+Financial difficulties came, chiefly owing to the cost of the surveys,
+which had been hurried on with undue haste and often with great
+carelessness, the surveyors sometimes being men who knew nothing of
+the subject.
+
+Sinclair was deposed from the presidency in 1798, and succeeded by
+Lord Somerville. He again was succeeded by Lord Carrington, under
+whose presidency the board offered premiums (the first of £200), owing
+to the high price of wheat and consequent distress, for essays on the
+best means of converting certain portions of grass land into tillage
+without exhausting the soil, and of returning the same to grass, after
+a certain period, in an improved state, or at least without injury.
+The general report, based on the information derived from these
+essays, states that no high price of corn or temporary distress would
+justify the ploughing up of old meadows or rich pastures, and that on
+certain soils well adapted to grass age improves the quality of the
+pasture to a degree which no system of management on lands broken up
+and laid down can equal. In spite of this, the cupidity of landowners
+and farmers, when wheat was a guinea a bushel or at prices near it,
+led to the ploughing up of much splendid grass land, which was never
+laid down again until, perhaps in recent years, owing to the low price
+of grain; so that some of the land at all events has, owing to bad
+times, returned to the state best suited to it.
+
+The board looked upon the enclosure and cultivation of waste lands,
+which in England they estimated at 6,000,000 acres,[508] as a panacea
+for the prevailing distress, and after much opposition they managed to
+pass through both Houses in 1801 a Bill cheapening and facilitating
+the process of parliamentary enclosure. This Act, 41 Geo. III, c. 109,
+'extracted a number of clauses from various private Acts and enacted
+that they should hold good in all cases where the special Act did not
+expressly provide to the contrary.' Another benefit rendered to
+agriculture was the establishment in 1803 of lectures on agricultural
+chemistry, the first lecturer engaged being Mr., afterwards Sir
+Humphry, Davy, who may be regarded as the father of agricultural
+chemistry.
+
+In 1806 Sinclair was re-elected president, and his second term was
+mainly devoted to completing the agricultural surveys of the different
+counties, which, before his retirement in 1813, he had with one or two
+exceptions the satisfaction of seeing finished. Though over-impetuous,
+he rendered valuable service to agriculture, not only by his own
+energy but by stirring up energy in others; as William Wilberforce the
+philanthrophist said, 'I have myself seen collected in that small room
+several of the noblemen and gentlemen of the greatest properties in
+the British Isles, all of them catching and cultivating an
+agricultural spirit, and going forth to spend in the employment of
+labourers, and I hope in the improvement of land, immense sums which
+might otherwise have been lavished on hounds and horses, or squandered
+on theatricals.'
+
+Among the numerous subjects into which the board inquired was the
+divining rod for finding water, which was tested in Hyde Park in 1801,
+and successfully stood the test. In 1805, Davy the chemist reported on
+a substance in South America called 'guana', which he had analysed and
+found to contain one-third of ammoniacal salt with other salts and
+carbon, but its use was not to come for another generation. From the
+time of Sinclair's retirement in 1813 the board declined. Arthur
+Young, its secretary, had become blind and his capacity therefore
+impaired. One year its lack of energy was shown by the return of
+£2,000 of the Government grant to the Treasury because it had nothing
+to spend it on. The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was against it,
+the clergy feared the commutation of tithe which the board advocated,
+the legal profession was against the Enclosure Act, the landed
+interest thought the surveys were intended for purposes of taxation;
+and the grant being withdrawn, an effort to maintain the board by
+voluntary subscription failed, so that it dissolved in 1822, after
+doing much valuable work for English agriculture.
+
+Before its extinction it had held in 1821, at Aldridge's Repository,
+the first national agricultural show. £685 was given in prizes, and
+the entries included 10 bulls, 9 cows and heifers, several fat steers
+and cows, 7 pens of Leicester and Cotswold rams and ewes; 12 pens of
+Down, and 9 or 10 pens of Merino rams and ewes.[509] Most of the
+cattle shown were Shorthorn, or Durham, as they were then called, with
+some Herefords, Devons, Longhorns, and Alderneys. There were also
+exhibits of grass, turnip-seed, roots, and implements.
+
+This first national show had been preceded by many local ones.[510]
+The end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries
+saw the establishment all over England of farmers' clubs, cattle
+shows, and ploughing matches.
+
+The period now before us is marked by the great work of the Collings,
+who next to Bakewell did most to improve the cattle of the United
+Kingdom. Charles Colling was born in 1751, and the scene of his famous
+labours was Ketton near Darlington. He had learnt from Bakewell the
+all-importance of quality in cattle, and determined to improve the
+local Shorthorn breed near his own home, which had been described in
+1744 as 'the most profitable beasts for the dairyman, butcher, and
+grazier, with their wide bags, short horns, and large bodies.' He was
+to make these 'profitable beasts' the best all-round cattle in the
+world, and to succeed where George Culley had failed. The first bull
+of merit he possessed was 'Hubback',[511] described as a little
+yellow, red, and white five-year-old, which was mated with cows
+afterwards to be famous, named Duchess, Daisy, Cherry, and Lady
+Maynard. At first Colling was against in-breeding, and not until 1793
+did he adopt it, more by accident than intention, but the experiment
+being successful he became an enthusiast. The experiment was the
+putting of Phoenix to Lord Bolingbroke, who was both her half-brother
+and her nephew, and the result was the famous Favourite. A young
+farmer who saw Favourite and his sister at Darlington in 1799, was so
+struck by them that he paid Colling the first 100 guineas ever given
+for a Shorthorn cow.[512]
+
+One of Hubback's daughters had in 1795, by Favourite, a roan calf
+which grew to be the celebrated Durham Ox, which at five and a half
+years weighed 3,024 lb., and was sold for £140. It was sold again for
+£250, the second purchaser refusing £2,000 for it, and taking it round
+England on show made a profitable business out of it, in one day in
+London making £97. A still more famous animal was the bull Comet, born
+1804, which at the great sale in 1810 fetched 1,000 guineas. This bull
+was the crowning triumph of Colling's career and the result of very
+close breeding, being described as the best bull ever seen, with a
+fine masculine head, broad and deep chest, shoulders well laid back,
+loins good, hind-quarters long, straight and well packed, thighs
+thick, with nice straight hocks and hind legs. Perhaps Colling thought
+he had pursued in-and-in breeding too far, at all events in 1810 he
+dispersed his famous herd. The sale was held at a most propitious
+time, for the Durham Ox had advertised the name of Colling far and
+wide, and owing to the war prices were very high. Comet fetched 1,000
+guineas, and the other forty-seven lots averaged £151 8s. 5d., an
+unheard-of sale, yet all the auctioneer got was 5 guineas, much of the
+work of the sale falling on the owner, and the former sold the stock
+with a sand-glass.
+
+After the sale at Ketton, Brampton, the farm of Charles's brother
+Robert, became the centre of interest to the Shorthorn world. Robert
+obtained excellent prices for his stock, five daughters of his famous
+bull George fetching 200 guineas each. Probably he, like his brother,
+pursued in-and-in breeding too far, and in 1818 there was another
+great sale; but war-prices had gone and agriculture was depressed, so
+that the cattle fetched less than at Ketton, but still averaged £128
+14s. 9d. for 61 lots, and 22 rams averaged £39 6s. 4d. Robert died in
+1820, his brother in 1836.
+
+It cannot be said that the Collings were the founders of a new breed
+of cattle; they were the collectors and preservers of an ancient breed
+that might otherwise have disappeared.[513] The object of good
+breeders was now to get their cattle fat at an early age, and they so
+far succeeded as to sell three-year-old steers for £20 apiece,
+generally fed thus: in the first winter, hay and turnips; the
+following summer, coarse pasture; the second winter, straw in the
+foldyard and a few turnips; next summer, tolerable good pasture; and
+the third winter, as many turnips as they could eat.[514]
+
+Cattle at this time were classified thus: Shorthorns, Devons, Sussex,
+Herefords (the two latter said by Culley to be varieties of the
+Devon), Longhorned, Galloway or Polled, Suffolk Duns, Kyloes, and
+Alderneys.
+
+Sheep thus: the Dishley Breed (New Leicesters), Lincolns, Teeswaters,
+Devonshire Notts, Exmoor, Dorsetshire, Herefordshire, Southdown,
+Norfolk, Heath, Herdwick, Cheviot, Dunfaced, Shetland, Irish.[515]
+
+With the increased demand for corn and meat from the towns the
+necessity of new and better implements became apparent, and many
+patents were taken out: by Praed, for drill ploughs, in 1781; by
+Horn, for sowing machines, in 1784; by Heaton, for harrows, in 1787;
+for sowing machines, by Sandilands, 1788; for reaping machines, by
+Boyce, 1799; winnowing machines, by Cooch, 1800; haymakers, by Salmon,
+1816; and for scarifiers, chaff-cutters, turnip-slicers, and
+food-crushers.[516] But the great innovation was the threshing machine
+of Meikle. Like most inventions, it had forerunners. The first
+threshing machine is mentioned in the _Select Transactions of the
+Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland_,
+published in 1743 by Maxwell. It was invented by Michael Menzies, and
+by it one man could do the work of six. One machine was worked by a
+great water-wheel and triddles, another by a little wheel of 3 feet
+diameter, moved by a small quantity of water. The first attempts to
+substitute horse or other power for manual in threshing were directed
+to the revolution of jointed flails, which should strike the floor on
+which the corn was spread, but this proved unsatisfactory, so that
+rubbing the grain out of the straw by revolving cylinders was
+tried,[517] Young, in his northern tour, met a Mr. Clarke at Belford
+in Northumberland, who was famous for mechanics,[518] among his
+inventions being a threshing machine worked by one horse, which does
+not seem to have effected much. Eventually Mr. A. Meikle, of Houston
+Mill near Haddington, in 1798 erected a machine the principles of
+which, much modified, are those of to-day; and in 1803 Mr. Aitchison,
+of Drumore in East Lothian, first applied steam to threshing. It was
+some time, however, before this beneficent invention was generally
+used, and when the machines were used they were usually driven by
+horse--or water-power until about 1850. In 1883 Messrs. Howard, of
+Bedford, adapted a sheaf-binding apparatus to the threshing machine.
+With new implements came new crops; the Swede turnip was grown on some
+farms in Notts just before 1800, but it is not known who introduced
+it.[519] The mangel wurzel was introduced about 1780-5 by Parkyns, and
+prickly comfrey in 1811.
+
+The year 1795 was one of great scarcity owing to the wet and stormy
+summer, and in August wheat went up to 108s. a quarter.[520] As usual
+many other causes but the right one were put forth, and the old
+accusations of monopoly, forestalling, and regrating were heard again.
+The war with France, with more reason, was considered to have helped
+in raising prices, but the chief cause was the bad season. The members
+of both Houses of Parliament bound themselves to reduce the
+consumption of bread in their homes by one-third, and recommended
+others to a similar reduction. It was a period of terrible distress
+for the agricultural labourer. His wages were about 9s. a week, and it
+was impossible for him to live on them, so that what is known as 'the
+allowance system' came in. At Speenhamland in Berkshire, in this year,
+the magistrates agreed that it was not expedient to help the labourer
+by regulating his wages according to the statute of Elizabeth, but
+recommended the farmers to increase their pay in proportion to the
+present price of provisions, and they also granted relief to all poor
+and industrious men according to the price of bread. They were merely
+giving effect to Gilbert's Act of 1782, which legalized the
+supplementing of the wages of able-bodied men from the rates, and the
+decision was nicknamed the 'Speenhamland Act' because it was so
+generally followed. However well meant, the effect was most
+demoralizing and the English labourer, already too prone to look to
+the State for help, was induced to depend less on his own exertions.
+The real remedy would have been a substantial increase of his scanty
+wages. As it was, landowner and farmer were often paying the labourer
+in rates money that would far better have come to him in wages, and
+the rates in some districts became so burdensome that land was thrown
+out of cultivation. In the same year as the Speenhamland Act the
+statute 36 Geo. III, c. 23, forbade the removal of persons from any
+parish until they were in actual need of support; but although the law
+was thus relaxed, the fixed principle which caused the refusal of all
+permanent relief to labourers who had no settlement in the parish
+acted as a very efficient check on migration, though, as we have seen,
+it did not entirely check it. In 1796 the question of regulating the
+labourers' wages by Parliament was raised; but Pitt, remembering such
+schemes had always failed, was hostile, and the matter dropped.[521]
+In the same year Eden made his inquiries concerning the rate of wages
+and the cost of living. In Bedford, he found the agricultural labourer
+was getting 1s. 2d. a day and beer, with extras in harvest[522]; but
+bacon was 10d. a lb. and wheat 12s. a bushel. However, parish
+allowances were liberal, a man, his wife, and four children sometimes
+receiving 11s. a week from that source.
+
+In Cumberland the labourer was being paid 10d. to 1s. a day with food,
+or 1s. 6d. to 1s. 8d. without; in Hertfordshire, 1s. 6d. a day; in
+Suffolk, 1s. 4d. a day and beer.
+
+Nearly everywhere his expenditure was much in excess of his earnings,
+the yearly budgets of fifty-three families in twelve different
+counties showed generally large annual deficiencies, amounting in one
+case to £21 18s. 4d. In one case in Lindsey, where the deficiency was
+small, the family lived on bread alone. The factory system, too, had
+already deprived the labourer of many of his by-industries, and thus
+helped the pauperism for which landlord and farmer had to pay in
+rates.
+
+About 1788 Sir William Young proposed to send the unemployed labourers
+round to the parishioners to get work, their wages being paid by their
+employers and by the parish. This method of obtaining work was known
+as the 'roundsman system'.[523]
+
+Landlords, however, and farmers were profiting greatly by the high
+prices, which fortunately received a check by the abundant harvest of
+1796, which, with large imports,[524] caused the price of wheat to
+fall to 57s. 3d., and in 1798 to 47s. 10d. It is difficult to conceive
+what instability, speculation, and disaster such fluctuations must
+have led to. In 1797 the Bank Restriction Act was passed, suspending
+cash payments, and thereby causing a huge growth in credit
+transactions, a great factor in the inflated prosperity of this
+period. In January, 1799, wool was 2s. a lb., and prices at
+Smithfield:
+
+                              s. d.        s. d.
+
+  Beef, per stone of 8 lb.    3  0    to   3  4
+  Mutton      "        "      3  0     "   4  2
+  Pork        "        "      2  8     "   3  8
+
+The summer of that year was uninterruptedly wet; some corn in the
+north was uncut in November, so that wheat went up to 94s. 2d., and in
+June, 1800, was 134s. 5d., the scarcity being aggravated by the
+Russian Government laying an embargo on British shipping.[525] Yet
+Pitt denied that the high prices were due to the war.[526] They were
+due, indeed, to several causes:
+
+  1. Frequent years of scarcity.
+
+  2. Increase of consumption, owing to the great growth of
+     the manufacturing population, England during the war having
+     almost a monopoly of the trade of Europe.
+
+  3. Napoleon's obstructions to importation.
+
+  4. The unprecedented fall of foreign exchanges.
+
+  5. The rise in the price of labour, scanty as it was.
+
+  6. Suspension of cash payments, which produced a medium
+     of circulation of an unlimited nature, and led to speculation.[527]
+
+In March, 1801, wheat was 156s.; beef at Smithfield, 5s. to 6s. 6d. a
+stone; and mutton, 6s. 6d. to 8s. A rise in wages was allowed on all
+sides to be imperative, but the labourer even now got on an average
+little more than 9s. a week,[528] a very inadequate pittance, though
+generally supplemented by the parish. Arthur Young[529] tells of a
+person living near Bury in 1801, who, before the era of high prices,
+earned 5s. a week, and with that could purchase:
+
+  A bushel of wheat.
+        "      malt.
+  1 lb. of butter.
+  1 lb. of cheese.
+  A pennyworth of tobacco.
+
+But in 1801 the same articles cost him:
+
+                             s. d.
+
+  A bushel of wheat         16  0
+       "      malt           9  0
+  1 lb. of butter            1  0
+  1 lb. of cheese               4
+  Tobacco                       1
+                         --------
+                         £1  6  5
+                         ========
+
+His wages were now 9s., and his allowance from the rates 6s., so that
+there was a deficiency of 11s. 5d.
+
+The increase in the cost of living in the last thirty years is
+further illustrated by the following table:
+
+                        1773.       1793.       1799.       1800.
+                       £  s. d.    £  s. d.    £  s. d.    £  s. d.
+
+  Coomb of malt          12  0     1  3  0     1  3  0     2  0  0
+  Chaldron of coals    1 11  6     2  0  6     2  6  0     2 11  0
+  Coomb of oats           5  0       13  0       16  0     1  1  0
+  Load of hay          2  2  0     4 10  0     5  5  0     7  0  0
+  Meat, per lb.              4           5           7           9
+  Butter,  "                 6          11          11        1  4
+  Loaf sugar, per lb.        8        1  0        1  3        1  4
+  Poor rates, in the £    1  0        2  6        3  0        5  0
+
+It was again proposed by Mr. Whitbread in the House of Commons that
+wages should be regulated by the price of provisions, and a minimum
+wage fixed; but there was enough sense in the House to reject this
+return to obsolete methods.
+
+After March, 1801, prices commenced to fall, owing to a favourable
+season and the reopening of the Baltic ports, which allowed imports to
+come in more freely, for most of our foreign corn at this time came
+from Germany and Denmark. At the end of the year wheat averaged 75s.
+6d., and with fair seasons it came down in the beginning of 1804 to
+49s. 6d. Beef at Smithfield was from 4s. to 5s. 4d. a stone, mutton
+from 4s. to 4s. 6d.[530] This great drop in prices was accompanied by
+an increase in wages, the labourer from 1804 to 1810 getting on an
+average 12s. a week[531]; the cost of implements rose, so did the rate
+of interest, and the cry of agricultural distress in 1804 was heard
+everywhere. More protection was demanded by those interested in the
+land, and accordingly a duty of 24s. 3d. was imposed when the price
+was 63s. or under; a bounty was paid on export when it was 40s. or
+under; and wheat might be exported without bounty up to 54s.
+
+However, 1804 was a very deficient harvest, owing to blight and
+mildew, and by the end of the year wheat was 86s. 2d. The harvests
+till 1808 were not as bad as that of 1804, but not good enough to
+lower the prices. Also, owing to the Berlin and Milan Decrees of
+Napoleon and the Non-intercourse Act of the United States of America,
+imports were restricted so that at the end of 1808 wheat was 92s. In
+this year the exports of wheat exceeded the imports, but it was due to
+the requirements of our army in Spain; and 1789 was the last year when
+exports were greater under normal circumstances.[532] 1809 was a bad
+harvest, so was 1810; in the former rot being very prevalent among
+sheep; and by August, 1810, hay was £11 a load and wheat 116s., only
+large imports (1,567,126 quarters) preventing a famine. Down wool was
+2s. 1d. per lb., beef and mutton 8-1/2d., cheese 8d.[533]
+
+In 1811 the whole of July and part of August were wet and cold; and
+in August, 1812, wheat averaged 155s., the finest Dantzic selling at
+Mark Lane for 180s., and oats reached 84s. As our imports of corn then
+chiefly came from the north-west of Europe, which has a climate very
+similar to our own, crops there were often deficient from bad seasons
+in the same years as our own, and the price consequently high. On the
+other hand, it is a proof that produce will find the best market
+regardless of hindrances, that much of our corn at this time came from
+France. Corn in 1813 was seized on with such avidity that there was no
+need to show samples. As high prices had now prevailed for some time
+and were still rising, landlords and farmers jumped to the conclusion
+that they would be permanent; so that this is the period when rents
+experienced their greatest increase, in some cases having increased
+fivefold since 1790, and speculations in land were most general. Land
+sold for forty years' purchase, many men of spirit and adventure very
+different from farmers 'were tempted to risk their property in
+agricultural speculations',[534] and large sums were sunk in lands and
+improvements in the spirit of mercantile enterprise. The land was
+considered as a kind of manufacturing establishment, and 'such powers
+of capital and labour were applied as forced almost sterility itself
+to become fertile.' Even good pastures were ploughed up to grow wheat
+at a guinea a bushel, and much worthless land was sown with corn.
+Manure was procured from the most remote quarters, and we are told a
+new science rose up, agricultural chemistry, which, 'with much
+frivolity and many refinements remote from common sense, was not
+without great operation on the productive powers of land.'
+
+Land jobbing and speculation became general, and credit came to the
+aid of capital. The larger farmers, as we have seen, were before the
+war inclined to an extravagance that amazed their older
+contemporaries; now we are told, some insisted on being called
+esquire, and some kept liveried servants.[535]
+
+It is somewhat curious to learn that one of the drawbacks from which
+farmers suffered at this time was the ravages of pigeons, which seem
+to have been as numerous as in the Middle Ages, when the lord's
+dovecote was the scourge of the villein's crops. In 1813 there was
+said to be 20,000 pigeon houses in England and Wales, each on an
+average containing 100 pairs of old pigeons.[536]
+
+Another pest was the large number of 'vermin', whose destruction had
+long before been considered important enough to demand the attention
+of the legislature.[537] Some parishes devoted large portions of their
+funds to this object; in 1786 East Budleigh in Devonshire, out of a
+total receipt of £20 1s. 8-1/2d., voted £5 10s. for vermin killing.
+That now sacred animal the fox was then treated with scant respect,
+farmers and landlords paying for his destruction as 'vermin'[538]; the
+parish accounts of Ashburton in Devonshire, for instance, from
+1761-1820 include payments for killing 18 foxes and 4 vixens, with no
+less than 153 badgers.
+
+But the edifice of artificial prosperity was already tottering. After
+1812 prices fell steadily,[539] the abundant harvest of 1813 and the
+opening of the continental ports accelerated this, and by December,
+1813, wheat was 73s. 3d. Yet agriculture had made solid progress. The
+Committee of the House of Commons which inquired into the state of the
+corn trade in 1813 stated that through the extension of, and
+improvements in, agriculture the agricultural produce of the kingdom
+had increased one-fourth in the preceding ten years.[540] The high
+prices had attracted a large amount of capital to the land, so that
+there was very rapid and extensive progress, the methods of tillage
+were improved, large tracts of inferior pasture converted into arable,
+much, however, of which was soon to revert to weeds; there were many
+enclosures, and many fens, commons, and wastes reclaimed. But there
+was a reverse side to this picture of prosperity, even in the case of
+landlord and farmer. The burden of taxation was crushing; a
+contemporary writer, a farmer of twenty-five years standing,[541]
+wrote that, with the land tax remaining the same, there was a high
+property tax, house and window taxes were doubled, poor rates in some
+places trebled, highway, church, and constable rates doubled and
+trebled, and there were oppressive taxes on malt and horses, both nags
+and farm animals. A man renting a farm at £70 and keeping two
+farm-horses, a nag, and a dog, would pay taxes for them of £5 0s. 6d.,
+a fourteenth of his rent.[542] Indeed, poor rates of 16s. and 20s. in
+the £ were known,[543] and they were occasionally more than the whole
+rent received by the landlord forty years before. A Devonshire
+landowner complained that seven-sixteenths out of the annual value of
+every estate in the county was taken from owners and occupiers in
+direct taxes.[544] And the Committee on Agricultural Depression of
+1822 asserted that during the war taxes and rates were quadrupled.[545]
+Blacksmiths, whitesmiths, collar makers, ropers, carpenters, and many
+other tradesmen with whom the farmer dealt, raised their prices
+threefold; and it was openly asserted that the high prices of grain
+and stock were not proportionate to the increase of other prices. Much
+of the grass land broken up in the earlier years of the war was before
+the close in a miserable condition, for it was cropped year after year
+without manure, and was worn out. On the whole it may be doubted if
+the bulk of the farmers of England made large profits during the war;
+many no doubt profited by the extraordinary fluctuations in prices,
+and it was those men who 'kept liveried servants'; but there must have
+been many who lost heavily by the same means, and the rise of rent,
+taxes, rates, labour, and tradesmen's prices largely discounted the
+prices of corn and stock. The landowners at this period have generally
+been described as flourishing at the expense of the community, but
+their increased rents were greatly neutralized by the weight of
+taxation and the general rise in prices. A contemporary writer says
+that owing to the heavy taxes, even in the war time, he 'often had not
+a shilling at the end of the year.'[546]
+
+The following accounts, drawn up in 1805,[547] do not show that
+farmers were making much money with wheat at 10s. a bushel:
+
+Account of the culture of an acre of wheat on good fallow land:
+
+       Dr.                       £  s. d.
+
+  Two years' rent                2  0  0
+  Hauling dung from fold           10  0
+  Four ploughings                2  0  0
+  Two harrowings                    4  0
+  Lime                           1 18  0
+  Seed, 2-1/2 bushels            1  5  0
+  Reaping                           5  0
+  Threshing                        10  0
+  Wages                             5  0
+  Tithes and taxes                 15  0
+                                --------
+                                £9 12  0
+                                ========
+
+             Cr.                 £  s. d.
+
+  20 bushels of wheat at 10s    10  0  0
+  The straw was set against
+  the value of the dung.
+  The tailend wheat was
+  Eaten by the family!
+                               ---------
+                               £10  0  0
+                               =========
+
+And on a farm on good land in the same county the following would be
+the annual balance sheet at the same date:
+
+                      Dr.                           £   s. d.
+
+  Rent                                             200  0  0
+  Tithes                                            40  0  0
+  Wages                                             58  0  0
+  Extra harvestmen                                   7  0  0
+  Tradesmen's bills                                 50  0  0
+  Taxes and rates                                   58  0  0
+  Malt, hops, and cider                             60  0  0
+  Lime                                              20  0  0
+  Hop poles                                         10  0  0
+  Expenses at fairs and markets                      8  0  0
+  Clothing, groceries, &c., for the family          45  0  0
+  Interest on £1,500 capital, at 5 per cent.        75  0  0
+  Sundries                                          15  0  0
+                                                  ----------
+                                                  £646  0  0
+                                                  ==========
+
+                  Cr.                               £   s. d.
+
+  360 bushels of wheat, @ 10 s.                    180  0  0
+  300 bushels of barley, @ 6s.                      90  0  0
+  100 bushels of peas, @ 6s.                        30  0  0
+  20 cwt. hops                                      60  0  0
+  Sale of oxen, cows and calves                    150  0  0
+  Profits from sheep                               100  0  0
+     "    from pigs, poultry, dairy, and sundries   50  0  0
+                                                  ----------
+                                                  £660  0  0
+                                                  ==========
+
+According to this the farmer did little more than pay rent, interest
+on capital, and get a living. Yet prices of what he had to sell had
+gone up greatly: wheat in Herefordshire in 1760 was 3s. a bushel, in
+1805, 10s.; butcher's meat in 1760 was 1-1/2d. a lb., in 1804, 7d.;
+fresh butter 4-1/2d. in 1760, 1s. 3d. in 1804; a fat goose in Hereford
+market in 1740, 10d.; 1760, 1s.; 1804, 4s.; a couple of fowls in 1740,
+6d.; 1760, 7d.; 1804, 2s. 4d.[548] The winter of 1813-4 was
+extraordinarily severe, and the wheat crop was seriously injured, but
+the increased breadth of cultivation, a large surplus, and great
+importations kept the price down. Many sheep, however, were killed by
+the hard winter, which also reduced the quality of the cattle, so that
+meat was higher in 1814 than at any previous period.[549] At
+Smithfield beef was 6s. to 7s. a stone, mutton 7s. to 8s. 6d. With the
+peace of 1814 the fictitious prosperity came to an end, a large amount
+of paper was withdrawn from circulation, which lowered the price of
+all commodities, and a large number of country banks failed. The first
+sufferers were the agricultural classes, who happened at that time to
+hold larger supplies than usual, the value of which fell at once; the
+incomes of all were diminished, and the capital of many
+annihilated.[550] At the same time the demand for our manufactures
+from abroad fell off; the towns were impoverished, and bought less
+from the farmer.
+
+The short period of war in 1815 had little effect on prices, and in
+January, 1816, wheat was 52s. 6d., and the prices of live stock had
+fallen considerably. In 1815 protection reached its highest limit, the
+Act of that year prohibiting import of wheat when the price was under
+80s. a quarter, and other grain in proportion.[551] However, it was of
+no avail; and in the beginning of 1816 the complaints of agricultural
+distress were so loud and deep that the Board of Agriculture issued
+circular letters to every part of the kingdom, asking for information
+on the state of agriculture.
+
+According to the answers given, rent had already fallen on an average
+25 per cent. and agriculture was in a 'deplorable state.'[552]
+Bankruptcies, seizures, executions, imprisonments, were rife, many
+farmers had become parish paupers. Rent was much in arrear, tithes and
+poor rates unpaid, improvements generally discontinued, live stock
+diminished; alarming gangs of poachers and other depredators ranged
+the country. The loss was greater on arable than on grass land, and
+'flock farms' had suffered less than others, though they had begun to
+feel it heavily.
+
+All classes connected with the land suffered severely; the landlords
+could not get many of their rents; the farmer's stock had depreciated
+40 per cent.[553]; many labourers, who during the war had been getting
+from 15s. to 16s. a week and 18s. in summer,[554] were walking the
+country searching for employment. Many tenants threw up their farms,
+and it was often noticed that landlords, 'knowing very little of
+agriculture and taken by surprise,' could not manage the farms thrown
+on their hands, and they went uncultivated. Some farmers paid up their
+rent to date, sold their stock, and went off without any notice;
+others, less scrupulous, drove off their stock and moved their
+household furniture in the night without settling.[555]
+
+Farmers and landowners were asked to state the remedies required. Some
+asked for more rent reduction and further prohibition of import, but
+the most general cry was for the lessening of taxation.
+
+A Herefordshire farmer[556] stated that in 1815 the taxes on a farm of
+300 acres in that county were:
+
+                                                     £    s.  d.
+
+  Property tax, landlord and tenant                  95  16  10
+  Great tithes                                       64  17   6
+  Lesser tithes                                      29  15   0
+  Land tax                                           14   0   0
+  Window lights                                      24   1   6
+  Poor rates, landlord                               10   0   0
+       "      tenant                                 40   0   0
+  Cart-horse duty, landlord, 3 horses                 2  11   0
+  Two saddle horses, landlord                         9   0   0
+  Gig                                                 6   6   0
+  Cart-horse duty,[557] tenant                        7   2   0
+  One saddle horse, tenant                            2  13   6
+  Landlord's malt duty on 60 bushels of barley       21   0   0
+  Tenant's duty for making 120 bushels of
+    barley into malt                                 42   0   0
+  New rate for building shire hall, paid by landlord  9   0   0
+          "           "           "         tenant    3   0   0
+  Surcharge                                           2   8   0
+                                                   ------------
+                                                   £383  11   4
+                                                   ============
+
+The parish of Kentchurch, in Herefordshire, paid in direct taxes a
+greater sum than the lands of the whole parish could be let for.
+
+Another very general complaint was of the collection of tithe in kind,
+a most awkward and offensive method, causing great expense and waste,
+which, however, had given way in many places to compounding.
+
+Such is the picture of agriculture after twenty years of high prices
+and protection.[558] One may naturally ask, if much money had been
+made by farmers during these years, where had it all gone to that they
+were reduced at the first breath of adversity to such straits? Some
+allowance must be made for the fact that these accounts come from
+those interested in the land, who were always ready to make the most
+of misfortune with a view to further protection, and the farmer is a
+notorious grumbler. It seems, however, that most landlords and tenants
+believed that the high prices would last for ever, and lived
+accordingly, and, as we have seen, many made no profit at all because
+of their increased burdens. As a matter of fact, both were grumbling
+because prices had come back to their natural level after an unnatural
+inflation.[559]
+
+Hemp at this date was still grown in Lincolnshire and Somerset, and
+Marshall tells us that in 1803 there was a considerable quantity of
+hemp grown in Shropshire.[560] In that county there was a small plot
+of ground, called 'the hemp-yard,' appendant to almost every
+farm-house and to many of the best sort of cottages. Whenever a
+cottager had 10 or 15 perches of land to his cottage, worth from 1s.
+6d. to 2s. 6d. a year, with the aid of his wife's industry it enabled
+him to pay his rent. A peck of hempseed, costing 2s., sowed about 10
+perches of land, and this produced from 24 to 36 lb. of tow when
+dressed and fit for spinning. A dozen pounds of tow made 10 ells of
+cloth, worth generally about 3s. an ell. Thus a good crop on 10
+perches of land brought in £4 10s. 0d., half of which was nett profit.
+The hemp was pulled a little before harvest, and immediately spread on
+grass land, where it lay for a month or six weeks. The more rain there
+was the sooner it was ready to take off the grass. When the rind
+peeled easily from the woody part, it was, on a dry day, taken into
+the house, and when harvest was over well dried in fine weather and
+dressed, being then fit for the tow dresser, who prepared it for
+spinning. After the crop of hemp the land was sown with turnips, a
+valuable resource for the winter.
+
+Since 1815 little hemp or flax has been grown in England[561]; in 1907
+there were, according to the Agricultural Returns, 355 acres of flax
+grown in England, and hemp was not mentioned.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[504] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, p. 1, and 1898, p. 1.
+
+[505] _Autobiography_, p. 242.
+
+[506] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 18.
+
+[507] 'Had his industry been under the direction of a better
+judgement, he would have been an admirable president.'--Young,
+_Autobiography_, p. 316.
+
+[508] _The Report of the Committee on Waste Lands_, 1795, estimated
+wastes and commons at 7,800,000 acres, p. 221.
+
+[509] The Merino was largely imported into England by the efforts of
+George III, and a Merino Society was formed in 1811; but many
+circumstances made it of such little profit to cultivate it in
+preference to native breeds, that it was diverted to
+Australia.--Burnley, _History of Wool_, p. 17.
+
+[510] The first, the Bath and West of England, was established in
+1777.
+
+[511] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1899, p. 7.
+
+[512] Higher prices had been realized for the improved Longhorns; in
+1791, at the sale of Mr. Fowler of Little Rollright, Sultan a
+two-year-old bull fetched 210 guineas, and a cow 260 guineas; and at
+Mr. Paget's sale in 1793, a bull of the same breed sold for 400
+guineas.--_Culley on Live Stock_, p. 59.
+
+[513] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1899, p. 28.
+
+[514] _Culley on Live Stock_ (1807), pp. 46-7.
+
+[515] _Culley on Live Stock_, p. vi.
+
+[516] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1892, p. 27.
+
+[517] Morton, _Cyclopaedia of Agriculture_, ii. 964.
+
+[518] _Northern Tour_, iii. 49. Clarke also experimented on the effect
+of electricity on vegetables, electrifying turnips in boxes with the
+result that growth was quickened and weight increased.
+
+[519] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, p, 93.
+
+[520] Tooke, _History of Prices_, p. 182.
+
+[521] _Autobiography of A. Young_, p. 256.
+
+[522] _State of the Poor_, i. 565 et seq.; Thorold Rogers, _Work and
+Wages_, p. 487. It is difficult to calculate the exact income of the
+labourer; besides extras in harvest, and relief from the parish, he
+might have a small holding, or common rights, also payments in kind
+and the earnings of his wife and children.
+
+[523] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 181; Eden, _op. cit._ li. 27.
+
+[524] Imports of wheat and flour in 1796 were 879,200 quarters.
+
+[525] Yet imports were comparatively large; 1,264,520 quarters of
+wheat, against 463,185 quarters in 1799.
+
+[526] Tooke, _History of Prices_, p. 219.
+
+[527] _Farmer's Magazine_, 1817, p. 60.
+
+[528] Thorold Rogers, _Work and Wages_, c. 18.
+
+[529] _Annals of Agriculture_, xxxvii. 265. In 1805, in Herefordshire,
+the labourer was getting about 6s. 6d. a week--See Duncumb, _General
+View of Agriculture of Herefordshire_. Those who lived in the
+farm-house often fared best: in 1808 the diet of a Hampshire farm
+servant was, for breakfast, bacon, bread, and skim milk; for lunch,
+bread and cheese and small beer; for dinner, between 3 p.m. and 4
+p.m., pickled pork or bacon with potatoes, cabbages, turnips, or
+greens, and broths of wheat-flour and garden stuff. Supper consisted
+of bread and cheese and a pint of ale. His bread was usually made of
+wheat, which, considering the price, is remarkable. On Sundays he had
+fresh meat. The farmers lived in many cases little better; a statement
+which must be compared with others ascribing great extravagance to
+them.--Vancouver, _General View of the Agriculture of Hants_ (1808),
+p. 383.
+
+[530] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 236.
+
+[531] Thorold Rogers, _Work and Wages_, c. 18. In many cases he was
+getting 15s. and 16s. a week all the year round. The Parliamentary
+Committee of 1822 put his wages during the war at from 15s. to 16s. a
+week. _Parliamentary Reports Committees_, v. 72; but it is difficult
+to say how much he received as wages, and how much as parish relief.
+Recruiting for the war helped to raise wages, as did the increased
+growth of corn.
+
+[532] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1847), p. 438. See Appendix,
+ii.
+
+[533] Tooke, i. 319, and _Pamphleteer_, vi. 200 (A. Young). Since
+1770, says the latter, labour by 1810-11 had doubled, but meat had
+risen 146 per cent., cheese 153 per cent., bread 100 per cent. Wages
+therefore had not risen in proportion to prices.
+
+[534] _Inquiry into Agricultural Distress_ (1822), p. 38.
+
+[535] _Thoughts on Present Depressed State of Agricultural Industry_
+(1817), p. 6.
+
+[536] Vancouver, _General View of the Agriculture of Devon_, p. 357.
+
+[537] See 14 Eliz., c. 11, and 39 Eliz., c. 18.
+
+[538] _Transactions of the Devon Association_, xxix. 291-349.
+
+[539] Average annual prices of wheat were: 1812, 126s. 6d.; 1813,
+109s. 9d.; 1814, 74s. 4d.; 1815, 65s. 7d.
+
+[540] Porter, _Progress of the Nation_, p. 149.
+
+[541] _A Defence of the Farmers and Landowners of Great Britain_
+(1814), p. 49.
+
+[542] Ibid. p. x.
+
+[543] Ibid. p. 7.
+
+[544] _Agricultural State of the Kingdom_, p. 67.
+
+[545] _Parliamentary Reports (Committees)_, v. 72.
+
+[546] _Thoughts on the Present Depressed State of the Agricultural
+Interest_ (1817), p. 4.
+
+[547] Duncumb, _General View of the Agriculture of Hereford_, 1805.
+The writer of _A Defence of the Farmers and Landowners of Great
+Britain_ (1814) puts the average crop of wheat in the United Kingdom
+at 15 or 16 bushels an acre, p. 28. A very low estimate.
+
+[548] Duncumb, _General View of the Agriculture of Hereford_, p. 140.
+
+[549] Tooke, _History of Prices_, ii. 4.
+
+[550] _Farmer's Magazine_ (1817), p. 69.
+
+[551] The duties were often evaded by smuggling; coasting vessels met
+the foreign corn ships at sea, received their cargoes, and landed them
+so as to escape the duty.
+
+[552] _Agricultural State of the Kingdom_, p. 5.
+
+[553] _Observations for the Use of Landed Gentlemen_ (1817), p. 7.
+
+[554] _Defence of the Farmers, &c._ (1814); and _Parliamentary
+Reports_, v. 72.
+
+[555] _Agricultural State of the Kingdom_, p. 64.
+
+[556] Ibid. p. 105.
+
+[557] The agricultural horse tax was repealed in 1821, the tax on
+ponies and mules in 1823.
+
+[558] There were some exceptions, but the overwhelming majority of
+replies to the letters were couched in the above spirit.
+
+[559] At a time when landlords formed the majority in Parliament, it
+is curious to find a substantial farmer asserting that 'the landed
+interest has been, since the corn law of 1773, held in a state of
+complete vassalage to the commercial and manufacturing, and the
+farmers of the country in a state very little superior to that of
+Polish peasants.'
+
+[560] _Review of Western Department_, pp. 249, 250.
+
+[561] Morton, _Cyclopaedia of Agriculture_, ii. 26.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ENCLOSURE--THE SMALL OWNER
+
+
+The war period was one of great activity in enclosure; from 1798 to
+1810 there were 956 Bills; from 1811-20, 771.[562]
+
+It must be remembered, however, that the number of Acts is not a
+conclusive test of the amount of enclosure, as there was a large
+amount that was non-parliamentary: by the principal landlord, and by
+freeholders who agreed to amicable changes and transfer, as at
+Pickering, in Yorkshire.[563] Roughly speaking, about one-third of the
+Acts were for enclosing commonable waste, the rest for enclosing open
+and commonable fields and lands.[564] Owing to the expense an Act was
+only obtained in the last resource. It was also because of the
+expense[565] that many landlords desirous to enclose were unable to do
+so, and therefore devoted their attention to the improvement of the
+common fields. That agriculture benefited by enclosure there is no
+possible doubt, but it was attended with great hardships. The
+landowner generally gained, for his rents increased largely. In
+twenty-three parishes of Lincolnshire, for instance, his rents doubled
+on enclosure. But the expenses were so heavy that his gain was often
+very small, and sometimes he was a loser by the process. As for the
+farmers, the poorer ones suffered, for more capital was needed for
+enclosed lands, and the process generally was so slow, taking from
+two to six years before the final award was given, that many farmers
+were thrown out in the management of their farms, for they did not
+know where their future lands would be allotted. That the poor
+suffered greatly is indubitable: 'By nineteen Enclosure Acts out of
+twenty the poor are injured, in some cases grossly injured,' wrote
+Young in 1801.[566] In the Acts it was endeavoured to treat them
+fairly,[567] and allotments were made to them, or money paid on
+enclosure in lieu of their rights of common, or small plots of land;
+but the expense of enclosing small allotments was proportionately very
+great, generally too great, and they had to be sold, while the sums of
+money were often spent in the alehouse. The results of sixty-eight
+Acts were investigated in the eastern counties, with the result that
+in all but fifteen the poor were injured. It was generally found that
+they had lost their cows.
+
+Its effect on the smallholder is well described by Davis in his
+_Report on Wilts_.[568] There, before enclosure, the tenants usually
+occupied yard-lands consisting of a homestead, 2 acres of meadow, 18
+acres of arable, generally in eighteen or twenty strips, with a right
+on the common meadows, common fields and downs for 40 sheep, and as
+many cattle as the tenant could winter with the fodder he grew. The 40
+sheep were kept by a common shepherd with the common herd, were taken
+every day to the downs and brought back every night to be folded on
+the arable fields, the rule being to fold 1,000 sheep on a 'tenantry'
+acre (three-quarters of a statute acre) every night.[569] In breeding
+sheep regard was had to 'folding quality,' i.e. the propensity to
+drop manure only after being folded at night, as much as to quality
+and quantity of wool and meat. On enclosure the common flock was
+broken up. The small farmer had no longer any common to turn his
+horses on. The down on which he fed his sheep was largely curtailed,
+the common shepherd was abolished, and the farmer had too few sheep to
+enable him individually to employ a shepherd. Therefore he had to part
+with his flock. Having no cow common and very little pasture land he
+could not keep cows. In such circumstances the small farmer, after a
+few years, succumbed and became a labourer, or emigrated, or went to
+the towns.
+
+In a pamphlet called _The Case of Labourers in Husbandry_, 1795, the
+Rev. David Davies said, 'by enclosure an amazing number of people have
+been reduced from a comfortable state of partial independence to the
+precarious condition of mere hirelings, who when out of work
+immediately come on the parish.' It has often been said that the poor
+were robbed of their share in the land by the landowners; but as a
+matter of fact it was the expense of securing the compensation allowed
+them, much greater in proportion on small holdings than on large,
+which went into the pockets of surveyors and lawyers, that did this.
+It was also often through the farmer that the labourer was deprived of
+his land when he had retained an acre or two after enclosure. Wishing
+to make the labourer dependent on him, he persuaded the agent to let
+the cottages with the farm, and the agent in order to avoid collecting
+a number of small rents consented. As soon as the farmer had the
+cottages he took the land from them and added it to his own. The
+peasant's losses engaged the serious attention of many landlords; near
+Tewkesbury, in 1773, the lord of the manor on enclosure, besides
+reserving 25 acres for the use of the poor, allowed land to each
+cottage sufficient to keep a horse or a cow, often added a small
+building, and gave stocks for raising orchards. Even some of the
+idlest were thereby made industrious, poor rates sank to 4d. in the £,
+though the population increased, and the labourer always had for sale
+some poultry, or the produce of his cow, or some fruit.[570]
+
+In 1800 the Board of Agriculture, composed almost entirely of
+landowners, noticing that the poor of Rutland and Lincolnshire, who
+had land for one or two cows and some potatoes, had not applied for
+poor relief, offered a gold medal for the most satisfactory account of
+the best means of supporting cows on poor land, in a method applicable
+to cottagers.[571] Young recommended that in the case of extensive
+wastes every cottage on enclosure should be secured sufficient land on
+which to keep a cow, the land to be inalienable from the cottage and
+the ownership vested in the parish.
+
+Lord Winchelsea[572] urged that a good garden should always go with a
+cottage, and set the example himself, one which has been generally
+followed in England by the greater landlords with much success. As may
+be imagined, these schemes or others similar to them were put into
+effect by the conscientious and energetic, but not by the apathetic
+and careless. Further, an Act was passed in the fifty-ninth year of
+George III, which enabled parishes to lease or buy 20 acres of land
+for the employment of their poor.
+
+In many cases, it must be allowed, the grazing of the commons was
+often worth very little. Let one man, it was said in 1795, put a cow
+on a common in spring for nothing, and let another pay a farmer 1s.
+6d. a week to keep a cow of equal value on enclosed land. When both
+are driven to market at Michaelmas the extra weight of the latter will
+more than repay the cost of the keep, while her flow of milk meanwhile
+has been much superior.
+
+The Committee on Waste Lands of 1795 attributed the great increase in
+the weight of cattle not only to the improved methods of breeding, but
+to their being fed on good enclosed lands instead of wastes and
+commons.[573] Even when commons were stinted they were in general
+overstocked, while disease was always being spread with enormous loss
+to the commoners. The larger holders, too, who had common rights,
+often crowded out the smaller.
+
+There were often, as we have seen, a large number of 'squatters' on
+commons who had seized and occupied land without any legal title. As a
+rule, if these people had been in possession twenty-one years their
+title was respected; if not, no regard was very justly paid to them on
+enclosure, and they were deprived of what they had seized.
+
+Eden wrote when enclosure was at its height; he was a competent and
+accurate observer, and this is his picture of the 'commoner':[574]
+'The advantages which cottagers and poor people derive from commons
+and wastes are rather apparent than real; instead of sticking
+regularly to labour they waste their time in picking up a few dry
+sticks or in grubbing on some bleak moor. Their starved pig or two,
+together with a few wandering goslings, besides involving them in
+perpetual altercations with their neighbours, are dearly paid for in
+care, time, and bought food. There are thousands and thousands of
+acres in the kingdom, now the sorry pastures of geese, hogs, asses,
+half-grown horses, and half-starved cattle, which want but to be
+enclosed to be as rich as any land now in tillage.'
+
+Enclosure worked an important social revolution. Before it the
+entirely landless labourer was rare: he nearly always had some holding
+in the common field or a right on the common pasture. With enclosure
+his holding or right had generally disappeared, and he deteriorated
+socially. It was very unfortunate, too, that when enclosure was most
+active domestic industries, such as weaving, decayed, and deprived the
+labourer and his family of a badly needed addition to his scanty
+income.
+
+In its physical and moral effects the system of domestic manufactures
+was immensely preferable to that of the crowded factory, while
+economically it enabled the tillers of the soil to exist on farms
+which could not support them by agriculture alone.
+
+This uprooting of a great part of the agricultural population from the
+soil by irresistible economic causes brought with it grave moral
+evils, and created divisions and antagonisms of interest from which we
+are suffering to-day.[575] If some such scheme as that of Arthur Young
+or Lord Winchelsea had been universally adopted, this blot on an
+inevitable movement might have been removed, and a healthy rural
+population planted on English soil. Another result followed, the
+labourer no longer boarded as a rule in his employer's house, where
+the farmer worked and lived with his men; the tie of mutual interest
+was loosened, and he worked for this or that master indifferently. One
+advantage, however, arose, in that, having to find a home of his own,
+he married early, but this was vitiated by his knowledge that the
+parish would support his children, on which knowledge he was induced
+to rely.
+
+On the other hand, the farmer often rose in the social scale. With
+the abandonment of the handicaps and restrictions of the common-field
+system the efficient came more speedily to the front. It was they who
+had amassed capital, and capital was now needed more than ever, so
+they added field to field, and consolidated holdings.
+
+The Act of 1845 did away with the necessity for private Enclosure
+Acts, still further reducing the expense; and since that date there
+have been 80,000 or 90,000 acres of common arable fields and meadows
+enclosed without parliamentary sanction, and 139,517 acres of the same
+have been enclosed with it,[576] besides many acres of commons and
+waste.
+
+In the _Report of the Committee of Enclosures_ of 1844,[577] there is
+a curious description of the way in which common fields were sometimes
+allotted. There were in some open fields, lands called 'panes',
+containing forty or sixty different lands, and on a certain day the
+best man of the parish appeared to take possession of any lot he
+thought fit. If his right was called in question there was a fight for
+it, and the survivor took the first lot, and so they went on through
+the parish. There was also the old 'lot meadow' in which the owners
+drew lots for choice of portions. On some of the grazing lands the
+right of grazing sheep belonged to a man called a 'flockmaster', who
+during certain months of the year had the exclusive right of turning
+his sheep on all the lands of the parish.
+
+Closely connected with the subject of enclosure is that of the partial
+disappearance of the small owner, both the yeoman who farmed his own
+little estate and the peasant proprietor. We have noticed above[578]
+Gregory King's statement as to the number of small freeholders in
+England in 1688, no less than 160,000, or with their families about
+one-seventh of the population of the country. This date, that of the
+Revolution, marks an epoch in their history, for from that time they
+began to diminish in proportion to the population. Their number in
+1688 is a sufficient answer to the exaggerated statement of
+contemporaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as to the
+depopulation caused by enclosures. Chamberlayne, in his _State of
+Great Britain_, published at about the same time as Gregory King's
+figures, says there were more freeholders in England than in any
+country of like extent in Europe: '£40 or £50 a year is very ordinary,
+£100 or £200 in some counties is not rare, sometimes in Kent and in
+the Weald of Sussex £500 or £600 per annum, and £3,000 or £4,000 of
+stock.' In the first quarter of the eighteenth century he was a
+prominent figure. Defoe[579] describes the number and prosperity of
+the Greycoats of Kent (as they were called from their homespun
+garments), 'whose interest is so considerable that whoever they vote
+for is always sure to carry it.'
+
+Why has this sturdy class so dwindled in numbers, and left England
+infinitely the weaker for their decrease? The causes are several;
+social, economic, and political. The chief, perhaps, is the peculiar
+form of Government which came in with the Revolution. The landed
+gentry by that event became supreme, the national and local
+administration was entirely in their hands, and land being the
+foundation of social and political influence was eagerly sought by
+them where it was not already in their hands.[580] At the same time
+the successful business men, whose numbers now increased rapidly from
+the development of trade, bought land to 'make themselves gentlemen'.
+Both these classes bought out the yeomen, who do not seem to have been
+very loath to part with their land. The recently devised system of
+strict family settlements enabled the old and the new gentlemen to
+keep this land in their families. The complicated title to land made
+its transfer difficult and costly, so that there was little breaking
+up of estates to correspond with the constant buying up of small
+owners. To the smaller freeholder, as has been noticed, the enclosure
+of waste land did much harm, for it was necessary to his holding.
+Again, smaller arable farms did not pay as well as large ones, so they
+tended to disappear. The decay of home industries was also a heavy
+blow to the smaller yeoman and the peasant proprietor.
+
+Under this combination of circumstances many of the yeomen left the
+land. Yet though Young, less than a century after King and Davenant,
+said that the small freeholder had practically disappeared, there were
+at the end of the eighteenth century many left all over England, who
+however largely disappeared during the war and in the bad times after
+the war.[581] But a contrary tendency was at work which helped to
+replenish the class. The desire of the Englishman for land is not
+confined to the wealthy classes. At the end of the eighteenth century
+men who had made small fortunes in trade were buying small properties
+and taking the place of the yeomen.[582] In the great French War of
+1793-1815, many yeomen, attracted by the high prices of land, sold
+their properties, but at the same time many farmers, attracted by the
+high prices of produce, which had often enriched them, bought
+land.[583] During the 'good times' of 1853-75 many small holders, like
+those of Axholme, noticed in the _Report_ of the Agricultural
+Commission of 1893, bought land.
+
+A new class of small owners also has sprung up, who, dwelling in or
+near towns and railway stations, have bought small freeholds. The
+return of the owners of land of 1872-6 gave the following numbers of
+those owning land in England and Wales[584]:
+
+  Total number of owners of:               Number.    Acreage.
+
+                 less than one acre        703,289    151,171
+                 1 acre and under 10       121,983    478,679
+                10       "        50        72,640  1,750,079
+                50       "       100        25,839  1,791,605
+               100       "       500        32,317  6,827,346
+
+The great majority of the first class here enumerated, those owning
+less than one acre, do not concern us, as they were evidently merely
+houses and gardens not of an agricultural character, but a large
+number of the second class and most of the other three must have been
+agricultural, though unfortunately no distinction is made. It will be
+seen, therefore, that there were a considerable number of small
+owners in England in 1872, and their numbers have probably increased
+since. Many of them, however, are of the new class mentioned above,
+and there appears to be no doubt that the number of the peasant
+proprietors and of the yeomen of the old sort has much diminished,
+especially in proportion to the growth of population.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[562] Cf. supra, p. 163.
+
+[563] R. Marshall, _Rural Economy of Yorkshire_, p. 17 et seq.
+
+[564] Slater, _English Peasantry and Enclosure_, p. 7.
+
+[565] It was stated in the _Report of the Committee on Enclosures_
+(1844), p. 31, that the ordinary expense of obtaining an Enclosure Act
+was from £1,000 to £1,500. In 1814 the enclosure of three farms,
+amounting to 570 acres, including subdivision fences and money paid to
+a tenant for relinquishing his agreement, cost the landlord nearly
+£4,000.--_Agricultural State of the Kingdom_ (1816), p. 116.
+
+[566] _Enquiry into the Propriety of Supplying Wastes to the better
+Support of the Poor_, p. 42.
+
+[567] The usual clause in Enclosure Acts stated that the land should
+be 'allotted according to the several and respective rights of _all_
+who had rights and interests' in the enclosed property, and expenses
+were to be borne 'in proportion to the respective shares of the people
+interested'.
+
+[568] pp. 8 et seq. Slater, _op. cit._ p. 113.
+
+[569] Cf. Marshall's account of the common-field townships in
+Hampshire at the end of the eighteenth century. Each occupier of land
+in the common fields contributed to the town flock a number of sheep
+in proportion to his holding, which were placed under a shepherd who
+fed them and folded them on all parts of the township. A similar
+practice was observed with the common herd of cows, which were placed
+under one cowherd who tended them by day and brought them back at
+night to be milked, distributing them among their respective owners,
+and in the morning they were collected by the sound of the
+horn.--_Rural Economy of Southern Counties_, ii. 351.
+
+[570] _Report of Committee on Waste Lands_ (1795), p. 204. Ground was
+frequently left by the Acts for the erection of cottages for the poor,
+and special allotments were made to Guardians for the use of the poor,
+in addition to the land allotted to all according to their respective
+claims. Can any one doubt that if there had been a systematic robbery
+of the smaller holders on enclosure they would not have risen 'en
+masse'?
+
+[571] Slater, _op. cit._ p. 133.
+
+[572] _Agricultural State of the Kingdom_ (1816), p. 8.
+
+[573] _Report_, p. 204.
+
+[574] _State of the Poor_, pp. i, xviii.
+
+[575] Lecky, _England in the Eighteenth Century_, vi. 191.
+
+[576] Slater, _op. cit._ p. 191.
+
+[577] _Report_, p. 27.
+
+[578] _See_ above. Another estimate puts them at 180,000.
+
+[579] _Tour_, i. (2), 37, 38.
+
+[580] Toynbee, _Industrial Revolution_, p. 62.
+
+[581] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 71.
+
+[582] Marshall, _Review of Agriculture, Reports Western Department_,
+p. 18.
+
+[583] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 32.
+
+[584] _Parliamentary Accounts and Papers_, lxxx. 21. The number of
+those owning over 500 acres does not concern the small owner or the
+yeoman class, but they were: from 500 acres to 1,000, 4,799; from
+1,000 to 2,000, 2,719; from 2,000 to 5,000, 1,815; from 5,000 to
+10,000, 581; from 10,000 to 20,000, 223; from 20,000 to 50,000, 66;
+from 50,000 to 100,000, 3; over 100,000, 1. For the numbers of the
+'holdings' of various sizes in 1875 and 1907 see below, p. 334. The
+term 'holdings', however, includes freeholds and leaseholds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+1816-1837
+
+DEPRESSION
+
+
+The summer of 1816 was wretched; the distress, aggravated by the bad
+season, caused riots everywhere. At Bideford the mob interfered to
+prevent the export of a cargo of potatoes; at Bridport they broke
+into the bakers' shops. Incendiary fires broke out night after night
+in the eastern counties. At Swanage six people out of seven were
+paupers, and in one parish in Cambridgeshire every person but one was
+a pauper or a bankrupt.[585] Corn rose again: by June, 1817, it was 117s.,
+but fell to 77s. in September.
+
+In 1818 occurred a drought of four months, lasting from May till
+September, and great preparations were made to ward off the expected
+famine; immense quantities of wheat came from the Baltic, of maize
+from America, and beans and maize from Italy and Egypt, with hay from
+New York, as it was selling at £10 a ton. However, rain fell in
+September, brown fields suddenly became green, turnips sprang up
+where none had appeared, and even spring corn that had lain in the
+parched ground began to grow, so the fear of scarcity passed.
+
+In 1822 came a good season, which produced a great crop of wheat; in
+the lifetime of the existing generation old men declared that such a
+harvest had been known only once before; imports also came from
+Ireland to the amount of nearly a million quarters, so that the price
+at the end of the year was 38s., and the average price for the year
+was 44s. 7d. Beef went down to 2s. 5d. a stone and mutton to 2s. 2d.
+The cry of agricultural distress again rose loudly. Farmers were
+still, though some of the war taxes had been remitted, heavily taxed;
+for the taxes on malt, soap, salt, candles, leather, all pressed
+heavily.[586] The chief cause of the distress was the long-felt
+reaction after the war, but it was aggravated by the return to cash
+payments in 1819. Gold had fallen to its real value, and the fall in
+gold had been followed by a fall in the prices of every other
+article.[587] The produce of many thousand acres in England did not
+sell that year for as much money as was expended in growing it,
+without reckoning rent, taxes, and interest on capital.[588] Estates
+worth £3,000 a year, says the same writer, some years since, were now
+worth £1,000. Bacon had gone down from 6s. 6d. to 2s. 4d. a stone;
+Southdown ewes from 50s. to 15s., and lambs from 42s. to 5s.
+
+A Dorset farmer told the Parliamentary committee that since 1815 he
+knew of fifty farmers, farming 24,000 acres, who had failed
+entirely.[589]
+
+In the _Tyne Mercury_ of October 30, 1821, it was recorded that Mr.
+Thos. Cooper of Bow purchased 3 milch cows and 40 sheep for £18 16s.
+6d. which sum four years previously would only have bought their
+skins. Prime beef was sold in Salisbury market at 4d. retail, and good
+joints of mutton at 3-1/2d.[590] Everywhere the farmers were
+complaining bitterly, but 'hanging on like sailors to the masts or
+hull of a wreck'. In Sussex labourers were being employed to dig holes
+and fill them in again, proof enough of distress but also of great
+folly. Many thousands of acres were now a mass of thistles and weeds,
+once fair grass land ploughed up during the war for wheat, and
+abandoned at the fall of prices. There were no less than 475 petitions
+on agricultural distress presented to the House from 1820 to March 31,
+1822. In 1822, it was proposed that the Government should purchase
+wheat grown in England to the value of one million sterling and store
+it; also that when the average price of wheat was under 60s. the
+Government should advance money on such corn grown in the United
+Kingdom as should be deposited in certain warehouses, to an extent not
+exceeding two-thirds the value of the corn.[591] There were not
+wanting men, however, who put the other side of the question. In a
+tract called _The Refutation of the Arguments used on the Subject of
+the Agricultural Petition_, written in 1819, it was said that the
+increase in the farmer's expenditure was the cause of his discontent.
+'He now assumes the manners and demands the equipage of a gentleman,
+keeps a table like his landlord, anticipates seasons in their
+productions, is as choice in his wines, his horses, and his
+furniture.' Let him be more thrifty. 'Let him dismiss his steward, a
+character a few years back only known to the great landowner, and
+cease from degrading the British farmer into a synonym for
+prodigality.' Lord Liverpool, in the House of Lords, in a speech which
+roused great opposition among agriculturists, minimized the distress;
+distress there was, he admitted, but it was not confined to England,
+it was world-wide; neither was it produced by excessive taxation, for
+since 1815 taxation had been reduced 25 per cent., while though rents
+and prices had fallen they were much higher than before the war.
+Another writer said at the time, 'Individuals of all classes have of
+late been as it were inflated above their natural size: let this
+unnatural growth be reduced; let them resume their proper places and
+appearances, and the quantum of substantial enjoyment, real comfort
+and happiness, will not be found lessened.' It was also asserted that
+the taxes on malt, leather, soap, salt, and candles, were not very
+pressing.
+
+The persistent cries of distress produced a Bill giving still further
+protection to corn-growers, which was fortunately not carried into
+effect. There was no doubt, however, about the reality of the crisis
+through which the landed classes were passing. Many of the landowners
+were heavily in debt. Mortgages had been multiplied during the war,
+and while prices were high payment of interest was easy; but when
+prices fell and the tenant threw up his farm, the landlord could not
+throw over the mortgage, and the interest hung like a dead weight
+round his neck.[592]
+
+The price to which wheat fell at the end of 1822 was to be the lowest
+for some years; it soon recovered, and until 1834 the average annual
+prices ranged from 53s. to 68s. 6d., while in 1825 beef at Smithfield
+was 5s. and mutton 5s. 4d. a stone.
+
+In 1823 there was a marked improvement, and the king's speech
+congratulated the country on 'the gradual abatement of those
+difficulties under which agriculture has so long suffered.'[593] In
+1824 'agriculture was recovering from the depression under which it
+laboured.'[594] In 1825 it was said, 'there never was a period in the
+history of this country when all the great interests of the nation
+were in so thriving a condition.'[595] In that year over-speculation
+produced a panic and agricultural distress was again evident. In 1826
+Cobbett said, 'the present stock of the farms is not in one-half the
+cases the property of the farmer, it is borrowed stock.'[596] In 1828
+all the farmers in Kent were said to be insolvent.[597]
+
+At the meeting of Parliament in 1830 the king lamented the state of
+affairs, and ascribed it to unfavourable seasons and other causes
+beyond the reach of legislative remedy. Many had learnt that high
+protection was no protection for farmers, and it was stated more than
+once that the large foreign supply of grain, though only then about
+one-third of the home-grown, depressed our markets. At the same time,
+it must be admitted that agriculture, like all other industries, was
+suffering from the crisis of 1825. In 1830, the country was filled
+with unrest, in which the farm labourer shared. His motives, however,
+were hardly political. He had a rooted belief that machinery was
+injuring him, the threshing machine especially; and he avenged himself
+by burning the ricks of obnoxious farmers. Letters were sent to
+employers demanding higher wages and the disuse of machines, and
+notices signed 'Swing' were affixed to gates and buildings. Night
+after night incendiary fires broke out, and emboldened by impunity the
+rioters proceeded to pillage by day. In Hampshire they moved in bodies
+1,500 strong. A special Commission was appointed, and the disorders
+put down at last with a firm hand. In 1828 there had been a relaxation
+in the duties on corn, the object of the Act passed in that year being
+to secure the farmer a constant price of 8s. a bushel instead of 10s.
+as in 1815, and by a sliding scale to prevent the disastrous
+fluctuations in prices. The best proof of its failure is afforded by
+the appointment of another parliamentary committee in 1833 to inquire
+into the distressed state of agriculture. At this inquiry many
+witnesses asserted that the cultivation of inferior soils and heavy
+clays had diminished from one-fourth to one-fifth.[598] It was also
+asserted that farmers were paying rent out of capital.[599] Tooke,
+however, thought there was much exaggeration of the distress, which
+was proved by the way the farmers weathered the low prices of 1835,
+when wheat, after a succession of four remarkably good seasons,
+averaged 39s. 4d. for the year. In these abundant years, too, he
+asserts that the home supply was equal to the demand,[600] though the
+committee of 1833 had stated that this had ceased to be the
+case.[601] Another committee, the last for many years, sat in 1835 to
+consider the distress; but although prices were low the whole tenor of
+the evidence established the improvement of farming, the extension of
+cultivation, and the increase of produce, and it was noticed at this
+time that towns dependent on agriculture were uniformly
+prosperous.[602]
+
+On the whole, in spite of exaggeration from interested motives, the
+distress for the twenty years after the battle of Waterloo was real
+and deep; twenty years of depression succeeded the same period of
+false exaltation. The progress, too, during that time was real, and
+made, as was remarked, _because_ of adversity. From this time
+agriculture slowly revived.
+
+On one point both of the two last committees were agreed, that the
+condition of the labourer was improved, and they said he was better
+off than at any former period, for his wages remained the same, while
+prices of necessaries had fallen. That his wages went further is true,
+but they were still miserably low, and he was often housed worse than
+the animals on the farm. 'Wattle and dab' (or mud and straw) formed
+the walls of his cottage, the floors were often of mud, and all ages
+and both sexes frequently slept in one room. A block of ten cottages
+were put up in the parish of Holmer[603] at the commencement of the
+nineteenth century, which were said to have combined 'comfort,
+convenience, and economy;' they each contained one room 12 feet by 14
+feet and 6 feet high with a bedroom over, and cost £32 10s. each. They
+were evidently considered quite superior dwellings, far better than
+the ordinary run of labourer's cottages. Cobbett gives us a picture of
+some in Leicestershire in 1826; 'hovels made of mud and straw, bits of
+glass, or of old cast-off windows, without frames or hinges
+frequently, and merely stuck in the mud wall. Enter them and look at
+the bits of chairs or stools, the wretched boards tacked together to
+serve for a table, the floor of pebble, broken brick, or of the bare
+ground; look at the thing called a bed, and survey the rags on the
+backs of the wretched inhabitants.'[604] The chief exceptions to this
+state of affairs were the estates of many of the great landlords. On
+that of the Earl of Winchelsea in Rutland, the cottages he had built
+contained a kitchen, parlour, dairy, two bedrooms, and a cow-house,
+and several had small holdings attached of from 5 to 20 acres.[605]
+Not long before, wages in Hampshire and Wiltshire were 5s. and 6s. a
+week.[606]
+
+In 1822 it was stated that 'beef and mutton are things the taste of
+which was unknown to the mass of labourers. No one has lived more in
+cottages than I, and I declare solemnly I never remember once to have
+seen such a thing.'[607] A group of women labourers, whom Cobbett saw
+by the roadside in Hampshire, presented 'such an assemblage of rags as
+I never saw before even amongst the hoppers at Farnham.'[608]
+
+The labourer's wages may have gone a little further, but he had lost
+his by-industries, his bit of land and rights of common, and would
+have had a very different tale to tell from that of the framers of the
+reports above quoted.
+
+In spite of the complaints made that the improvements of the coaches
+and of the roads drew the countryman to the towns, many stirred hardly
+at all from their native parish, and their lives were now infinitely
+duller than in the Middle Ages. The great event of the year was the
+harvest home, which was usually a scene of great merry-making. In
+Devonshire, when a farmer's wheat was ripe he sent round notice to the
+neighbourhood, and men and women from all sides came to reap the crop.
+As early as eleven or twelve, so much ale and cider had been drunk
+that the shouts and ribald jokes of the company were heard to a
+considerable distance, attracting more helpers, who came from far and
+near, but none were allowed to come after 12 o'clock. Between 12 and 1
+came dinner, with copious libations of ale and cider, which lasted
+till 2, when reaping was resumed and went on without interruption
+except from the squabbles of the company till 5, when what were called
+'drinkings', or more food and drink, were taken into the field and
+consumed. After this the corn reaped was bound into sheaves till
+evening, when after the sport of throwing their reaping hooks at a
+sheaf which had been set up as a mark for a prize, all proceeded to
+supper and more ale and cider till the small hours.[609]
+
+No wages were paid at these harvestings, but the unlimited amount of
+eating and drinking was very expensive, and about this date the
+practice of using hired labour had largely superseded this old custom.
+
+The close of this period was marked by two Acts of great benefit to
+farmers: the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (4 & 5 Wm. IV, c. 76),
+which reduced the rates,[610] and marked 'the beginning of a period
+of slow recovery in the labourer's standard of life, moral and
+material, though at first it brought him not a little adversity'[611];
+and the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 (6 & 7 Wm. IV, c. 71), which
+substituted for the tithe paid in kind or the fluctuating commuted
+tithe, a tithe rent charge equivalent to the market value, on a
+septennial average, of the exact quantities of wheat, barley, and
+oats, which made up the legal tithes by the estimate in 1836. Thus was
+removed a perpetual source of dispute and antagonism between
+tithe-payer and tithe-owner. The system hitherto pursued, moreover,
+was wasteful. In exceptionally favourable circumstances the clergy did
+not receive more than two-thirds of the value of the tithe in kind.
+The delays were a frequent source of loss. In rainy weather, when the
+farmer desired to get his crops in quickly, he was obliged to shock
+his crops, give the tithe-owners notice to set out their tithes, and
+wait for their arrival; in the meantime the crop, perhaps, being badly
+damaged.[612]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[585] Walpole, _History of England_, i. 161.
+
+[586] _Inquiry into Agricultural Distress_ (1822), p. 40.
+
+[587] Walpole, _op. cit._ ii. 22.
+
+[588] _A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory_, 1822. The
+Committee on Agricultural Distress found that farmers were paying rent
+out of capital (_Parliamentary Reports. Committees_, v. 71), and that
+leases fixed on the basis of the high prices of the war meant ruin to
+the farmer if held to his engagement.
+
+[589] _Parliamentary Reports, Committees_, ix. 138.
+
+[590] Cobbett, _Rural Rides_ (ed. 1885), i. 3, 16.
+
+[591] _Report of the Committee on Agricultural Depression_ (1822), pp.
+3, 4.
+
+[592] Walpole, _History of England_, ii. 23.
+
+[593] _Hansard_, ix. 1544.
+
+[594] Ibid. x. 1, 2.
+
+[595] Ibid. xii. 1.
+
+[596] _Rural Rides_, ii. 199.
+
+[597] Walpole, _History of England_, ii. 526. The distress was
+aggravated by rot among sheep, which is said to have destroyed
+one-fourth of those in the kingdom. See _Parliamentary Reports,
+Commissioners_ (1836), viii (2), p. 198.
+
+[598] Tooke, _History of Prices_, ii. 227.
+
+[599] _Report_ of 1833, p. 6.
+
+[600] Tooke, _History of Prices_, ii, 238.
+
+[601] Imports fell considerably at this date; they were:
+
+     1832   1,254,351 quarters.
+     1833   1,166,457    "
+     1834     981,486    "
+     1835     750,808    "
+     1836     861,156    "
+     1837   1,109,492    "
+     1838   1,923,400    "
+
+There were also considerable exports:
+
+     1832     289,558 quarters.
+     1833      96,212    "
+     1834     159,482    "
+     1835     134,076    "
+     1836     256,978    "
+     1837     308,420    "
+     1838     158,621    "
+
+McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1847), p. 438.
+
+[602] Porter, _Progress of the Nation_, p. 151.
+
+[603] See Duncumb, _General View of Herefordshire_, (1805).
+
+[604] Rural Rides, ii. 348.
+
+[605] London, _Encyclopaedia of Agriculture_ (1831), p. 1156.
+
+[606] Cobbett, _Rural Rides_, i. 149. The average, however, now was
+about 9s.; see _Parliamentary Reports_, v. 72.
+
+[607] _A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory_ (1822), p.
+16.
+
+[608] _Rural Rides_, i. 18.
+
+[609] Moore, _History of Devonshire_, i. 430.
+
+[610] By this Act and the various amending Acts the law of settlement,
+so long a burden on the labourer, is now settled thus: a settlement
+may be acquired by birth, parentage, marriage, renting a tenement, by
+being bound apprentice and inhabiting, by estate, payment of taxes,
+and by residence.--Stephen, _Commentaries on the Laws of England_
+(1903), iii. 87.
+
+[611] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 217.
+
+[612] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1901), p. 9.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+1837-1875
+
+REVIVAL OF AGRICULTURE.--THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.--CORN LAW
+REPEAL.--A TEMPORARY SET-BACK.--THE HALCYON DAYS
+
+
+The revival of agriculture roughly coincided with the accession of
+Queen Victoria.
+
+It was proved that Scotch farmers who had farmed highly had weathered
+the storm. Instead of repeatedly calling on Parliament to help them
+they had helped themselves, by spending large sums in draining and
+manuring the land; they had adopted the subsoil plough, and the
+drainage system of Smith of Deanston, used machinery to economize
+labour, and improved the breed of stock. This was an object-lesson
+for the English farmer, and he began to profit by it. It was high
+time that he did. In spite of the undoubted progress made, farming
+was still often terribly backward. Little or no machinery was used,
+implements were often bad, teams too large, drilling little
+practised, drainage utterly inefficient; in fact, while one farmer
+used all the improvements made, a hundred had little to do with them.
+But better times were at hand.
+
+About 1835 Elkington's system of drainage, which among the more
+advanced agriculturists, at any rate, had been used for half a
+century, was superseded by that of James Smith of Deanston, a system
+of thorough drainage and deep ploughing, which effected a complete
+revolution in the art of draining, and holds the field to-day.
+Hitherto the draining of land had been done by a few drains where they
+were thought necessary, which was often a failure. Smith initiated a
+complete system of parallel underground drains, near enough to each,
+other to catch all the superfluous water, running into a main drain
+which ran along the lowest part of the ground. His system has also
+been called 'furrow or frequent draining', as the drains were
+generally laid in the furrows from two to two-and-a-half feet deep at
+short intervals. Even then the tributary drains were at first filled
+in with stones 12 inches deep, as they had been for centuries, and
+sometimes with thorns, or even turves, as tiles were still expensive;
+and the main was made of stonework. However, the invention of machines
+for making tiles cheapened them, and the substitution of cylindrical
+pipes for horse-shoe tiles laid on flat soles still further lowered
+the cost and increased the efficiency.[613] In 1848, Peel introduced
+Government Drainage Loans, repayable by twenty-two instalments of 6
+1/2 per cent. This was consequently an era of extensive drainage works
+all over England, which sorely needed it; but even now the work was
+often badly done. In some cases it was the custom for the tenant to
+put in as many tiles as his landlord gave him, and they were often
+merely buried. At Stratfieldsaye, for instance, where the Iron Duke
+was a generous and capable landlord, the drains were sometimes a foot
+deep, while others were 6 feet deep and 60 feet apart,[614] although
+the soil required nothing of the kind.
+
+Vast sums were also spent on farm-buildings, still often old and
+rickety, with deficient and insanitary accommodation; in Devonshire
+the farmer was bound by his lease to repair 'old mud and wooden
+houses', at a cost of 10 per cent. on his rent, and there were many
+such all over England. Farm-buildings were often at the extreme end
+of the holding, the cattle were crowded together in draughty sheds,
+and the farmyard was generally a mass of filth and spoiling manure,
+spoiling because all the liquid was draining away from it into the
+pool where the live stock drank; a picture, alas, often true to-day.
+It was to bring the great mass of landlords and farmers into line with
+those who had made the most of what progress there had been, that the
+Royal Society was founded in 1838, in imitation of the Highland
+Society, but also owing to the realization of the great benefits
+conferred on farming during the last half-century by the exertions of
+Agricultural Societies, the Smithfield Club Shows having especially
+aided the breeding of live stock.
+
+Writing on the subject of the Society, Mr. Handley[615] spoke of the
+wretched modes of farming still to be seen in the country, especially
+in the case of arable land, though there had been a marked improvement
+in the breeding of stock. Prejudice, as ever, was rampant. Bone
+manure, though in the previous twenty years it had worked wonders, was
+in many parts unused. It was felt that what the English farmer needed
+was 'practice with science'. The first President of the Society was
+Earl Spencer, and it at once set vigorously to work, recommending
+prizes for essays on twenty-four subjects, some of which are in the
+first volume of the Society's Journal. Prizes were also offered for
+the best draining-plough, the best implement for crushing gorse, for a
+ploughing match to be held at the first country meeting of the Society
+fixed at Oxford in 1839, for the best cultivated farm in Oxfordshire
+and the adjacent counties, and for the invention of any new
+agricultural implement.
+
+In 1840 the Society was granted a charter under the title of the Royal
+Agricultural Society of England, and its career since then has been
+one of continued usefulness, and forms a prominent feature in the
+agricultural history of the times.
+
+In 1839[616] the first country meeting of the Society was held at
+Oxford, and its 247 entries of live stock and 54 of implements were
+described as constituting a show of unprecedented magnitude. According
+to _Bell's Weekly Messenger_ for July 22, 1839, the show for some time
+had been the all-absorbing topic of conversation not only among
+agriculturists, but among the community at large, and the first day
+20,000 people attended the show, many having come great distances by
+road. Everybody and every exhibit had to get to Oxford by road; some
+Shorthorn cattle, belonging to the famous Thomas Bates of
+Kirkleavington, took nearly three weeks on the road, coming from
+London to Aylesbury by canal. But such a journey was not unusual then,
+for cattle were often two or three weeks on the road to great fairs,
+and stood the journey best on hay; it was surprising how fresh and
+sound they finished.[617] The show ground covered 7 acres, and among
+the implements tested was a subsoil plough, Biddell's Scarifier, and a
+drill for depositing manure after turnips. There were only six classes
+for cattle--Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Cattle of any other breed,
+Dairy Cattle, and Oxen; one class for horses, and three for
+sheep--Leicesters, Southdown or other Short Wool, and Long Woolled;
+with one for pigs.[618] The Shorthorns, with the exception of the
+Kirkleavingtons, were bred in the neighbourhood, and many good judges
+said long afterwards that a finer lot had not been seen since. The
+Duchesses especially impressed all who saw them. The rest of the live
+stock was in no way remarkable.
+
+From this small beginning, then thought so much of, the show grew
+fast, and the Warwick meeting[619] of 1892, after several years of
+agricultural depression, illustrates the excellent work of the Society
+and the enormous progress made by English agriculture. The show ground
+covered 90 acres; horses were now divided into Thoroughbred Stallions,
+Hunters, Coach Horses, Hackneys, Ponies, Harness Horses and Ponies,
+Shires, Clydesdales, Suffolks, and Agricultural Horses. Cattle were
+classified as Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Sussex, Longhorns
+(described as few in number and of no particular quality, 'a breed
+which has now been many years on the wane', but has recently been
+revived),[620] Welsh, Red Polled, Jerseys, Guernseys, Kerry and
+Dexter-Kerry.
+
+The increased variety of sheep was also striking; Leicesters,
+Cotswolds, Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Shropshires, Southdowns, Hampshire
+Downs, Suffolks, Border Leicesters, Clun Forest, and Welsh Mountain.
+
+Pigs were divided into Large, Middle, and Small white Berkshires, any
+other black breed, and Tamworths.
+
+Altogether the total number of stock exhibited was 1,858, and the
+number of implements was 5,430.
+
+In 1840 appeared Liebig's _Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture
+and Physiology_, tracing the relations between the nutrition of plants
+and the composition of the soil, a book which was received with
+enthusiasm, and completely changed the attitude which agriculturists
+generally had maintained towards chemistry; one of contempt, founded
+on ignorance.
+
+But, as Mr. Prothero has said,[621] 'if the new agriculture was born
+in the laboratory of Glissen, it grew into strength at the
+experimental station of Rothamsted.' There, for more than half a
+century, Lawes and Gilbert conducted experiments, of vast benefit to
+agriculture, in the objects, method, and effect of manuring; the
+scientific bases for the rotation of crops, and the results of various
+foods on animals in the production of meat, milk, and manure.
+
+The use of artificial manures now spread rapidly; bones, used long
+before uncrushed, are said to have been first crushed in 1772, and
+their value was realized by Coke of Holkham, but for long they were
+crushed by hammer or horse mill, and their use was consequently
+limited. Then iron rollers worked by steam ground them cheaply and
+effectively, and their use soon spread, though it was not till about
+1840 that it can be said to have become general. Its effects were
+often described as wonderful. In Cheshire, cheese-making had
+exhausted the soil, and it was said that by boning and draining an
+additional cow could be kept for every 4 acres, and tenants readily
+paid 7 per cent. to their landlords for expenditure in bone manure.
+Its use had indeed raised many struggling farmers to comparative
+independence.[622] A very large quantity of the bones used came from
+South America.[623] Porter also noticed that 'since 1840 an extensive
+trade has been carried on in an article called Guano', the guana of
+Davy, 'from the islands of the Pacific and off the coast of Africa'.
+Nitrate of soda was just coming in, but was not much used till some
+years later. In 1840 Liebig suggested the treatment of bones with
+sulphuric acid, and in 1843 Lawes patented the process and set up his
+works at Deptford.[624]
+
+Italian rye grass, not to be confounded with the old English ray
+grass, had been introduced by Thomson of Banchory, in 1834, from
+Munich;[625] and though the swede was known at the end of the
+eighteenth century, in many parts it had only just become common. In
+Notts it was in 1844 described as having recently become 'the
+sheet-anchor of the farmer'.[626] In Cheshire a writer at the same
+date said, 'in the year 1814 there were not 5 acres of Swedish turnips
+grown in the parish where I reside; now there are from 60 to 80, and
+in many parts of the county the increase has been in a much greater
+ratio.'[627]
+
+About this time a remedy was found in the south for leaving the land
+idle during the nine months between harvesting the corn crop in
+August, and sowing the turnip crop in the following June, by sowing
+rye, which was eaten green by the sheep in May, a good preparation for
+the succeeding winter crop. Turnip cutters were at last being used,
+and corn and cake crushers soon followed.
+
+The seasons from 1838 to 1841 were bad, and must be characterized as
+a period of dearth, wheat keeping at a good price.[628] That of 1844-5
+was remarkable for the first general appearance of the potato disease,
+not only in these islands but on the continent of Europe.[629] In
+August, 1846, the worst apprehensions of the failure of the crop were
+more than realized, and the terrible results in Ireland are well
+known. In the early part of 1847 there was a fear of scarcity in corn,
+and the price of wheat rose to 102s. 5d. in spite of an importation of
+4,500,000 quarters, but this was largely owing to the absence of any
+reliable agricultural statistics, which were not furnished till 1866,
+and the price soon fell.[630]
+
+We have now reached the period of free trade, when the Corn Laws,
+which had protected agriculture more or less effectually for so long,
+were definitely abandoned. That they had failed to prevent great
+fluctuations in the price of corn is abundantly evident, it is also
+equally evident that they kept up the average price; in the ten years
+from 1837 to 1846, the average price of wheat was 58s. 7d. a quarter,
+in the seven years from 1848 to 1853, the average price was 48s.
+2d.[631]
+
+The average imports of wheat and flour for the same period were
+2,161,813 and 4,401,000 quarters respectively. But to obtain the real
+effect of free trade on prices, the prices for the period between 1815
+and 1846 must be compared with those between 1846 and the present day,
+when the fall is enormous.
+
+The Act of 1815, which Tooke said had failed to secure any one of the
+objects aimed at by its promoters, had received two important
+alterations. In 1828 (9 Geo. IV, c. 60) a duty of 36s. 8d. was imposed
+when the price was 50s., decreasing to 1s. when it was 73s.
+
+In 1843 (5 Vict. c. 14) a duty of 20s. was imposed when the price was
+50s., and the duty became 7s. when the price reached 65s.
+
+A contemporary writer denies that these duties benefited the farmer at
+all: 'if the present shifting scale of duty was intended to protect
+the farmer, keep the prices of corn steady, insure a supply to the
+consumer at a moderate price, and benefit the revenue, it has signally
+failed. During the continuation of the Corn Laws the farmers have
+suffered the greatest privations. The variations in price have been
+extreme, and when a supply of foreign corn has been required it has
+only reached the consumer at a high price, and benefited the revenue
+little.'[632] Rents of farms were often calculated not on the market
+price of wheat, but on the price thought to be fixed by the duties,
+which was occasionally much higher.[633]
+
+It was also said that but for the restrictions that had been imposed
+in the supposed interests of agriculture, the skill and enterprise of
+farmers would have been better directed than it had been. By means of
+these restrictions and the consequent enhancement of the cost of
+living, the cultivation of the land had been injuriously restricted,
+for the energies of farmers had been limited to producing certain
+descriptions of food, and they had neglected others which would have
+been far[634] more profitable. The landlord had profited by higher
+rents, but, according to Caird, a most competent observer, had
+generally speaking been induced by a reliance on protection to neglect
+his duty to his estates, so that buildings were poor, and drainage
+neglected. The labourer was little if any better off than eighty years
+before. It was a mystery even to farmers how they lived in many parts
+of the country; 'our common drink,' said one, 'is burnt crust tea, we
+never know what it is to get enough to eat.'[635] Against these
+disadvantages can only be put the fact that protection had kept up the
+price of corn, a calamity for the mass of the people.
+
+The amount of wheat imported into England before the era of Corn Law
+repeal was inconsiderable. Mr. Porter has shown[636] how very small a
+proportion of wheat used in this country was imported from 1801-44.
+From 1801 to 1810 the average annual import of wheat into the kingdom
+was 600,946 quarters, or a little over a peck annually per head, the
+average annual consumption per head being about eight bushels. Between
+1811 and 1820 the average importation was 458,578 quarters, or for the
+increased population a gallon-and-a-half per head, and the same share
+for each person was imported in the next decade 1821-30. From 1831-40
+the average imports arose to 607,638 quarters, or two-and-a-quarter
+gallons per head, and in 1841-4 an average import of 1,901,495
+quarters raised the average supply to four-and-a-half gallons per
+person, still a very small proportion of the amount consumed.
+
+In 1836 a small association had been formed in London for advocating
+the repeal of the Corn Laws, and in 1838 a similar association was
+formed in Manchester.[637] At one of its earliest meetings appeared
+Richard Cobden, under whose guidance the association became the
+Anti-Corn Law League, and at whose invitation John Bright joined the
+League. Under these two men the Anti-Corn Law League commenced its
+great agitation, its object being 'to convince the manufacturer that
+the Corn Laws were interfering with the growth of trade, to persuade
+the people that they were raising the price of food, to teach the
+agriculturist that they had not even the solitary merit of securing a
+fixed price for corn'. The country was deluged with pamphlets, backed
+up by constant public meetings; and these efforts, aided by
+unfavourable seasons, convinced many of the errors of protection. In
+1840 the League spent £5,700 in distributing 160,000 circulars and
+150,000 pamphlets, and in delivering 400 lectures to 800,000 people.
+Bakers were persuaded to bake taxed and untaxed shilling loaves, and,
+on the purchaser choosing the larger, to demand the tax from the
+landlord; in 1843 the League collected £50,000, next year £100,000,
+and in 1845 £250,000 in support of their agitation.
+
+Yet for some years they had little success in Parliament; even in 1842
+Peel only amended the laws; and it was not until 1846 that, convinced
+by the League's arguments, as he himself confessed, and stimulated by
+the famine in Ireland, he introduced the famous Act, 9 & 10 Vict. c.
+22.
+
+By this the maximum duty on imported wheat was at once to be reduced
+to 10s. a quarter when the price was under 48s., to 5s. on barley when
+the price was under 26s., and to 4s. on oats when the price was under
+18s., with lower duties as prices rose above these figures, but the
+most important part of the Act was that on February 1, 1849, these
+duties were to cease, and only a nominal duty of 1s. a quarter on
+foreign corn be retained, which was abolished in 1860.
+
+By 9 and 10 Vict. c. 23 the duties on live stock were also abolished
+entirely. Down to 1842 the importation of horned cattle, sheep, hogs,
+and other animals used as food was strictly prohibited,[638] but in
+that year the prohibition was withdrawn and they were allowed to enter
+the country on a payment of 20s. a head on oxen and bulls, 15s. on
+cows, 3s. on sheep, 5s. on hogs; which duties continued till 1846.
+
+It is interesting to find that so shrewd an observer as McCulloch did
+not expect any great increase in the imports of live animals from the
+reduction of the duties, but he anticipated a great increase in salted
+meat from abroad; cold storage being then undreamt of.
+
+The full effect of this momentous change was not to be felt for a
+generation, but the immediate effect was an agricultural panic
+apparently justified by falling prices. In 1850 wheat averaged 40s.
+3d. and in 1851 38s. 6d. On the other hand, stock farmers were doing
+well. But on the corn lands the prices of the protection era had to
+come down; many farms were thrown up, some arable turned into pasture;
+distress was widespread. Owing to the depressed state of agriculture
+in 1850, the _Times_ sent James Caird on a tour through England, and
+one of the most important conclusions arrived at in his account of his
+tour is, that owing to protection, the majority of landowners had
+neglected their land; but another cause of neglect was that the great
+body of English landlords knew nothing of the management of their
+estates, and committed it to agents who knew little more and merely
+received the rents. The important business of being a landowner is the
+only one for which no special training is provided. Many of the
+landlords, however, then, as now, were unable to improve their estates
+if they desired to do so, as they were hopelessly encumbered, and the
+expense of sale was almost prohibitive. The contrast between good and
+bad farmers was more marked in 1850 than to-day, the efforts of the
+Royal Agricultural Society to raise the general standard of farming
+had not yet borne much fruit. In many counties, side by side, were
+farmers who used every modern improvement, and those who still
+employed the methods of the eighteenth century: on one farm wheat
+producing 40 bushels an acre, threshed by steam at a cost of 3s. 6d.,
+on the next 20 bushels to the acre threshed by the flail at a cost of
+9s.[639]
+
+Drainage in the counties where it was needed had made considerable
+progress, the removal of useless hedgerows often crowded with timber,
+that kept the sun from the crops and whose roots absorbed much of the
+nourishment of the soil, was slowly extending, but farm-buildings
+almost everywhere were defective. 'The inconvenient ill-arranged
+hovels, the rickety wood and thatch barns and sheds devoid of every
+known improvement for economizing labour, food, and manure, which are
+to be met with in every county in England, are a reproach to the
+landlords in the eyes of all good farmers.'[640] The farm-buildings of
+Belgium, Holland, France, and the Rhenish Provinces were much
+superior. In parts of England indeed no progress seems to have been
+made for generations at this date. Thousands of acres of peat moss in
+Lancashire were unreclaimed, and many parts of the Fylde district were
+difficult even to traverse. Even in Warwickshire, in the heart of
+England, between Knowle and Tamworth, instead of signs of industry and
+improvement were narrow winding lanes leading to nothing, traversed by
+lean pigs and rough cattle, broad copse-like hedges, small and
+irregular fields of couch, amidst which straggled the stalks of some
+smothered cereal; these with gipsy encampments and the occasional
+sound of the poacher's gun from woods and thickets around were the
+characteristics of the district.[641]
+
+Leases were the exception throughout England, though more prevalent in
+the west.[642] The greater proportion of farms were held on yearly
+agreements terminable by six months' notice on either side, a system
+preferred by the landlord as enabling him to retain a greater hold
+over his land, and acquiesced in by the tenant because of easy rents.
+In spite of this insecurity of tenure and the absence of Agricultural
+Holdings Acts, the tenants invested their capital largely with no
+other security than the landlord's character, 'for in no country of
+the world does the character of any class of men stand so high for
+fair and generous dealing as that of the great body of the English
+landlords.'
+
+The custom of tenant-right was unknown except in certain counties,
+Surrey, Sussex, the Weald of Kent, Lincoln, North Notts, and in part
+of the West Riding of Yorkshire.[643] Where it existed, the
+agriculture was on the whole inferior to that of the districts where
+it did not, and it had frequently led to fraud in a greater or less
+degree. Many farmers were in the practice of 'working up to a
+quitting', or making a profit by the difference which their ingenuity
+and that of their valuer enabled them to demand at leaving as compared
+with what they paid on entry. The best farmers as well as the
+landlords were said to be disgusted with the system. The dislike for
+leases in the days immediately before the repeal of the Corn Laws was
+partly due to the uncertainty how long protection would last; but
+chiefly then, as afterwards, to the fact that if a man improved his
+farm under a lease he had nearly always to pay an increased rent on
+renewal, but if he held from year to year his improvement, if any, was
+so gradual and imperceptible that it was hardly noticed and the rent
+was not raised. It may also be attributable to the modern
+disinclination to be bound down to a particular spot for a long
+period. At all events, the general dislike of farmers for leases is a
+curious commentary on the assertions of those writers who said that
+leases were his chief necessity.
+
+The disparity of the labourer's wages in 1850 was most remarkable,
+ranging from 15s. a week in parts of Lancashire to 6s. in South Wilts,
+the average of the northern counties being 11s. 6d., and of the
+southern 8s. 5d. a difference due wholly to the influence of
+manufactures, which is still further proved by the fact that in
+Lancashire in 1770 wages were below the average for England. In fact
+since Young's time wages in the north had increased 66 per cent., in
+the south only 14 per cent. In Berkshire and Wiltshire there had been
+no increase in that period, and in Suffolk an actual decrease. It is
+not surprising to learn that in some southern counties wages were not
+sufficient for healthy sustenance, and the consequence was, that
+there, the average amount of poor relief per head of population was
+8s. 8-1/2d., but in the north 4s. 7-3/4d., and the percentage of
+paupers was twice as great in the former as in the latter. This was
+mainly due to two causes: (1) the ratepayers of parishes in the south
+were accustomed to divide among themselves the surplus labour, not
+according to their requirements but in proportion to the size of their
+farms, so that a farmer who was a good economist of labour was reduced
+by this system to the same level as his unskilful neighbours, and the
+labourer himself had no motive to do his best, as every one, good and
+bad, was employed at the same rate. (2) To the system of close and
+open parishes, by which large proprietors could drive the labourer
+from the parish where he worked to live in some distant village in
+case he should become chargeable to the rates, so that it was a common
+thing to see labourers walking three or four miles each day to their
+work and back, and in one county farmers provided donkeys for them.
+Between 1840 and 1850 the labourer had, however, already benefited by
+free trade, for the price of many articles he consumed fell 30%; on
+the other hand the rent of his cottage in eighty years had increased
+100%, and meat 70%, which however did not, unfortunately, affect him
+much. The great development of railway construction also helped him by
+absorbing much surplus labour, and the work of his wife and children
+was more freely exploited at this date to swell the family
+budget.[644]
+
+The great difference between the wages of the north and the south is
+a clear proof that the wages of the agricultural labourer are not
+dependent on the prices of agricultural produce, for those were the
+same in both regions. It was unmistakably due to the greater demand
+for labour in the north.
+
+The housing of the labourer was, especially in the south, often a
+black blot on English civilization. From many instances collected by
+an inquirer in 1844 the following may be taken. At Stourpaine in
+Dorset, one bedroom in a cottage contained three beds occupied by
+eleven people of all ages and both sexes, with no curtain or partition
+whatever. At Milton Abbas, on the average of the last census there
+were thirty-six persons in each house, and so crowded were they that
+cottagers with a desire for decency would combine and place all the
+males in one cottage, and all the females in another. But this was
+rare, and licentiousness and immorality of the worst kind were
+frequent.[645]
+
+As for the farmer, the stock raiser was doing better than the corn
+grower. The following table shows the rent of cultivated land per
+acre, the produce of wheat per acre in bushels, the price of
+provisions, wages of labour, and rent of cottages in England at the
+date of Young's tours, about 1770, and of Caird's in 1850[647]:
+
+             Rent of           Produce of
+          cultivated land        Wheat            Price per lb. of
+            per acre.          per acre.      Bread.   Meat.   Butter.
+
+  1770    13s.  4d.            23            1-1/2d.  3-1/4d.    6d.
+  1850    26s. 10d.            26-3/4[646]   1-1/4d.  5d.        1s.
+
+              Price of Wool   Cottage          Labourer's wages
+              per lb.         rents.             per week.
+
+  1770         5-1/2d.        34s. 8d.           7s. 3d.
+  1850           1s.          74s. 6d.           9s. 7d.
+
+Thus in eighty years the average rent of arable land rose 100%, the
+average wheat crop 14%, while the price of bread had decreased 16%.
+But meat had increased 70%, wool over 100%, butter 100%. The chief
+benefit to the farmer therefore lay in the increased value of live
+stock and its products, and it was found then, as in the present
+depression, that the holders of strong wheat land suffered most, which
+was further illustrated by the fact that the rent of the corn-growing
+counties of the east coast averaged 23s. 8d. per acre; that of the
+mixed corn and grass counties in the midlands and west, 31s. 5d.
+
+Writing in 1847, Porter said rents had doubled since 1790.[648] In
+Essex farms could be pointed out which were let in 1790 at less than
+10s. an acre, but during the war at from 45s. to 50s. In 1818 the rent
+went down to 35s., and in 1847 was 20s.
+
+In Berks. and Wilts. farms let at 14s. per acre in 1790, rose by 1810
+to 70s., or fivefold; sank in 1820 to 50s., and in 1847 to 30s. In
+Staffordshire farms on one estate let for 8s. an acre in 1790, rose
+during the war to 35s., and at the peace were lowered to 20s., at
+which price they remained. Owing to better farming light soils had
+been applied to uses for which heavy lands alone had formerly been
+considered fit, with a considerable increase of rent.
+
+On the Duke of Rutland's[649] Belvoir estate, of from 18,000 to 20,000
+acres of above average quality, rents were in--
+
+  1799           19s. 3-3/4d. an acre.
+  1812           25s. 8-3/4d.    "
+  1830           25s. 1-3/4d.    "
+  1850           36s. 8d.        "
+
+But the Dukes of Rutland were indulgent landlords and evidently took
+no undue advantage of the high prices during the war, a policy whose
+wisdom was fully justified afterwards.
+
+It was the opinion of most competent judges, even after the abolition
+of the Corn Laws, that English land would continue to rise in value.
+Porter stated that the United Kingdom could never be habitually
+dependent on the soil of other countries for the food of its people,
+there was not enough shipping to transport it if it could.[650]
+
+Caird prophesied that in the next eighty years the value of land in
+England would more than double. The wellnigh universal opinion was
+that as the land of England could not increase, and the population was
+constantly increasing, land must become dearer. Men failed to foresee
+the opening of millions of acres of virgin soil in other parts of the
+world, and the improvement of transport to such an extent that wheat
+has occasionally been carried as ballast. About twenty-five or thirty
+years after these prophecies their fallacy began to be cruelly
+exposed.[651]
+
+About 1853[652] matters began to mend, chiefly owing to the great
+expansion in trade that followed the great gold discoveries in America
+and Australia. Then, came the Crimean War, with the closing of the
+Baltic to the export of Russian corn, wheat in 1855 averaging 74s.
+8d., and in the next decade the American War crippled another
+competitor, the imports of wheat from the United States sinking from
+16,140,000 cwt in 1862, to 635,000 cwt. in 1866. From 1853 until 1875
+English agriculture prospered exceedingly, assisted largely by good
+seasons. Between 1854 and 1865 there were ten good harvests, and only
+two below the average. Prices of produce rose almost continuously, and
+the price and rent of land with them. The trade of the country was
+good, and the demand for the farmer's products steadily grew; the
+capital value of the land, live stock, and crops upon it, increased in
+this period by £445,000,000.[653]
+
+It appeared as if the abolition of the Corn Laws was not to have any
+great effect after all.
+
+Now at last the great body of farmers began to approach the standard
+set them long before by the more energetic and enterprising. Early
+maturity in finishing live stock for the market by scientific feeding
+probably added a fourth to their weight The produce of crops per acre
+grew, and drainage and improvements were carried out on all sides, the
+greatest improvement being made in the cultivation and management of
+strong lands, of which drainage was the foundation, and enabled the
+occupier to add swedes to his course of cropping.[654]
+
+It was in this period that Shorthorns, Herefords, and Devons attained
+a standard of excellence which has made them sought after by the whole
+world; and other breeds were perfected, the Sussex and Aberdeen Angus
+especially; while in sheep the improvement was perhaps even
+greater.[655] The improved Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Hampshire Downs,
+and Shropshires took their place as standard breeds at this period. In
+1866, after many years of expectation and disappointment,
+agriculturists were furnished with statistics which are trustworthy
+for practical purpose, but are somewhat vitiated by the fact that the
+live stock census was taken on March 5, which obviously omitted a
+large number of young stock; so that those for 1867, when the census
+was taken on June 25, are better for purposes of comparison with those
+of subsequent years, when the census has been taken on June 4 or 5.
+Between 1867 and 1878 the cattle in England and Wales had increased
+from 4,013,564 to 4,642,641, though sheep had diminished from
+22,025,498 to 21,369,810.[656] The total acreage under cultivation had
+increased from 25,451,526 acres to 27,164,326 acres in the same
+period.
+
+There was, however, one black shadow in this fair picture: in 1865
+England was invaded by the rinderpest, which spread with alarming
+rapidity, killing 2,000 cows in a month from its first appearance, and
+within six months infecting thirty-six counties.[657] The alarm was
+general, and town and country meetings were held in the various
+districts where the disease appeared to concert measures of defence.
+The Privy Council issued an order empowering Justices to appoint
+inspectors authorized to seize and slaughter any animal labouring
+under such diseases; but, in spite of this, the plague raged with
+redoubled fury throughout September. There was gross mismanagement in
+combating it, for the inspectors were often ignorant men, and no
+compensation was paid for slaughter, so that farmers often sold off
+most of their diseased stock before hoisting the black flag. The
+ravages of the disease in the London cow-houses was fearful, as might
+be expected, and they are said to have been left empty; by no means an
+unmixed evil, as the keeping of cow-houses in towns was a glaring
+defiance of the most obvious sanitary laws. In October a Commission
+was appointed to investigate the origin and nature of the disease, and
+the first return showed a total of 17,673 animals attacked. By March
+9, 1866, 117,664 animals had died from the plague, and 26,135 been
+killed in the attempt to stay it. By the end of August the disease had
+been brought within very narrow limits, and was eventually stamped out
+by the resolute slaughter of all infected animals. By November 24 the
+number of diseased animals that had died or been killed was
+209,332,[658] and the loss to the nation was reckoned at £3,000,000.
+The disease was brought by animals exported from Russia, who came from
+Revel, via the Baltic, to Hull. In 1872, cattle brought to the same
+port infected the cattle of the East Riding of Yorkshire, but this
+outbreak was checked before much damage had been done, and since 1877
+there has been no trace of this dreaded disease in the kingdom. The
+cattle plague, rinderpest, or steppe murrain, is said[659] to have
+first appeared in England in 1665, the year of the Great Plague, and
+reappeared in 1714, when it came from Holland, but did little damage,
+being chiefly confined to the neighbourhood of London. The next
+outbreak was in 1745, and lasted for twelve years, undoubtedly coming
+from Holland; it is said to have caused such destruction among the
+cattle, that much of the grass land in England was ploughed up and
+planted with corn, so that the exports of grain increased largely. In
+1769 it came again, but only affected a few localities, and
+disappeared in 1771, not to return till 1865.
+
+Foot and mouth disease was first observed in England in 1839,[660]
+and it was malignant in 1840-1, when cattle, sheep, and pigs were
+attacked as they were during the serious outbreak of 1871-2. In 1883
+no less than 219,289 cattle were attacked, besides 217,492 sheep, and
+24,332 pigs, when the disease was worse than it has ever been in
+England. Since then, though there have been occasional outbreaks, it
+has much abated. Another dread scourge of cattle, pleuro-pneumonia,
+was at its worst in 1872, a most calamitous year in this respect, when
+7,983 cattle were attacked. In 1890 the Board of Agriculture assumed
+powers with respect to it under the Diseases of Animals Act of that
+year, and their consequent action has been attended with great success
+in getting rid of the disease.
+
+At the end of this halcyon period farmers had to contend with a new
+difficulty, the demand for higher wages by their labourers at the
+instigation of Joseph Arch.[661] This famous agitator was born at
+Barford in Warwickshire in 1826, and as a boy worked for neighbouring
+farmers, educating himself in his spare time. The miserable state of
+the labourer which he saw all around him entered into his soul, meat
+was rarely seen on his table, even bacon was a luxury in many
+cottages. Tea was 6s. to 7s. a lb., sugar 8d., and other prices in
+proportion; the labourers stole turnips for food, and every other man
+was a poacher. Arch made himself master of everything he undertook,
+became famous as a hedger, mower, and ploughman, and being
+consequently employed all over the Midlands and South Wales, began to
+gauge the discontent of the labourer who was then voiceless, voteless,
+and hopeless. His wages by 1872 had increased to 12s. a week, but had
+not kept pace with the rise in prices. Bread was 7-1/2d. a loaf; the
+labourer had lost the benefit of his children's labour, for they had
+now all gone to school; his food was 'usually potatoes, dry bread,
+greens, herbs, "kettle broth" made by putting bread in the kettle,
+weak tea, bacon sometimes, fresh meat hardly ever.'[662] It is
+difficult to realize that at the end of the third quarter of the
+nineteenth century, when Gladstone said the prosperity of the country
+was advancing 'by leaps and bounds', that any class of the community
+_in full work_ could live under such wretched conditions. Arch came to
+the conclusion that labour could only improve its position when
+organized, and the Agricultural Labourers' Union was initiated in
+1872. Not that the idea of obtaining better conditions by combination
+was new to the rural labourer. It was attempted in 1832 in Dorset, but
+speedily crushed, and not till 1865 was a new union founded in
+Scotland, which was followed by a strike in Buckinghamshire in 1867,
+and the foundation of a union in Herefordshire in 1871.[663] It was
+determined to ask for 16s. a week and a 9-1/2 hours' working day,
+which the farmers refused to grant, and the men struck. The agitation
+spread all over England, and was often conducted unwisely and with a
+bitter spirit, but the labourer was embittered by generations of
+sordid misery. Very reluctantly the farmers gave way, and generally
+speaking wages went up during the agitation to 14s. or 15s. a week,
+though Arch himself admits that even during the height of it they were
+often only 11s. and 12s. With the bad times, about 1879, wages began
+to fall again, and men were leaving the Agricultural Union; by 1882
+Arch says many were again taking what the farmer chose to give. From
+1884 the Union steadily declined, and after a temporary revival about
+1890, practically collapsed in 1894. Other unions had been started,
+but were then going down hill, and in 1906 only two remained in a
+moribund condition. Their main object, to raise the labourer's wages,
+was largely counteracted by the acute depression in agriculture, and
+though there has since been considerable recovery, there are districts
+in England to-day where he only gets 11s. and 12s. a week.
+
+The Labourers' Union helped to deal a severe blow to the 'gang
+system', which had grown up at the beginning of the century (when the
+high corn prices led to the breaking up of land where there were no
+labourers, so that 'gangs' were collected to cultivate it[664]), by
+which overseers, often coarse bullies, employed and sweated gangs
+sometimes numbering 60 or 70 persons, including small children, and
+women, the latter frequently very bad specimens of their sex. These
+gangs went turnip-singling, bean-dropping, weeding &c., while
+pea-picking gangs ran to 400 or 500. Though some of these gangs were
+properly managed, the system was a bad one, and the Union and the
+Education Acts helped its disappearance.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[613] Cylindrical pipes came in about 1843, though they had been
+recommended in 1727 by Switzer.
+
+[614] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1st series), xxii. 260.
+
+[615] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1890, pp. 1 sq.
+
+[616] Ibid., 1894, pp. 205 sq.
+
+[617] McCombie, _Cattle and Cattle Breeders_, p. 33.
+
+[618] These classes, however, did not comprise all the then known
+breeds of live stock.
+
+[619] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1892, pp. 479 sq.
+
+[620] At the show at Birmingham In 1898 there were 22 entries of
+Longhorns; in 1899 a Longhorn Cattle Society was established, and the
+herd-book resuscitated. More than twenty herds of the breed are now
+well established.
+
+[621] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1901, p. 24.
+
+[622] Caird, _English Agriculture in 1850-1_, pp. 252 sq.
+
+[623] Porter, _Progress of the Nation_, p. 142.
+
+[624] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1901, p. 25.
+
+[625] Ibid. 1896, p. 96.
+
+[626] Ibid. (1st ser.), vi. 2.
+
+[627] Ibid. (1st ser.), v. 102.
+
+[628] 1838, 64s. 7d; 1839, 70s. 8d.; 1840, 66s. 4d.; 1841, 64s. 4d.
+
+[629] Tooke, _History of Prices_, iv. 19.
+
+[630] C. Wren Hoskyns, _Agricultural Statistics_, p. 5.
+
+[631] The abnormal prices during the Crimean War cannot fairly be
+taken into account. The home and foreign supplies of wheat and flour
+from 1839-46 were:--
+
+               Home Supplies.   Foreign Supplies.
+                   qrs.               qrs.
+
+     1839-40     4,022,000         1,762,482
+     1840-1      3,870,648         1,925,241
+     1841-2      3,626,173         2,985,422
+     1842-3      5,078,989         2,405,217
+     1843-4      5,213,454         1,606,912
+     1844-5      6,664,368           476,190
+     1845-6      5,699,969         2,732,134
+
+      (Tooke, _History of Prices_, iv. 414.)
+
+1844-5 was a very abundant crop, and the threatened repeal of the Corn
+Laws induced farmers to send all the corn possible to market.
+
+[632] Tooke, _History of Prices_, iv. 32.
+
+[633] Cobden's Speech, March 12, 1844.
+
+[634] Tooke, _History of Prices_, iv. 142.
+
+[635] From evidence collected by Mr. Austin in the southern counties.
+
+[636] _Progress of Nation_, pp. 137 sq. For the amount imported before
+that date, see Appendix 2.
+
+[637] Walpole, _History of England_, iv. 63 sq. Cobden apparently
+never contemplated such low prices for corn as have prevailed since
+1883. In his speech of March 12, 1844, he mentioned 50s. a quarter as
+a probable price under free trade, and he died before the full effect
+of foreign competition was felt by the English farmer.
+
+[638] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_, 1847, p. 274. See below, pp.
+325 sq.
+
+[639] Caird, _English Agriculture in 1850-1_, p. 498.
+
+[640] Ibid. p. 490.
+
+[641] _Victoria County History: Warwickshire_, ii. 277.
+
+[642] Caird, _op. cit._, p. 481.
+
+[643] Caird, _op. cit._ p. 507.
+
+[644] Hasbach, _op. cit._ pp. 220, 226.
+
+[645] Cobden's Speech, March 12, 1844.
+
+[646] Mr. Pusey, one of the best informed agriculturists of the day,
+estimated the produce of wheat per acre in 1840 at 26
+bushels.--_R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1890, p. 20.
+
+[647] Caird, _English Farming in 1850-1_, p. 474.
+
+[648] _Progress of the Nation_.
+
+[649] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. 29.
+
+[650] _Progress of the Nation_, pp. 137-9.
+
+[651] Yet as the growth of population overtakes the corn and meat
+supply, these prophets may in the end prove correct.
+
+[652] The Great Exhibition of 1851 was said to have widely diffused
+the use of improved implements.--_R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1856, p. 54.
+
+[653] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1890, p. 34.
+
+[654] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1856, p. 60.
+
+[655] Ibid. 1901, p. 30. See below, p. 343.
+
+[656] _Board of Agriculture Returns_, 1878, and _R.A.S.E. Journal_,
+1868, p. 239. Young estimated the number of cattle in England in 1770
+at 2,852,048, including 684,491 draught cattle.--_Eastern Tour_, iv.
+456.
+
+[657] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, (2nd ser.), ii. 230.
+
+[658] Ibid. iii. 430.
+
+[659] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (2nd ser.), ii. 270.
+
+[660] See _Autobiography of Joseph Arch_.
+
+[661] Ibid. ix. 274.
+
+[662] In many districts, however, his food was better than this.
+
+[663] Hasbach, _op. cit._, pp. 276-7.
+
+[664] Hasbach, _op. cit._, pp. 193, et seq. The Gangs Act (30 & 31
+Vict. c. 130) had already brought the system under control.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+1875-1908
+
+AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS AGAIN.--FOREIGN COMPETITION.--AGRICULTURAL
+HOLDINGS ACTS.--NEW IMPLEMENTS.--AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS.--THE
+SITUATION IN 1908
+
+
+About the year 1875 the good times came to an end. The full force of
+free trade was at last felt. The seasons assisted the decline, and
+there was now no compensation in the shape of higher prices. In the
+eight years between 1874 and 1882 there were only two good crops. A
+new and formidable competitor had entered the field; between 1860 and
+1880 the produce of wheat in the United States had trebled. Vast
+stretches of virgin soil were opened up with the most astonishing
+rapidity by railroads, and European immigrants poured in. The cost of
+transport fell greatly, and England was flooded with foreign corn and
+meat. English land which had to support the landlord, the tithe-owner,
+the land agent, the farmer, the labourer, and a large army of
+paupers,[665] had to compete with land where often one man was owner,
+farmer, and labourer, with no tithe and no poor rates. Yet prices held
+up fairly well until 1884, when there was a collapse from which they
+have not yet recovered. In 1877 wheat was 56s. 9d., in 1883 41s. 7d.,
+and in 1884 35s. 8d.; by 1894 the average price for the year was 22s.
+10d.[666]
+
+Farmers' capital was reduced from 30 to 50 per cent., and rents and
+the purchase value of land in a similar proportion. Poor clays only
+fit for wheat and beans went out of cultivation, though much has since
+been laid down to grass, and much has 'tumbled down'. In fact most of
+the increased value of the good period between 1853-75 disappeared.
+
+The year 1879 will long be remembered as 'the Black Year'. It was the
+worst of a succession of wet seasons in the midland, western and
+southern counties of England, the average rainfall being one-fourth
+above the average, and 1880 was little better. The land, saturated and
+chilled, produced coarser herbage, the finer grasses languished or
+were destroyed, fodder and grain were imperfectly matured. Mould and
+ergot were prevalent among plants, and flukes producing liver-rot
+among live stock, especially sheep. In 1879 in England and Wales
+3,000,000 sheep died or were sacrificed from rot,[667] by 1881
+5,000,000 had perished at an estimated loss of £10,000,000, and many,
+alas! were sent to market full of disease. Cattle also were infected,
+and hares, rabbits, and deer suffered. In some cases entire flocks of
+sheep disappeared. The disease was naturally worst on low-lying and
+ill-drained pastures, but occurred even on the drier uplands hitherto
+perfectly free from liver-rot, carried thither no doubt by the
+droppings of infected sheep, hares, and rabbits, and perhaps by the
+feet of men and animals. Apart from medicine, concentrated dry food
+given systematically, the regular use of common salt, and of course
+removal from low-lying and damp lands, were found the best
+preventives.
+
+Besides this great calamity, this year was distinguished by one of the
+worst harvests of the century, outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, of
+pleuro-pneumonia, and a disastrous attack of foot-rot. The misfortunes
+of the landed interest produced a Commission in 1879 under the Duke of
+Richmond, which conducted a most laborious and comprehensive inquiry.
+Their report, issued in 1882, stated that they were unanimously
+convinced of the great intensity and extent of the distress that had
+fallen upon the agricultural community. Owner and occupier had alike
+been involved. Yet, though agricultural distress had prevailed over
+the whole country, the degree had varied in different counties, and in
+some cases in different parts of the same counties. Cheshire, for
+instance, had not suffered to anything like the same extent as other
+counties, nor was the depression so severe in Cumberland,
+Westmoreland, Northumberland, and parts of Yorkshire. The rainfall had
+been less in the northern counties. In the midlands, the eastern, and
+most of the southern counties the distress was severe, in Essex the
+state of agriculture was deplorable, but Kent, Devon, and Cornwall
+were not hardly hit.[668]
+
+The chief causes of the depression were said to be these:--
+
+  1. The succession of unfavourable seasons, causing crops
+     deficient in quantity and quality, and losses of live stock.
+
+  2. Low prices, partly due to foreign imports and partly to
+     the inferior quality of the home production.
+
+  3. Increased cost of production.
+
+  4. Increased pressure of local taxation by the imposition
+     of new rates, viz. the education rate and the sanitary rate;
+     and the increase of old rates, especially the highway rate, in
+     consequence of the abolition of turnpikes. Some exceptionally
+     bad instances of this were given. In the parish of
+     Didmarton, Gloucestershire, the average amount of rates paid
+     for the five years ending March 31, 1858, was £26 6s. 3d.,
+     for the five years ending March 31, 1878, £118 11s. 7d. In
+     the Northleach Union the rates had increased thus in decennial
+     periods from 1850:--
+
+         1850-1     £5,471
+         1860-1      5,534
+         1870-1      8,525
+         1878-9     10,089
+
+     On one small property in Staffordshire the increase of rates,
+     other than poor rates, amounted to 3s. 6d. in the £ on the
+     rateable value.
+
+  5. Excessive rates charged by railway companies for the
+     conveyance of produce, and preferential rates given to foreign
+     agricultural produce; the railway companies alleging, in defence
+     of this, that foreign produce was consigned in much greater
+     bulk, by few consignors, than home grown, and could be conveyed
+     much more economically than if picked up at different
+     stations in small quantities.
+
+As to the effect of restrictive covenants on the depression, the
+balance of evidence did not incline either way.[669]
+
+The Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875 was stated to have done much
+good in the matter of compensation to tenants for improvements,
+notwithstanding its merely permissive character, as it had reversed
+the presumption of law in relation to improvements effected by the
+tenant, prescribed the amount of compensation, and the mode in which
+it should be given.
+
+As to the important subject of freedom of cropping and sale of
+produce, there were diverse opinions, some advocating it wholly,
+others not believing in it at all, others saying each landlord and
+each tenant should make their own bargains since each farm stands on
+its own footing, others again favouring modified restrictions. The
+preponderance of opinion was in favour of a modification of the law of
+distress.
+
+The Commission further said that the pressure of foreign competition
+was greatly in excess of the anticipations of the supporters and of
+the apprehensions of the opponents of Corn Law Repeal; if it had not
+been for this, English farmers would have been partly compensated for
+the deficient yield by higher prices. On the other hand, the farmer
+had had the advantage of an increased and cheapened supply of feeding
+stuffs, such as maize, linseed and cotton cakes, and of artificial
+manures imported from abroad. At the same time the benefit to the
+community from cheap food was immense. It seemed just, however, that
+as agriculture was suffering from low prices, by which the country
+gained as a whole, that the proportion of taxation imposed on the land
+should be lessened; it was especially unjust that personal property
+was exempted from local rates, contrary to the Act of 43 Eliz. c. 2,
+and the whole burden thrown on real property. The difficulties of
+farmers were aggravated by the high price of labour, which had
+increased 25 per cent. in twenty years, largely owing to the
+competition of other industries, and at the same time become less
+efficient. As provisions were cheap, and employment abundant, the
+labourer had been scarcely affected by the distress. His cottage,
+however, especially if in the hands of a small owner, with neither the
+means nor the will to expend money on improvements, was often still
+very defective.
+
+Farmers were already complaining of the results of the new system of
+education, for which they had to pay, while it deprived them of the
+labour of boys, and drained from the land the sources of future labour
+by making the young discontented with farm work. The Commission denied
+that rents had been unduly raised previous to 1875[670]; and in the
+exceptional cases where they had been, it was due to the imprudent
+competition of tenant farmers encouraged by advances made by country
+bankers, the sudden withdrawal of which had greatly contributed to the
+present distress. Districts where dairying was carried on had suffered
+least, yet the yield of milk was much diminished, and the quality
+deteriorated, owing to the inferiority of grass from a continuance of
+wet seasons. The production and sale of milk was increasing largely,
+so that the attention of farmers and landlords was being drawn to this
+important branch of farming, milk-sellers necessarily suffering less
+from foreign competition than any other farmers.
+
+Let us turn once more to the hop yards: in 1878 the acreage of hops in
+England reached its maximum. We have seen that in the first half of
+the eighteenth century hop yards covered 12,000 acres; which between
+1750 and 1780 increased to 25,000, and by 1800 to 32,000. In 1878,
+71,789 acres were grown. The great increase prior to that year was due
+to the abolition of the excise duty in 1862, which on an average was
+equal to an annual charge of nearly £7 an acre.[671] This encouraged
+hop-growing more than the taking off of the import duty in the same
+year discouraged it. In 1882 there was a very small crop in England,
+which raised the average price to £18 10s. a cwt.; some choice samples
+fetching £30 a cwt.; growers who had good crops realizing much more
+than the freehold value of the hop yards. This, however, was most
+unfortunate for them, as it led to a great increase in the use of hop
+substitutes, such as quassia, chiretta, colombo, gentian, &c., which,
+with the decreasing consumption of beer and the demand for lighter
+beer, has done more than foreign competition to lower the price and
+thereby cause so large an area to be grubbed up as unprofitable, that
+in 1907 it was reduced to 44,938 acres. Yet the quality of the hops
+has in the last generation greatly improved in condition, quality, and
+appearance. Growers also have in the same period often incurred great
+expense in substituting various methods of wire-work for poles; and
+washing, generally with quassia chips and soft soap and water, has
+become wellnigh universal, so that the expense of growing the crop has
+increased, while the price has been falling.[672] The crop has always
+been an expensive one to grow; Marshall in 1798 put it at £20 an acre,
+exclusive of picking, drying, and marketing[673]; and Young estimated
+the total cost at the same date at £31 10s. an acre[674]; to-day £40
+an acre is by no means an outside price. It may be some encouragement
+to growers to remember that hops have always been subject to great
+fluctuations in price; between 1693 and 1700, for instance, they
+varied from 40s. to 240s. a cwt., so that they may yet see them at a
+remunerative figure. 'Upon the whole', says an eighteenth-century
+writer, 'though many have acquired large estates by hops, their real
+advantage is perhaps questionable. By engrossing the attention of the
+farmer they withdraw him from slower and more certain sources of
+wealth, and encourage him to rely too much upon chance for his rent,
+rather than the honest labour of the plough. To the landlord the
+cultivation of hops is an evil, defrauding the arable land of its
+proper quantity of manure and thereby impoverishing his estate.'
+
+It was by this time the general opinion of men with a thorough
+experience of farming, that in many parts of Great Britain no
+sufficient compensation was secured to the tenant for his unexhausted
+improvements. In some counties and districts this compensation was
+given by established customs, in others customs existed which were
+insufficient, in many they did not exist at all. It must be confessed
+that often when a tenant leaves his farm there is more compensation
+due to the landlord than to the tenant. Human nature being what it is,
+the temptation to get as much out of the land just before leaving it
+is wellnigh irresistible to many farmers.
+
+In these days, when the landlord is often called upon by the tenant to
+do what the tenant used to do himself, the question of compensation to
+the tenant must on many estates appear to the landlord extremely
+ironical. It is, in the greater number of cases, the landlord who
+should receive compensation, and not the tenant; and though he has
+power to demand it, such power is over and over again not put in
+force.
+
+At the same time there are bad men in the landlord class as in any
+other, and from them the tenant required protection. By the
+Agricultural Holdings (England) Act of 1875, 38 & 39 Vict. c. 92,
+improvements for which compensation could be claimed by the tenant
+were divided into three classes. First class improvements, such as
+drainage of land, erection or enlargement of buildings, laying down of
+permanent pasture, &c., required the previous consent in writing of
+the landlord to entitle the tenant to compensation. Second class
+improvements, such as boning of land with undissolved bones, chalking,
+claying, liming, and marling the land, the latter now hardly ever
+practised, required notice in writing by the tenant to the landlord of
+his intention, and if notice to quit had been given or received, the
+consent in writing of the landlord was necessary. For third class
+improvements, such as the application to the land of purchased manure,
+and consumption on the holding by cattle, sheep, or pigs, of cake or
+other feeding stuff not produced on the holding, no consent or notice
+was required. Improvements in the first class were deemed to be
+exhausted in twenty years, in the second in seven, and in the third in
+two. It was the opinion of the Richmond Commission of 1879 that,
+notwithstanding the beneficial effects of this Act, no sufficient
+compensation for his unexhausted improvements was secured to the
+tenant.
+
+The landlord and tenant also might agree in writing that the Act
+should not apply to their contract of tenancy, so in 1883 when the
+Agricultural Holdings Act of that year (46 & 47 Vict. c. 61)[675] was
+passed, it was made compulsory as far as regarded compensation, and
+the time limit as regards the tenant's claims for improvements was
+abolished, the basis for compensation for all improvements recognized
+by the Act being laid down as 'the value of the improvement to an
+incoming tenant'. Improvements for which compensation could be claimed
+were again divided into three classes as before, but the drainage of
+land was placed in the second class instead of the first, and so only
+required notice to the landlord. This was the only improvement in the
+second class; the other improvements which had been in the second
+class in the Act of 1875 were now placed in the third, where no
+consent or notice was required.
+
+The Act also effected three other important alterations in the law;
+first, as to 'Notices to Quit', a year's notice being necessary where
+half a year's notice had been sufficient, though this section might be
+excluded by agreement; secondly, after January 1, 1885, the landlord
+could only distrain for one year's rent instead of six years as
+formerly; and thirdly, as to fixtures. These formerly became the
+property of the landlord on the determination of the tenancy, but by
+14 & 15 Vict. c. 25 an agricultural tenant was enabled to remove
+fixtures put up by him with the consent of his landlord for
+agricultural purposes. Now all fixtures erected after the commencement
+of the Act were the property of and removable by the tenant, but the
+landlord might elect to purchase them.
+
+This Act was amended by the Act of 1900 (63 & 64 Vict. 50), and has
+been much altered by the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1906 (6 Edw.
+VII, c. 56), which has treated the landlord with a degree of severity,
+which considering the excellent relations that have for the most part
+existed between English landlords and tenants for generations, is
+utterly unwarranted. In several respects indeed he has been treated by
+the Act as if the land did not belong to him, while freedom of
+contract, until recent years one of the most cherished principles of
+our law, is arbitrarily interfered with. The chief alterations made by
+the Act of 1906 were:--
+
+1. _Improvements._--By the Act of 1883, in the valuation for
+improvements under the first schedule, such part of the improvement as
+is justly due to the inherent capabilities of the soil was not
+credited to the tenant This provision is repealed by the Act of 1906,
+in reference to which it must be said that the latent fertility of the
+soil, sometimes very considerable, may be developed by a small outlay
+on the part of the tenant for which outlay he is certainly entitled to
+compensation. But the greater part of the improvement may be due to
+the soil which belongs to the landlord, yet the Act credits the tenant
+with the whole of this improvement. An addition is made to the list of
+improvements which a tenant may make without his landlord's consent
+and for which he is entitled on quitting to compensation, viz. repairs
+to buildings, being buildings necessary for the proper working of the
+holding, other than repairs which the tenant is obliged to execute.
+
+2. _Damage by Game._ A tenant may now claim compensation for damage to
+crops by deer, pheasants, partridges, grouse, and black game.
+
+3. _Freedom of Cropping and Disposal of Produce._ Prior to this Act it
+had been the custom for generations to insert covenants in agreements
+providing for the proper cultivation of the farm; as, for instance,
+forbidding the removal from the holding of hay, straw, roots, green
+crops, and manure made on the farm. These and other covenants were
+merely in the interests of good farming, and to prevent the soil
+deteriorating. In recent times vexatious covenants formerly inserted
+had practically disappeared, and where still existing were seldom
+enforced. By this Act, notwithstanding any custom of the country or
+any contract or agreement, the tenant may follow any system of
+cropping, and dispose of any of his produce as he pleases, but after
+so doing he must make suitable and adequate provision to protect the
+farm from injury thereby: a proviso vague and difficult to enforce,
+and not sufficient to prevent an unscrupulous tenant greatly injuring
+his farm.
+
+4. _Compensation for unreasonable disturbance._ If a landlord without
+good cause, and for reasons inconsistent with good estate management,
+terminates a tenancy by notice to quit; or refuses to grant a renewal
+of the tenancy if so requested at least one year before the expiration
+thereof; or if a tenant quits his holding in consequence of a demand
+by the landlord for an increased rent, such demand being due to an
+increased value in the holding owing to improvements done by the
+tenant; in either of such events the tenant is entitled to
+compensation.
+
+This compensation for disturbance is in direct opposition to the
+recommendation of the Commission of 1894,[676] and seems to be an
+unwarrantable interference with the owner's management of his own
+land.
+
+Another benefit, and one long needed, was conferred on farmers by the
+Ground Game Act of 1880, 43 & 44 Vict., c. 47. Before the Act the
+tenant had by common law the exclusive right to the game, including
+hares and rabbits, unless it was reserved to the landlord, which was
+usually the case. By this Act the right to kill ground game, which
+often worked terrible havoc in the tenant's crops, was rendered
+inseparable from the occupation of the land, though the owner may
+reserve to himself a concurrent right. One consequence of this Act has
+been that the hare has disappeared from many parts of England.
+
+The greatest improvement in implements during this period was in the
+direction of reaping and mowing machines, which have now attained a
+high degree of perfection. As early as 1780 the Society of Arts
+offered a gold medal for a reaping machine, but it was not till 1812
+that John Common of Denwick, Northumberland, invented a machine which
+embodied all the essential principles of the modern reaper. Popular
+hostility to the machine was so great that Common made his early
+trials by moonlight, and he ceased from working on them.[677] His
+machine was improved by the Browns of Alnwick, who sold some numbers
+in 1822, and shortly afterwards emigrated to Canada taking with them
+models of Common's reapers. McCormick, the reputed inventor of the
+reaping machine, knew the Browns, and obtained from them a model of
+Common's machine which was almost certainly the father of the famous
+machine exhibited by him at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Various
+other inventors have assisted in improving this implement, and in 1873
+the first wire binder was exhibited in Europe by the American, W.A.
+Wood, wire soon giving place to string owing to the outcry of farmers
+and millers. The self-binding reaper is the most ingenious of
+agricultural machines, and has been of enormous benefit to farmers in
+saving labour. Though the hay-tedding machine was invented in 1814 it
+is only during the last thirty years that its use has become common,
+the spread of the mowing machine making it a necessity, cutting the
+grass so fast that only a very large number of men with the old forks
+could keep up with it. The tedder also rendered raking by hand too
+slow, and the horse-rake, patented first in 1841, has immensely
+improved in the last thirty years.
+
+Another enormous labour saver is the hay and straw elevator, having
+endless chains furnished with carrying forks at intervals of a few
+feet, driven by horse gear. The steam cultivator invented by John
+Fowler is much used, but cannot be said to have superseded the
+ordinary working stock of the farm, though for deep ploughing on large
+farms of heavy land it is invaluable. Improvements in dairying
+appliances have also been great, but the English farmer has generally
+fought shy of factories or creameries, so that his butter still lacks
+the uniform quality of his foreign rivals.
+
+In manures the most important innovation in the last generation has
+been the constantly growing use of basic slag, formerly left neglected
+at the pit mouth and now generally recognized as a wonderful producer
+of clover.
+
+Most of the suggestions of the Commission of 1879 were carried into
+effect. Rents were largely reduced, so that between 1880 and 1884 the
+annual value of agricultural land in England sank £5,750,000.[678]
+Grants were made by the Government in aid of local burdens, cottages
+were improved although the landowners' capital was constantly
+dwindling, Settled Land Acts assisted the transfer of limited estates,
+a Minister of Agriculture was appointed in 1889, and in 1891 the
+payment of the tithe was transferred from the tenant to the landlord,
+which generally meant that the whole burden was now borne by the
+latter.
+
+Still foreign imports continued to pour in and prices to fall. Wheat
+land, which was subject to the fiercest competition, began to be
+converted to other uses, and between 1878 and 1907 had fallen in
+England from 3,041,214 acres to 1,537,208, most of it being converted
+to pasture or 'tumbling down' to grass, while a large quantity was
+used for oats. The price of live stock was now falling greatly before
+increasing imports of live animals and dead meat, while cheese,
+butter, wool, and fruit were also pouring in. Farming, too, was now
+suffering from a new enemy, gambling in farm produce, which began to
+show itself about 1880 and has since materially contributed to
+lowering prices.[679] The enormous gold premium in the Argentine
+Republic, with the steady fall in silver, was another factor. As Mr.
+Prothero says, 'Enterprise gradually weakened, landlords lost their
+ability to help, and farmers their recuperative power. The capital
+both of landlords and tenants was so reduced that neither could afford
+to spend an unnecessary penny. Land deteriorated in condition,
+drainage was practically discontinued ... less cake and less manure
+were bought, labour bills were reduced, and the number of males
+employed in farming dwindled as the wheat area contracted.'[680] The
+year 1893 was remarkable for a prolonged drought in the spring; from
+March 2 to May 14 hardly any rain fell, and live stock were much
+reduced in quality from the parching of the herbage, while in many
+parts the difficulty of supplying them with water was immense.
+
+In the same year another Commission on Agriculture was appointed,
+whose description of the condition of agriculture was a lamentable
+one. The Commission in their final report[681] stated that the seasons
+since 1882 had on the whole been satisfactory from an agricultural
+point of view, and the evidence brought forward showed that the
+existing depression was to be mainly attributed to the fall in prices
+of farm produce. This fall had been most marked in the case of grain,
+particularly wheat, and wool also had fallen heavily. It was not
+surprising therefore to find that the arable counties[682] had
+suffered most; in counties where dairying, market gardening, poultry
+farming, and other special industries prevailed the distress was less
+acute, but no part of the country could be said to have escaped. In
+north Devon, noted for stock rearing, rents had only fallen 10 to 15
+per cent. since 1881, and in many cases there had been no reduction at
+all. In Herefordshire and Worcestershire good grass lands, hop lands,
+and dairy farms had maintained their rents in many instances, and the
+reductions had apparently seldom exceeded 15 per cent.; on the heavy
+arable lands, however, the reduction was from 20 to 40 per cent.
+
+In Cheshire, devoted mainly to dairying, there had been no general
+reduction of rent, though there had been remissions, and in some cases
+reductions, of 10 per cent.
+
+In fact, grazing and dairy lands, which comprise so large an area of
+the northern and western counties, were not badly affected, though the
+depreciation in the value of live stock and the fall in wool had
+considerably diminished farm profits and rents. But of the eastern
+counties, those in which there are still large quantities of arable
+land, a different tale was told. In Essex much of the clay land was
+going out of cultivation; many farms, after lying derelict for a few
+years, were let as grass runs for stock at a nominal rent The rent of
+an estate near Chelmsford of 1,418 acres had fallen from £1,314 in
+1879 to £415 in 1892, or from 18s. 6d. an acre to 5s. 10d.[683] The
+net rental of another had fallen from £7,682 in 1881 to £2,224 in
+1892, and the landlord's income from his estate of 13,009 acres in
+1892-3 was 1s. an acre. The balance sheet of the estate for the same
+year is an eloquent example of the landowner's profits in these
+depressed times[684]:
+
+  11:12 AM 7/25/2005RECEIPTS.
+                                      £    s.  d.
+
+  Tithe received                     798   5   9
+  Cottage rents                      495   8   6
+  Garden    "                        213   5  10
+  Estate    "                      7,452  14   8
+  Tithes refunded by tenants         530  15   2
+                                  --------------
+                                  £9,490   9  11
+                                  ==============
+
+  PAYMENTS.
+                                      £    s.  d.
+
+  Tithe, rates and taxes           2,964   1   9
+  Rent-charge and fee farm rents     179   0   4
+  Gates and fencing                    8   7   8
+  Estate repairs and buildings     4,350  12   8
+  Draining                           170   6   1
+  Brickyard                          170   1   8
+  Management                         936  14   7
+  Insurances                          58  11   5
+  Balance profit                     652  13   9
+                                 ---------------
+                                  £9,490   9  11
+                                 ===============
+
+In the great agricultural county of Lincoln rents had fallen from 30
+to 75 per cent.[685] The average amount realized on an acre of wheat
+had fallen from £10 6s. 3d. in 1873-7 to £2 18s. 11d. in 1892[686];
+and the fall in the price of cattle between 1882 and 1893 was a little
+over 30 per cent. Many of the large farmers in Lincolnshire before
+1875 had lived in considerable comfort and even luxury, as became men
+who had invested large sums, sometimes £20,000, in their business.
+They had carriages, hunters, and servants, and gave their children an
+excellent start in life. But all this was changed; a day's hunting
+occasionally was the utmost they could afford, and wives and daughters
+took the work from the servants. The small farmers had suffered more
+than the large ones, and the condition of the small freeholders was
+said to be deplorable; a fact to be noted by those who think small
+holdings a panacea for distress.[687]
+
+Even near Boston, where the soil is favourable for market gardening,
+the evidence of the small holder was 'singularly unanimous' as to
+their unfortunate condition. The small occupiers were better off than
+the freeholders, because their rents had been reduced and they could
+leave their farms if they did not pay; but their position was very
+unsatisfactory. From the evidence given to the assistant commissioner
+it is clear that the small occupier and freeholder could only get on
+by working harder and living harder than the labourer. 'We all live
+hard and never see fresh meat,' said one. 'We can't afford butcher's
+meat,' said another. Another said, 'In the summer I work from 4 a.m.
+to 8 p.m., and often do not take more than an hour off for meals. That
+is penal servitude, except you have your liberty. A foreman who earns
+£1 a week is better off than I am. He has no anxiety, and not half the
+work.' These instances could be multiplied many times, so that it is
+not surprising that the children of these men have flocked to the
+towns.
+
+In Norfolk, 'twenty or thirty years ago, no class connected with the
+land held their heads higher' than the farmers. Many of them owned the
+whole or a part of the land they farmed, and lived in good style. All
+this was now largely changed. 'The typical Norfolk farmer of to-day is
+a harassed and hardworking man,' engaged in the struggle to make both
+ends meet. Many were ruined.
+
+However, there were farmers who, by skill, enterprise, and careful
+management, made their business pay even in these times, such as the
+tenant of the farm at Papplewick in Nottinghamshire who gained the
+first prize in the Royal Agricultural Society's farm competition in
+1888.[688]. This farm consisted of 522 acres, of which only 61 were
+grass, but chiefly owing to the trouble taken in growing fine root
+crops, a large number of live stock were annually purchased and sold
+off, the following balance sheet showing a profit of £3 1s. 0d. per
+acre:
+
+                           DR.                            £
+
+  Rent, tithes, rates, taxes, &c.                        278
+  Wages                                                  387
+  Purchase of cake, corn, seeds, manure, &c.             688
+  Purchase of live stock                               2,654
+                                                       -----
+                                                      £4,007
+  Profit                                               1,589
+                                                      ------
+                                                      £5,596
+                                                      ======
+
+                            CR.                           £
+
+  Corn, hay, potatoes, and like product sold             655
+  Live stock, poultry, dairy produce, and wool sold    4,941
+                                                      ------
+                                                      £5,596
+                                                      ======
+
+The reductions of rents in various counties were estimated thus[689]:
+
+                       Per cent.                 Per cent.
+
+  Northumberland       20 to 25     Hereford     20 to  30
+  Cumberland           20 to 40     Somerset     20 to  40
+  York                 10 to 50     Oxford       25 to  50
+  Lancaster             5 to 30     Suffolk      up to  70
+  Stafford             10 to 25     Essex        25 to 100
+  Leicester               40        Kent         15 to 100
+  Nottingham           14 to 50     Hants        25 to 100
+  Warwick              25 to 60     Wilts        10 to  75
+  Huntington           40 to 50     Devon        10 to  25
+  Derby                14 to 25     Cornwall     10 to 100
+
+This large reduction in the rent rolls of landowners has materially
+affected their position and weakened their power. Many, indeed, have
+been driven from their estates, while others can only live on them by
+letting the mansion house and the shooting, and occupying some small
+house on the lands they are reluctant to leave. The agricultural
+depression, which set in about 1875, may in short be said to have
+effected a minor social revolution, and to have completed the ruin of
+the old landed aristocracy as a class. The depreciation of their
+rents may be judged from the following figures[690]:
+
+  Gross annual value of lands, including
+  tithes, under Schedule A in England.             Decrease.
+
+       1879-80               1893-4            Amount.   Per cent.
+          £                     £                 £
+
+      48,533,340            36,999,846       11,533,494      23.7
+
+These figures, however, are far from indicating the full extent of
+the decline in the rental value of purely agricultural land, as they
+include ornamental grounds, gardens, and other properties, and do not
+take into account temporary remissions of rent. Sir James Caird, as
+early as 1886, estimated the average reduction on agricultural rents
+at 30 per cent.
+
+The loss in the capital value of land has inevitably been great from
+this reduction in rents, and has been aggravated by the fact that the
+confidence of the public in agricultural land as an investment has
+been much shaken. In 1875 thirty years' purchase on the gross annual
+value of land was the capital value, in 1894 only eighteen years'
+purchase; and whereas the capital value of land in the United Kingdom
+was in 1875 £2,007,330,000, in 1894 it was £1,001,829,212, a decrease
+of 49.6 per cent. Moreover, landlords have incurred increased
+expenditure on repairs, drainage, and buildings, and taxation has
+grown enormously. On the occupiers of land the effect of the
+depression was no less serious, their profits having fallen on an
+average 40 per cent.[691] Occupying owners had suffered as much as any
+other class, both yeomen who farmed considerable farms and small
+freeholders. Many of the former had bought land in the good times when
+land was dear and left a large portion of the purchase money on
+mortgage, with the result that the interest on the mortgage was now
+more than the rent of the land.[692]
+
+They were thus worse off than the tenant farmer, for they paid a
+higher rent in the shape of interest; moreover, they could not leave
+their land, for it could only be sold at a ruinous loss. The
+'statesmen' of Cumberland were weighed down by the same burdens and
+their disappearance furthered; for instance, in the parish of Abbey
+Quarter, between 1780 and 1812 their number decreased from 51 to 38.
+By 1837 it was 30; by 1864, 21; and in 1894 only 9 remained.
+
+The small freeholders were also largely burdened with mortgages, and
+even in the Isle of Axholme were said to have suffered more than any
+other class; largely because of their passion for acquiring land at
+high prices, leaving most of the purchase money on mortgage, and
+starting with insufficient capital.
+
+As regards the agricultural labourer, the chief effect of the
+depression had been a reduction of the number employed and a
+consequent decrease in the regularity of employment. [693]
+
+Their material condition had everywhere improved, though there were
+still striking differences in the wages paid in different parts; and
+the improvement, though partly due to increased earnings, was mainly
+attributable to the cheapening of the necessaries of life.[694] The
+great majority of ordinary labourers were hired by the week, except
+those boarded in the farm-house, who were generally hired by the year.
+Men, also, who looked after the live stock were hired by the year.
+Weekly wages ranged from 10s. in Wilts, and Dorset to 18s. in
+Lancashire, and averaged 13s. 6d. for the whole country.
+
+The fall in the prices of agricultural produce is best represented in
+tabular form:
+
+  TRIENNIAL AVERAGE OF BRITISH
+  WHEAT, BARLEY, AND OATS PER QUARTER.
+
+              Wheat.      Barley.       Oats.
+              s.  d.       s.  d.       s.  d.
+
+  1876-8     49   9       38   4       25   6
+  1893-5     24   1       24   0       16   9
+
+Thus wheat had fallen 53 per cent., barley 37, and oats 34.
+
+  TRIENNIAL AVERAGE PRICES OF BRITISH CATTLE,
+  PER STONE OF 8 LB.
+
+           Inferior quality.  Second quality.  First quality.
+
+                  s.  d.            s.  d.          s.  d.
+
+  1876-8          4   5             5   6           6   0
+  1893-5          2   8             4   0           4   7
+
+Or a fall of 24 per cent. in the best quality, and 40 per cent. in
+inferior grades.
+
+The decline in the prices of all classes of sheep amounted on the
+average to from so to 30 per cent., and in the price of wool of from
+40 to 50 per cent.; that is, from an average of 1s. 6d. a lb. in
+1874-6, to a little over 9d. in 1893-5.
+
+Milk, butter, and cheese were stated to have fallen from 25 to 33 per
+cent. between 1874 and 1891, and there had been a further fall since.
+In districts, however, near large towns there had been much less
+reduction in the price of milk.
+
+This general fall in prices seems to have been directly connected with
+the increase of foreign competition.[695] Wheat has been most affected
+by this development, and at the date of the Commission the home
+production had sunk to 25 per cent. of the total quantity needed for
+consumption. Other home-grown cereals had not been similarly
+displaced, but the large consumption of maize had affected the price
+of feeding barley and oats. As regards meat, while foreign beef and
+mutton had seriously affected the price of inferior British grades,
+the influence on superior qualities had been much less marked. Foreign
+competition had been, on the whole, perhaps more severe in pork than
+in other classes of meat, but had been confined mainly to bacon and
+hams.
+
+The successful competition of the foreigner in our butter and cheese
+markets was attributed mainly to the fact that the dairy industry is
+better organized abroad than in Great Britain.
+
+The Commission found that another cause of the depression was the
+increased cost of production, not so much from the increase of wages,
+as from the smaller amount of work done for a given sum. Where wages
+in the previous twenty years had remained stationary, the cost of work
+had increased because the labourer did not work so hard or so well as
+his forefathers.
+
+The following table[696] is a striking proof of the increased ratio of
+the cost of labour to gross profits:
+
+                                                             Ratio of
+                                          Average             cost of
+        Acreage  Period      Average       annual   Average    labour
+             of      of        gross      cost of  cost per  to gross
+  County. farm.   acct.      profit.      labour.     acre.  profits.
+
+                           £   s. d.     £  s. d.    s.  d.  Per cent.
+
+  Suffolk   590 1839-43  1,577 13  3    773 11  0    26   2     49.03
+                1863-67  1,545  0  9    836  9  0    28   4     54.07
+                1871-75  1,725  0  1  1,026 14  8    35   2     59.48
+                1890-94    728 10  5    973  1  5    33   0    133.50
+
+On a farm in Wilts., between 1858 and 1893, the ratio of the cost of
+labour to gross profits had increased from 47.0 per cent. to 88.3 per
+cent.; on one in Hampshire, between 1873 and 1890, from 44.4 per
+cent. to 184.3 per cent.; and many similar instances are given,
+illustrating very forcibly the economic revolution which has led to
+the transfer of a larger share of the produce of the land to the
+labourer.
+
+On the other hand, this Commission found, like the last, that the
+farmer had derived considerable benefit from the decrease in cost of
+cake and artificial manure, while the low price of corn had led to
+its being largely used in place of linseed and cotton cakes.
+
+Before leaving the subject of this famous Commission it is well to
+state the answer of Sir John Lawes, than whom there was no higher
+authority, to the oft-repeated assertion that high farming would
+counteract low prices. 'The result of all our experiments,' he said,
+'is that the reverse is the case. As you increase your crops so each
+bushel after a certain amount costs you more and more ... the last
+bushel always costs you more than all the others.' As prices went
+lower 'we must contract our farming to what I should call the average
+of the seasons'; and in the corn districts, the higher the farmer had
+farmed his land by adding manure the worse had been the financial
+results.[697]
+
+In 1896 the injustice of the incidence of rates on agricultural land
+was partly remedied, the occupier being relieved of half the rates on
+the land apart from the buildings, which Act was continued in
+1901.[698] But the system is still inequitable, for a farmer who pays
+a rent of £240 a year even now probably pays more rates than the
+occupier of a house rated at £120 a year. Yet the farmer's income
+would very likely not be more than £200 a year, whereas the occupier
+of the house rated at £120 might have an income of £2,000 a year.
+
+In 1901 and 1902 Mr. Rider Haggard, following in the footsteps of
+Young, Marshall, and Caird, made an agricultural tour through England.
+He considered that, after foreign competition, the great danger to
+English farming was the lack of labour,[699] for young men and women
+were everywhere leaving the country for the towns, attracted by the
+nominally high wages, often delusive, and by the glamour of the
+pavement. Yet the labourer has come better out of the depression of
+the last generation than either landowner or farmer: he is better
+housed, better fed, better clothed, better paid, but filled with
+discontent. Since Mr. Haggard wrote, however, there seems to be a
+reaction, small indeed but still marked, against the townward
+movement, and in most places the supply of labour is sufficient. The
+quality, however, is almost universally described as inferior; the
+labourer takes no pride in his work, and good hedgers, thatchers,
+milkers, and men who understand live stock are hard to obtain[700];
+and the reason for this is in large measure due to the modern system
+of education which keeps a boy from farm work until he is too old to
+take to it. His wages to-day in most parts are good; near
+manufacturing towns the ordinary farm hand is paid from 18s. to 20s. a
+week with extras in harvest, and in purely agricultural districts from
+13s. to 15s. a week, often with a cottage rent free at the lower
+figure. His cottage has improved vastly, especially on large estates,
+though often leaving much to be desired, and the rent usually paid is
+£4 or £5 a year, rising to £7 and £8 near large towns. The wise custom
+of giving him a garden has spread, and is nearly always found to be
+much more helpful than an allotment. The superior or more skilled
+workmen,[701] such as the wagoner, stockman, or shepherd, earns in
+agricultural counties like Herefordshire from 14s. to 18s. a week, and
+in manufacturing counties like Lancashire from 20s. to 22s. a week,
+with extras such as 3d. a lamb in lambing time. At the lower wages he
+often has a cottage and garden rent free.
+
+The improved methods of cutting and harvesting crops have so enabled
+the farmer to economize labour that the once familiar figure of the
+Irish labourer with his knee-breeches and tall hat, who came over for
+the harvest, has almost disappeared. Women, who formerly shared with
+the men most of the farm work, now are little seen in most parts of
+England at work in the fields, and are better occupied in attending to
+their homes.
+
+The divorce of the labourer from the land by enclosure had early
+exercised men's minds, and many efforts were made to remedy this.
+About 1836 especially, several landowners in various parts of England
+introduced allotments, and the movement spread rapidly, so that in
+1893 the Royal Commission on Labour stated that in most places the
+supply was equal to or in excess of the demand.[702] However, previous
+Allotments and Small Holdings Acts not being considered so successful
+as was desired, in 1907 an effort was made to give more effect to the
+cry of 'back to the land' by a Small Holdings and Allotments Act[703]
+which enables County Councils to purchase land by agreement or take it
+on lease, and, if unable to acquire it by agreement, to do so
+compulsorily, in order to provide small holdings for persons desiring
+to lease them. The County Council may also arrange with any Borough
+Council or Urban District Council to act as its agent in providing and
+managing small holdings. The duty of supplying allotments rests in the
+first instance with the Rural Parish Councils, though if they do not
+take proper steps to provide allotments, the County Council may itself
+provide them.
+
+It is a praiseworthy effort, though marked by arbitrary methods and
+that contempt for the rights of property, provided it belongs to some
+one else, that is a characteristic of to-day. That it will succeed
+where the small holder has some other trade, and in exceptionally
+favoured situations, is very probable; most of the small holders who
+were successful before the Act had something to fall back upon: they
+were dealers, hawkers, butchers, small tradesmen, &c. There is no
+doubt, too, that an allotment helps both the town artisan and the
+country labourer to tide over slack times. Whether it will succeed in
+planting a rural population on English soil is another matter. It is a
+consummation devoutly to be wished, for a country without a sound
+reserve of healthy country-people is bound to deteriorate. The small
+holder, pure and simple, without any by-industry, has hitherto only
+been able to keep his head above water by a life which without
+exaggeration may be called one of incessant toil and frequent
+privation, such a life as the great mass of our 'febrile factory
+element' could not endure. And if there is one tendency more marked
+than another in the history of English agriculture, it is the
+disappearance of the small holding. In the Middle Ages it is probable
+that the average size of a man's farm was 30 acres, with its attendant
+waste and wood; since then amalgamation has been almost constant.
+
+It is true that the occupier of a few acres often brings to bear on it
+an amount of industry which is greater in proportion than that
+bestowed on a large farm; but the large farmer has, as Young pointed
+out long ago, very great advantages. He is nearly always a man of
+superior intelligence and training. He has more capital, and can buy
+and sell in the best markets; he can purchase better stock, and save
+labour and the cost of production by using the best machinery. By
+buying in large quantities he gets manures, cakes, seeds, &c., better
+and cheaper than the small holder.
+
+Besides the small holders who have outside industries to fall back
+upon, those who are aided by some exceptionally favourable element in
+the soil or climate, or proximity to good markets, should do well. Yet
+in the Isle of Axholme, the paradise of small holders, we have seen
+that the Commission of 1894 reported that distress was severe. This,
+however, seems to have been largely due to the exaggerated land-hunger
+in the good times, which induced the tenants to buy lands at too high
+a price; and under normal conditions, such as they are now returning
+to, the tenants seem to thrive. In this district the preference for
+ownership as opposed to tenancy is, in spite of recent experiences,
+unqualified, though it is admitted that the best way is to begin by
+renting and save enough to buy.[704] The soil is peculiarly favourable
+to the production of celery and early potatoes; and large tracts of
+land are divided into unfenced strips locally known as 'selions' of
+from a quarter of an acre to 3 acres each, cultivated by men who live
+in the villages, each having one or more strips, some as much as 20
+acres, and it is considered that 10 acres is the smallest area on
+which a man can support a family without any other industry to help
+him.
+
+Yet in the fen districts and on the marsh lands between Boston and the
+east coast of Lincolnshire, where the land is naturally very
+productive, many people are making livings out of 5 or 6 acres, mainly
+by celery and early potatoes.[705] Other districts adapted naturally
+to small holdings are those of Rock and Far Forest, the famous Vale of
+Evesham, the Sandy and Biggleswade district of Bedfordshire; Upwey,
+Dorset; Calstock and St. Dominick, Cornwall; Wisbech, Cambridgeshire;
+and Tiptree, Essex. Apart, however, from by-industries, and
+exceptional climate, soil, and situation, the small holding for the
+purpose of raising corn and meat, as distinguished from that which is
+devoted to dairying, fruit-growing, and market gardening, does not
+seem to-day to have much chance of success. If farms were still
+self-sufficing, and simply provided food and clothing for the farmer,
+the small producer even of corn and meat might do as well as the
+larger farmer on a lower scale, but such conditions have gone; all
+holdings now are chiefly manufactories of food, and the smaller
+manufactory has little chance in competition with the greater.
+
+The example of foreign countries is usually held up to Englishmen in
+this connexion, and the argument naturally used is that 'if small
+holdings answer in France and Belgium, why can they not do so in
+England?' On this point the testimony of Sir John Lawes is worth
+quoting.[706] 'In most, if not in all continental countries' he says,
+'the success of small holdings depends very materially on whether or
+not the soil and the climate are suitable for what may be called
+industrial crops: such as tobacco, hops, sugar beet, colza, flax,
+hemp, grapes, and other fruit and vegetables; where these conditions
+do not exist the condition of the cultivators is such _as would not be
+tolerated in this country_.' That is the reason probably why small
+holdings, apart from exceptional conditions, do not answer in England;
+the Englishman of to-day is not anxious to face the hard and grinding
+conditions under which the continental small holder lives.
+
+Since Mr. Haggard's tour the black clouds which have so long lowered
+over agriculture have shown signs of lifting. Rents have been adjusted
+to a figure at which the farmer has some chance of competing with the
+foreigner,[707] though the price of grain keeps wretchedly low; stock
+has improved, and there is undoubtedly to-day (1908) a brisker demand
+for farms, and in some localities rents have even advanced slightly.
+The yeoman--that is, the man who owns and farms his own land, perhaps
+the most sound and independent class in the community--has,
+unfortunately for England, largely disappeared. Even of those who
+remain, some prefer to let their property and rent holdings from
+others! It has been noticed that the labourer's lot has improved in
+this generation of adversity; and well it might, for his previous
+condition was miserable in the extreme. The farmers have suffered
+severely, many losing all their capital and becoming farm labourers.
+The landlords have suffered most; they have not been able to throw up
+their land like the farmer, and until quite recently have watched it
+becoming poorer and poorer. The depression, in short, has driven from
+their estates many who had owned them for generations. Those who have
+survived have usually been men with incomes from other sources than
+land, and they have generally deserved well of their country by
+keeping their estates in good condition in spite of falling rents and
+increasing taxation.
+
+No class of men, indeed, have been more virulently and consistently
+abused than the landlords of England, and none with less justice.
+There have been many who have forgotten that property has its duties
+as well as its rights; they have erred like other men, but as a rule
+they play their part well. Even the worst are to some extent obliged
+by their very position to be public spirited, for the mere possession
+of an estate involves the employment of a number of people in healthy
+outdoor occupations which Englishmen to-day so especially need to
+counteract the degenerating influences of town life. Many of the great
+estates[708] are carried on at a positive loss to their owners, and it
+may be doubted whether agricultural property pays the possessor a
+return of 2 per cent. per annum; which is as much as to say that the
+landlord furnishes the tenant with capital in the form of land at that
+rate for the purpose of his business. What other class is content with
+such a scanty return? They are often charged with not managing their
+estates on business principles, and no charge is worse founded. It
+would be a sad day for the tenants on many an estate if they were
+managed on commercial lines. One of the first results would be that
+many properties would be given up as a dead loss. They could only be
+made to pay by raising the rents or cutting down the ever-recurring
+expenditure on repairs and buildings which are necessary for the
+welfare of the tenants. The Duke of Bedford, in his _Story of a Great
+Estate_, has said that the rent has completely disappeared from three
+of his estates. On the Thorney and Woburn estates over £750,000 was
+spent on new works and permanent improvements alone between 1816 and
+1895, and the result, owing to agricultural depression and increased
+burdens on the land, was a net loss of £7,000 a year; and every one
+with any knowledge of the management of land knows that this is no
+isolated case, though it may be on an exceptionally large scale. Where
+would many tenants be if commercial principles ruled on rent audit
+days? The larger English landlords of to-day are as a rule not
+dependent on their rent rolls. To their great advantage, and to the
+advantage of their tenants, they generally own other property, so that
+they need not regard the land as a commercial investment. They can
+therefore support the necessary outlay on a large estate, the capital
+expenditure on improvements of all kinds, and thus relieve the tenant
+of any expense of this kind. The farms are let at moderate, not rack
+rents, such as the tenants can easily pay. Also the landlord can make
+large reductions of rent in years of exceptional distress.[709] Rents
+are generally collected three months after they are due, a
+considerable concession; and even then arrears are numerous, for any
+reasonable excuse for being behind with the rent is generously
+listened to. It is owing to forbearance in this and other matters that
+the relations between landlord and tenant are generally excellent.
+Where are the best farm buildings, where the best cottages, where does
+the owner carry on a home farm often for the assistance of the tenant
+by letting him have the use of entire horses, well-bred bulls, and
+rams, if not on the larger estates? The restrictions in leases, so
+much decried of late years, were nearly always in the interest of good
+farming, and their abolition will lead to the deterioration of many a
+holding.
+
+Bacon said, 'Where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it
+multiplieth riches exceedingly' and wiser words were never uttered.
+Yet these are the men who are singled out for attack by agitators, who
+are only listened to because the greater number of modern Englishmen
+are ignorant of the land and everything connected with it. At a time
+when rents have dwindled, in some cases almost to vanishing point,
+taxation has increased, and confiscatory schemes and meddlesome
+restrictions have frightened away capital from the land. Many of the
+landlords of England would clearly gain by casting off the burden of
+their heavily weighted property, but they nearly all stick nobly to
+their duty, and hope for that restoration of confidence in the
+sanctity of property and of respect for freedom of contract which
+would do so much towards the rehabilitation of what is still the
+greatest and most important industry in the country.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[665] And an ever increasing burden of taxation.
+
+[666] See Appendix III.
+
+[667] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1881, pp. 142, 199.
+
+[668] _Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners_, 1882, xiv. pp. 9 sq.
+
+[669] _Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners_, 1882, xiv. 14.
+
+[670] The rise between 1857 and 1878 has been estimated at 20 per
+cent., and between 1867 and 1877 at 11-1/2 per cent. Hasbach, _op.
+cit._, p. 291.
+
+[671] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1890, p. 324.
+
+[672] See infra, p. 330.
+
+[673] _Rural Economy of Southern Counties_, i. 285-6.
+
+[674] _Victoria County History: Hereford, Agriculture_.
+
+[675] In one respect the Act of 1883 restricted the rights of tenants
+to compensation, for while the Act of 1875 had expressly reserved the
+rights of the parties under 'custom of the country', the Act of 1883
+provided that a tenant 'shall not claim compensation by custom or
+otherwise than in manner authorized by this Act for any improvement
+for which he is entitled to compensation under this Act' (§ 57).
+
+[676] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 96.
+
+[677] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1892), p. 63.
+
+[678] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1901), p. 33. Cf. infra, p. 310.
+
+[679] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1893), p. 286; (1894), p. 677. Sometimes to
+artificially raising them.
+
+[680] Ibid. (1901), p. 34.
+
+[681] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv.
+
+[682] Broadly speaking, the arable section, or eastern group, included
+the counties of Bedford, Berks., Bucks, Cambridge, Essex, Hants,
+Hertford, Huntingdon, Kent, Leicester, Lincoln, Middlesex, Norfolk,
+Northampton, Notts, Oxford, Rutland, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Warwick,
+and the East Riding of York; the grass section, or western group,
+included the remaining counties.
+
+[683] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1894), xvi. (1), App. B.
+ii.
+
+[684] Ibid. App. B. iii.
+
+[685] Ibid. (1895), xvi. 169.
+
+[686] Ibid. p. 164.
+
+[687] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1895), xvi. 187-8.
+
+[688] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (2nd ser.), xxiv. 538
+
+[689] Ibid. (1894), p. 681.
+
+[690] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 22. Cf. p.
+319 n.
+
+[691] Ibid. pp. 30-1.
+
+[692] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 31.
+
+[693] Ibid. p. 37:
+
+  NUMBER OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS
+  IN ENGLAND AND WALES.
+
+   1871.     1881.     1891.     1901.
+
+  996,642   890,174   798,912   595,702
+
+The figures for 1901 are from Summary Tables, _Parliamentary Blue
+Book_ (C, d. 1, 523), p. 202, Table xxxvi.
+
+[694] According to the Report of the Royal Commission on Labour,
+1893-4, the labourer was 'better fed, better dressed, his education
+and language improved, his amusements less gross, his cottage
+generally improved, though generally on small estates there were many
+bad ones still'.--_Parliamentary Reports_, 1893, xxxv. Index 5 et seq.
+
+[695] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 53, 85. Sir
+Robert Giffen suggested that the decline in the price of wheat pay be
+partly attributed to the great increase in the supply and consumption
+of meat.
+
+[696] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. App. iii.
+Table viii. From an examination of the accounts of seventy-seven
+farms, the average expenditure on labour was found to be 31.4 per
+cent. of the total outlay.
+
+[697] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 106. But see
+above, p. 271.
+
+[698] 59 & 60 Vict., c. 16; I Edw. VII, c. 13.
+
+[699] _Rural England_, ii. 539. Yet the census returns of 1871, 1881,
+and 1891 gave no support to the idea that _young_ men were leaving
+agriculture for the towns. See _Parl. Reports_ (1893), xxxviii. (2)
+33.
+
+[700] The author speaks from information derived from answers to
+questions addressed to landowners, farmers, and agents in many parts
+of England, to whom he is greatly indebted.
+
+[701] It is, however, a fallacy to assume, as is nearly always done,
+that the ordinary farm labourer, at all events of the old type, is
+unskilled. A good man, who can plough well, thatch, hedge, ditch, and
+do the innumerable tasks required on a farm efficiently, is a much
+more skilled worker than many who are so called in the towns.
+
+[702] _Parl. Reports_ (1893), xxxv. Index.
+
+[703] 7 Edw. VII, c. 54, amending the Allotments Acts of 1887 and 1890
+and the Small Holdings Act of 1892. The Allotments Act of 1887 defined
+an 'allotment' as any parcel of land of not more than 2 acres held by
+a tenant under a landlord; but for the purposes of the Acts of 1892
+and 1907 a 'small holding' means an agricultural holding which exceeds
+one acre and either does not exceed 50 acres or, if exceeding 50
+acres, is of an annual value not exceeding £50. At the same time the
+Act defines an allotment as a holding of any size up to 5 acres, so
+that up to that size a parcel of land may be treated as a small
+holding or an allotment.
+
+[704] Jebb, _Small Holdings_, p. 25.
+
+[705] Jebb, _op. cit._, p. 28.
+
+[706] _Allotments and Small Holdings_ (1892), p. 19 et seq.
+
+[707] The gross income derived from the ownership of lands in Great
+Britain, as returned under Schedule A of the Income Tax, decreased
+from £51,811,234 in 1876-7 to £36,609,884 in 1905-6. In 1850 Caird
+estimated the rental of English land, exclusive of Middlesex, at
+£37,412,000. Cf. above, p. 310.
+
+[708] According to the Commission of 1894, the amount expended on
+improvements and repairs alone on some great estates was: On Lord
+Derby's, in Lancashire, of 43,217 acres, £200,000 in twelve years, or
+£16,500, or 7s. 8d. an acre, each year. On Lord Sefton's, of 18,000
+acres, £286,000 in twenty-two years, or about £13,000, or 14s. an
+acre, each year. On the Earl of Ancaster's estates in Lincolnshire, of
+53,993 acres, £689,000 was spent in twelve years, or 11s. 7d. an acre
+each year; and many similar instances are given.--_Parliamentary
+Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 287-9.
+
+[709] Shaw Lefevre, _Agrarian Tenures_, p. 19.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.--LIVE STOCK
+
+
+It is a curious fact that the barriers which protected the British
+farmer were thrown down shortly before he became by unforeseen causes
+exposed to the competition of the whole world. Down to 1846 Germany
+supplied more than half the wheat that was imported into England,
+Denmark sent more than Russia, and the United States hardly any.
+Other competitors who have since arisen were then unknown. By the end
+of the next decade Russia and the United States sent large
+quantities, as may be gathered from the following table [710]:
+
+  ANNUAL AVERAGE IMPORTS OF WHEAT AND FLOUR FOR
+  THE SEVEN YEARS 1859-1865.
+                                                   Cwt.
+
+  Russia                                        5,350,861
+  Denmark and the Duchies                         969,890
+  Germany                                       6,358,229
+  France                                        3,828,691
+  Spain                                           331,463
+  Wallachia and Moldavia                          295,475
+  Turkish dominions, not otherwise specified      528,568
+  Egypt                                         1,423,193
+  Canada                                        2,223,809
+  United States                                10,080,911
+  Other countries                               1,036,968
+
+In the years 1871-5 the United States held the first place, Russia
+came next, and Germany third with only about one-sixth of the
+American imports, and Canada was running Germany close. Other
+formidable competitors were now arising, and by 1901 the chief
+importing countries[711] were:
+
+                                               Cwt.
+
+  Argentina                                  8,309,706
+  Russia[712]                                2,580,805
+  United States of America                  66,855,025
+  Australia                                  6,197,019
+  Canada                                     8,577,960
+  India                                      3,341,500
+
+Since then the imports of wheat and flour from the United States have
+decreased, and in 1904 India took the first place, Russia the second,
+Argentina the third, and the United States the fourth. However, in
+1907 the United States sent more than any other country, followed by
+Argentina, India, Canada, Russia, and Australia, in the order named.
+
+It is probable in the near future that the imports from the United
+States will decline considerably, for in the last quarter of a
+century its population has increased 68 per cent. and its wheat area
+only 25 per cent. On the other hand, the population of Canada
+increased 33 per cent. and her wheat area 158 per cent. in the same
+time; while in Argentina an addition of 70 per cent. to the
+population has been accompanied by an increase of the wheat area from
+half a million to fourteen million acres. It is probable also that
+India and Australia will continue to send large supplies, and there
+are said to be vast wheat-growing tracts opened up by the Siberian
+Railway, so that there seems little chance of wheat rising very much
+in price for many years to come, apart from exceptional causes such
+as bad seasons and 'corners'.
+
+McCulloch, writing in 1843,[713] says that, except Denmark and
+Ireland, no country of Western Europe 'has been in the habit of
+exporting cattle'. Danish cattle, however, could rarely be sold in
+London at a profit, and Irish cattle alone disturbed the equanimity
+of the English farmer.
+
+For a few years after the repeal of the corn laws and of the
+prohibition of imports of live stock, the imports of live stock, meat,
+and dairy produce were, except from Ireland, almost nil[714]; since
+then they have increased enormously, and in 1907 the value of live
+cattle, sheep, and pigs imported was £8,273,640, not so great,
+however, as some years before, owing to restrictions imposed; but this
+decrease has been made up by the increase in the imports of meat,
+which in 1907 touched their highest figure of 18.751,555 cwt, valued
+at the large sum of £41,697,905.[715]
+
+Forty years ago hardly any foreign butter or cheese was imported;
+to-day it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that not one hundredth
+part of the butter eaten in London is British; in 1907 the amount of
+butter imported was 4,310,156 cwt., and of cheese, 2,372,233 cwt. The
+increase in the imports was largely assisted by the fact that in the
+last half of the nineteenth century English farmers had directed their
+attention chiefly to meat-producing animals and neglected the milch
+cow. However, of late years great efforts have been made to recover
+lost ground, and in England the number of cows and heifers in milk or
+in calf has increased from 1,567,789 in 1878 to 2,020,340 in 1906.
+
+The regulation of the imports and exports of live stock did not
+concern the legislature so early as those of corn. One of the earliest
+statutes on the subject is II Hen. VII, c. 13, which forbade the
+export of horses and of mares worth more than 6s. 8d., because many
+had been conveyed out of the land, so that there were few left for its
+defence and the price of horses had been thereby increased. A
+subsequent statute, 22 Hen. VIII, c. 7, says this law was disobeyed by
+many who secretly exported horses, so it was enacted that no one
+should export a horse without a licence; and 1 Edw. VI, c. 5,
+continued this. But after this date the export of horses does not seem
+to have occupied the attention of Parliament.
+
+22 Hen. VIII, c. 7, also forbade the export of cattle and sheep
+without a licence because so many had been carried out of the realm
+that victual was scarce and cattle dear. By 22 Car. II, c. 13, oxen
+might be exported on payment of a duty of 1s. each, the last statute
+on the subject.
+
+As for sheep, their export without the king's licence had been
+forbidden by 3 Hen. VI, c. 2, because men had been in the habit of
+taking them to Flanders and other countries, where they sheared them
+and sold the wool and the mutton. 8 Eliz., c. 3, forbade their export,
+and 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18, declared the export of sheep and wool a
+felony.
+
+The importation of cattle was forbidden by 15 Car. II, c. 7, which
+stated that the 'comeing in of late of vast numbers of cattle already
+fatted' had caused 'a very great part of the land of this kingdom to
+be much fallen and like dayly to fall more in their rents and values';
+therefore every head of great cattle imported was to pay 20s. to the
+king, 10s. to the informer, and 10s. to the poor after July 1, 1664.
+By 18 Car. II, c. 2, the importation of cattle was declared a common
+nuisance, and if any cattle, sheep, or swine were imported they were
+to be seized and forfeited. By 32 Car. II, c. 2, this was made
+perpetual and continued in force till 1842, though it was repealed as
+to Ireland, as we have seen.[716]
+
+It appears from the laws dealing with the matter that in the time of
+the Plantagenets England exported butter and cheese. In the reign of
+Edward III they were merchandise of the staple, and therefore when
+exported had to go to Calais when the staple was fixed there. This
+caused great damage, it is said, to divers persons in England, for the
+butter and cheese would not keep until buyers came; therefore 3 Hen.
+VI, c 4, enacted that the chancellor might grant licence to export
+butter and cheese to other places than to the staple.
+
+The regulation of the export of wool frequently occupied the attention
+of Parliament It has been noticed[717] that the laws of Edgar fixed
+its price for export, and Henry of Huntingdon mentions its export in
+the twelfth century, while during the reign of Edward I it was for
+some time forbidden except by licence, which led to its being smuggled
+out in wine casks.[718] The _Hundred Rolls_ give the names of several
+Italian merchants who were engaged in buying wool for export, the
+ecclesiastical houses, especially the Cistercians, furnishing a great
+quantity, and the chief port then for the wool trade was Boston, The
+export was again prohibited in 1337, the great object being to make
+the foreigner pay dearly for our staple product: an object which was
+certainly effected, for when Queen Philippa redeemed her crown from
+pawn at Cologne in 1342 by a quantity of English wool, 1s. 3-1/2d. a
+lb. was the price, and it was even said to sell in Flanders at 3s. a
+lb., a price which, expressed in modern money, seems fabulous.[719]
+However, in the next reign English wool began to decline in price,
+owing probably to changes in fashion, but the long wools maintained
+their superiority and their export was forbidden by Henry VI and
+Elizabeth.[720]
+
+In the reign of James I it was confessed 'that the cloth of this
+kingdom hath wanted both estimation and vent in foreign parts, and
+that the wools are fallen from their stated values', so that export
+was prohibited entirely; and 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18, declared the
+export of wool a felony, though 7 and 8 Will. III, c. 28, says this
+did not deter people from exporting it, so that the law was made more
+stringent on the subject, and export continued to be forbidden until
+1825.[721] In a letter written in 1677 the fall of rents in England,
+which had caused the value of estates to sink from twenty-one to
+sixteen or seventeen years' purchase, is ascribed mainly to the low
+price of wool,[722] owing to the prohibition of export and increased
+imports from Ireland and Spain. It was now, said the writer, worth 7d.
+instead of 12d., and a great quantity of Spanish wool was being sold
+in England at low rates. These 'low rates' were 2s. and 2s. 2d. a lb.
+for the best wool, whereas in 1660 the best Spanish wool was 4s. and
+4s. 2d. a lb.
+
+We have seen[723] that Spanish wool was imported into England in the
+Middle Ages. In 1677, according to Smith,[724] England imported 2,000
+bags of 200 lb. each from Spain[725]; in the three years 1709-11,
+14,000 bags; in the three years 1713-14, 20,000 bags; and about 1730
+some came from Jamaica, Maryland, and Virginia, and down to 1802
+imports were free.[726] In that year a duty of 5s. 3d. a cwt. was
+imposed, which in 1819 was raised to 56s. a cwt., which, however, was
+reduced to 1d. a lb. on 1s. wool and 1/2d. a lb. on wool under 1s. in
+1824. In 1825 colonial wool was admitted free, and in 1844 the duty
+taken off altogether, and imports from our colonies and foreign
+countries soon assumed enormous proportions. Down to 1814 nearly all
+our imports of wool came from Spain; after that the greater part came
+from Germany and the East Indies; but Russia and India soon began to
+send large quantities, and in recent times Australasia has been our
+chief importer, in 1907 sending 321,470,554 lb., while New Zealand
+sent 158,406,255 lb. out of a total import of 764,286,625 lb. About
+1800 our imports of wool were 8,609,368 lb.![727] Of our enormous
+imports of wool, however, a very large quantity is re-exported.
+
+In 1828 it was stated before the House of Lords that English wool had
+deteriorated considerably during the previous thirty years, owing
+chiefly to the farmer increasing the weight of the carcase and the
+quantity of wool, so that fineness of fleece was injured. The great
+extension of turnips and the introduction of a large breed of sheep
+also appeared to have lessened the value of the fleece, yet English
+wool to-day still commands a high price in comparison with that of
+other countries, though the price in recent years has declined
+greatly; in 1871 it was 1s. 5-1/2d. a lb., in 1872 1s. 9-1/2d., in
+1873 1s. 7d. In 1907 Leicester wool was 12-1/2d., Southdown 14d. to
+15d., and Lincoln 12d. a lb.; Australian at the same date being 11d.,
+and New Zealand 11-1/2d.
+
+The fruit-grower has also had to contend with an enormous foreign
+supply, which nearly always has a better appearance than that grown in
+these islands, though the quality is often inferior. In 1860 apples
+were included with other raw fruits in the returns, so that the exact
+figures are not given, but apparently about 500,000 cwt. came in; by
+1903 this had increased to 4,569,546 bushels, and in 1907 3,526,232
+bushels arrived. Enormous foreign supplies of grapes, pears, plums,
+cherries, and even strawberries have also combined to keep the home
+price down.
+
+The decrease in the acreage of hops, from its maximum of 71,789 acres
+in 1878 to 44,938 in 1907, was ascribed by the recent Commission to
+the lessening demand for beer in England, the demand for lighter kinds
+of beer, and the use of hop substitutes, and not to increase in
+foreign competition; which the following figures seem to bear out:
+
+  IMPORTS OF HOPS.
+                                                           Cwt.
+
+  1861                                                   149,176
+  1867                                                   296,117
+  1869                                                   322,515
+  1870                                                   127,853
+  1875                                                   256,444
+  1877 (the year before the record acreage planted)      250,039
+  1879                                                   262,765
+  1903                                                   113,998
+  1904                                                   313,667
+  1905                                                   108,953
+  1906                                                   232,619
+  1907                                                   202,324
+
+In recent years they have been a loss to the grower; as the average
+crop is a little under 9 cwt. per acre, and the total cost of growing
+and marketing from £35 to £45 an acre, it is obvious that prices of
+about £3 per cwt., which have ruled lately, are unremunerative.
+
+However disastrous to the farmer and landowner, the increased
+quantities and low prices of food thus obtained have been of
+inestimable benefit to the crowded population of England. In 1851 the
+whole corn supply, both English and foreign, afforded 317 lb. per
+annum per head of the population of 27 millions. In 1889 the total
+supply gave 400 lb. per head to a population of 37-1/2 millions at a
+greatly reduced cost.[728] The supply of animal food presents similar
+contrasts; in 1851 each person obtained 90 lb., in 1889 115 lb. The
+average value of the imports of food per head in the period 1859-65
+was about 25s.; in the period 1901-7, 65s.[729] The products which
+have stood best against foreign competition are fresh milk, hay and
+straw, the softer kinds of fruit that will not bear carriage well, and
+stock of the finest quality. These islands still maintain their great
+reputation for the excellent quality of their live stock, and exports,
+chiefly of pedigree animals, touched their highest figure in 1906:
+
+                                            Average per
+                 No.        Total Value.       head.
+                                £                 £
+
+  Cattle        5,616        327,335             58
+  Sheep        12,716        204,061             16
+  Pigs          2,221         20,292              9
+
+
+  1877.[730]
+
+  Acreage under crops and
+    grass in England           24,312,033
+
+  _Corn crops._
+  Wheat                         2,987,129
+  Barley or bere                2,000,531
+  Oats                          1,489,999
+  Rye                              48,604
+  Beans                           470,153
+  Peas                            306,356
+                                ---------
+                         Total  7,302,772
+
+  _Green crops._
+  Potatoes                        303,964
+  Turnips and swedes            1,495,885
+  Mangels                         348,289
+  Carrots                          14,445
+  Cabbage, kohl rabi, and rape    176,218
+  Vetches and other green crops   420,373
+                                ---------
+                          Total 2,759,174
+
+  Flax                              7,210
+  Hops                             71,239
+  Barefallow or uncropped arable  576,235
+  Clover, sainfoin, and
+    grasses under rotation      2,737,387
+                               ----------
+                  Total arable 13,454,017
+
+  Permanent grass, exclusive
+    of mountain or heath land  10,858,016
+                               ----------
+                               24,312,033
+
+
+  1907.
+
+  Total acreage under
+    crops and grass            24,585,455
+
+  _Corn crops._
+  Wheat                         1,537,208
+  Barley                        1,411,163
+  Oats                          1,967,682
+  Rye                              53,837
+  Beans                           296,186
+  Peas                            164,326
+                              -----------
+                         Total  5,430,402
+
+  Potatoes                        381,891
+  Turnips and swedes            1,058,292
+  Mangels                         436,193
+  Cabbage                          65,262
+  Kohl rabi                        20,572
+  Rape                             79,913
+  Vetches or tares                145,067
+  Lucerne                          63,379
+  Hops                             44,938
+  Small fruit                      73,372
+  Clover, sainfoin, and
+    grasses under rotation      2,611,722
+  Other crops                     117,914
+  Bare fallow                     248,678
+                               ----------
+                  Total arable 10,777,595
+               Permanent grass 13,807,860
+                               ----------
+                               24,585,455
+
+  The small fruit was divided into:
+    Strawberries                   23,623
+    Raspberries                     6,479-1/2
+    Currants and gooseberries      24,178-3/4
+    Others                         19,090
+                              ---------------
+                                   73,371-1/4
+
+As arable land has suffered much more than grass from foreign
+imports, it was inevitable that this country should become more
+pastoral; in 1877 the arable land of England amounted to 13,454,017
+acres, and permanent grass to 10,858,016. By 1907 this was
+practically reversed, the permanent grass amounting to 13,807,860
+acres and the arable to 10,777,595. In corn crops the great decrease
+has been in the acreage of wheat, but barley, beans, and peas have
+also diminished, while oats have increased. In green crops there has
+been a great decrease in turnips and swedes, compensated to some
+extent by an increase in mangels, and a sad decrease in hops. The
+changes in thirty years can be gathered from the tables of the Board
+of Agriculture given on p. 331.
+
+In 1877 no separate return of small fruit was made, but in 1878 the
+orchards of England, including fruit trees of any kind, covered
+161,228 acres, which by 1907 had grown to a total area under fruit of
+294,910 acres, among which were 168,576 acres of apples, 8,365 of
+pears, 11,952 of cherries, and 14,571 of plums. Much of the small
+fruit is included in the orchards.
+
+'Other crops' were further divided into:
+
+                            Acres.
+
+  Carrots                   11,897
+  Onions                     3,416
+  Buckwheat                  5,226
+  Flax                         355
+  Others                    97,020
+                           -------
+                           117,914
+
+The average yield per acre of various crops in England for the ten
+years 1897-1906 was:
+
+                                                Bushels.
+
+  Wheat                                         31.1[731]
+  Barley                                        32.88
+  Oats                                          41.38
+  Beans                                         29.28
+  Peas                                          27.15
+
+                                                 Tons.
+
+  Potatoes                                        5.74
+  Turnips and swedes                             12.19
+  Mangels                                        19.24
+
+                                                 Cwt.
+
+  Hay from clover, and grasses under rotation    29.40
+  Hay from permanent grass                       24.33
+  Hops                                            8.81
+
+The live stock in 1877 consisted of:
+
+  Horses used solely for purposes of agriculture         761,089
+  Unbroken horses and mares kept solely for breeding     309,119
+                                                       ---------
+                                                       1,070,208
+                                                       ---------
+  Cattle. Cows and heifers in milk or in calf          1,557,574
+          Two years old and over                       1,072,407
+          Under two years of age                       1,349,669
+                                                       ---------
+                                                       3,979,650
+                                                       ---------
+  Sheep                                               18,330,377
+  Pigs                                                 2,114,751
+
+In 1907:
+
+  Horses used solely for agriculture                     863,817
+  Unbroken                                               325,330
+                                                       ---------
+                                                       1,189,147
+                                                       ---------
+  Cattle. Cows and heifers in milk or in calf          2,032,284
+          Two years old and over                       1,043,034
+          Under two years of age                       1,912,413
+                                                       ---------
+                                                       4,987,731
+                                                       ---------
+  Sheep[732]                                          15,098,928
+  Pigs                                                 2,257,136
+
+The decrease in sheep and the increase in cattle and horses (though
+of late years the latter have shown a tendency to decrease) are to be
+noted.
+
+The number of live stock per 1,000 acres of cultivated land in the
+United Kingdom and other countries is:
+
+  Country.            Cattle.    Sheep.    Pigs.    Total.
+
+  United Kingdom        247       619        76       942
+  Belgium               411        54       240       705
+  Denmark               264       126       209       599
+  France                167       207        88       462
+  Germany               221        90       216       527
+  Holland               322       116       164       602
+
+It will be observed that in cattle the United Kingdom comes out
+badly, but is pre-eminent in sheep and has the largest total; though,
+as cattle require more acreage, Belgium nearly equals its aggregate
+produce for 1,000 acres.
+
+As regards prices at the two periods 1871-5 and 1906-7, if we take
+100 as the price at the former the following are the prices at the
+latter:
+
+  Beef          71
+  Mutton        93
+  Bacon        121
+  Wheat         56
+  Butter        97
+  Cheese       100
+
+Turning once more to the occupation of land, the percentage of land
+occupied by owners in 1907 in England was 12.4, the rest being
+occupied by tenants, and the following is a statement of the number
+of agricultural holdings of various sizes in 1875 and 1907:
+
+ 1875.[733]
+
+  50 acres    50 to    100 to   300 to   500 to   Above
+  and         100      300      500      1,000    1,000
+  under.      acres.   acres.   acres.   acres.   acres.
+
+  293,469    44,842   58,450   11,245    3,871     463
+
+ 1907.
+
+    Above 1 and      Above 5 and     Above 50 and       Above
+  not exceeding    not exceeding    not exceeding         300
+       5 acres.        50 acres.       300 acres.      acres.
+
+    80,921             165,975            109,927      14,652
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[710] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1882), p. 449.
+
+[711] See _Returns of the Board of Agriculture_.
+
+[712] The imports from Russia were that year exceptionally small.
+
+[713] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1852), p. 274.
+
+[714] In 1860 the number of live cattle imported was 104,569; in 1897,
+618,321; in 1907, 472,015.
+
+[715] In 1860 the quantity of beef imported was 283,332 cwt.; in 1907,
+6,033,736 cwt.
+
+[716] See above.
+
+[717] Supra, p. 38.
+
+[718] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 176, 192; _Hundred
+Rolls_, i. 405, 414.
+
+[719] Burnley, _History of Wool_, p. 65.
+
+[720] Ibid. p. 70.
+
+[721] Cf. supra, p. 172.
+
+[722] Smith, _Memoirs of Wool_, i. 222.
+
+[723] See above.
+
+[724] Smith, _Memoirs of Wool_, ii. 252.
+
+[725] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, iii. 156.
+
+[726] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_, p. 1431. For imports see
+Appendix, p. 354.
+
+[727] Of which 6,000,000 lb. came from Spain. The first Spanish Merino
+sheep were introduced into Australia in 1797. See Cunningham,
+_Industry and Commerce_, ii. 538, and cf. below.
+
+[728] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1890), p. 29.
+
+[729] _Board of Agriculture Returns_ (1907), p. 187.
+
+[730] Cf. Appendix IV.
+
+[731] In 1907 the average wheat crop was 33.96 bushels per acre in
+England and 39.18 in Scotland. The average yield per acre of wheat in
+Holland is 34.1 bushels; Belgium, 34; Germany, 30.3; Denmark, 28.2
+France, 197.
+
+[732] The total number of sheep in Great Britain in 1877 was
+28,161,164; in 1907, 26,115,455. In 1688 Youatt estimates it at
+12,000,000; In 1741, 17,000,000; in 1800 26,000,000; in 1830
+32,000,000.
+
+[733] Unfortunately the class 50 acres and under at this time included
+holdings _under_ one acre, so that it is useless for the comparison of
+the number of small holdings at the two dates, for in 1907 none appear
+under one acre.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+MODERN FARM LIVE STOCK
+
+CART HORSES
+
+
+Arthur Young at the end of the eighteenth century found only two
+kinds of cart horses worthy of mention, the Shire and the Suffolk
+Punch; to-day, besides these two, we have the Clydesdale.
+
+The Shire horse, according to Sir Walter Gilbey, is the purest
+survival of the Great Horse of mediaeval times, known also as the War
+Horse, and the Old English Black Horse. It is the largest of draught
+horses, attaining a height of 17 to 17.3 hands and a weight of 2,200
+lb., its general characteristics being immense strength, symmetrical
+proportions, bold free action, and docile disposition. In 1878 the
+Shire Horse Society was established to improve the breed, and
+distribute sound and healthy sires through the country.
+
+The Clydesdale, whose native home is the valley of the Clyde, is not
+so large as the Shire, but strong, active, and a fine worker. They
+are either derived from a cross between Flemish stallions and
+Lanarkshire mares, or are an improvement of the old Lanark breed.[734]
+
+The Suffolk Punch looks what he is-a thorough farm horse. He stands
+lower than the two former breeds, but weighs heavily, often 2,000 lb.
+They are generally chestnut or light dun in colour, and their legs
+are without the feather of the Clydesdale and Shire. They have been
+long associated with Suffolk, and were mentioned by Camden in 1586.
+According to the Suffolk _Stud Book_ of 1880, the Suffolk horses
+of to-day are with few exceptions the descendants in the direct male
+line of the original breed described by Arthur Young.
+
+
+CATTLE
+
+What was the original breed of cattle in this island is uncertain. The
+Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in
+1887 favours the view that the herds of wild cattle, such as still
+exist at Chillingham, represent the original breed of Great Britain.
+It states that the 'urus' was the only indigenous wild ox in this
+country, and the source of all our domesticated breeds as well as of
+the few wild ones that remain, such as the Chillingham breed, which is
+small, white, with the inside of the ear red, and a brownish muzzle.
+Some, however, assert they are merely the descendants of a
+domesticated breed run wild, which have reverted somewhat to the
+ancient type.[735]
+
+According to Thorold Rogers, the cattle of the Middle Ages were small
+rough animals like the mountain breeds of to-day, and at the end of
+the sixteenth century we have seen they had large horns, were low and
+heavy, and for the most part black.[736] The great variety of cattle
+in Great Britain may be due to their being the descendants of several
+species, or to difference of climate and soil, or to spontaneous
+variation, but the chief cause is the diligent selection of breeders.
+Marshall is quite positive[737] that the Hereford, Devon, Sussex, and
+the black mountain breeds of Scotland and Wales are all descended from
+the original native breed of this island, that the Shorthorns came
+from the Continent, and the Longhorns probably from Ireland. Bradley's
+division of cattle into black, white, and red tells us little.[738]
+There was very little attempt at improvement until the middle of the
+eighteenth century, for peace was necessary for long continued
+effort, and 1746, the date of Culloden, the last battle fought on
+British soil, may be taken practically as the commencement of the era
+of progress.
+
+The Shorthorn is the most famous and widely-spread breed of this
+country, if not in the world; it exceeds in number any other breed in
+the United Kingdom, and most cross-breds have Shorthorn blood in them.
+It adapts itself to any climate, and is equally noted for beef-making
+and milk-yielding.
+
+The origin of the Shorthorns is uncertain; they originated from the
+Teeswater and Holderness varieties, but where these came from is a
+matter of dispute. Young, in his _Northern Tour_,[739] says, 'In
+Yorkshire the common breed was the short-horned kind of cattle called
+Holderness, but really the Dutch sort'; and many have said the
+Holderness and the Teeswater breeds both came from Holland, and were
+practically the same, while others assert the original home of the
+Teeswaters was the West Highlands.[740]
+
+John Lawrence speaks of the Dutch breed with short horns in 1726;[741]
+but, unless they were smuggled over, it certainly seems strange that
+any Dutch cattle should have been imported in the eighteenth century,
+for the importation of cattle was strictly forbidden during the whole
+century. It was George Culley's opinion that they came from Holland,
+because few were found except along the eastern coast; he also knew
+farmers who went over to Holland to buy bulls.[742]
+
+Be this as it may, it was the cattle of the Teeswater district in
+Durham that the Collings improved, and they are still called Durhams
+in many parts. The work of the Collings[743] was carried on by Thomas
+Booth, who farmed his own estate of Killerby in Yorkshire, where he
+turned his attention to Shorthorns about 1790, and by 1814 he was as
+well known as the Collings. He improved the Shorthorns by reducing the
+bone, especially the length and coarseness of the legs, the too
+prominent hips, and the heavy shoulder bones. In 1819 he removed to
+Warlaby, and died there in 1835, having given up the Killerby estate
+to his son John, who with his brother Richard ably sustained their
+father's reputation. 'Booth strains' equally with 'Bates strains', the
+results of the work of Bates of Kirkleavington, whose cattle we have
+seen at the Oxford Show in 1839, and whose herd was dispersed in 1850,
+have been the foundation of many famous herds, and can be traced in
+many a pedigree animal of to-day.
+
+The palmy days of the Shorthorns were the 'seventies' of the last
+century, when they made fabulous prices. At the great sale at New York
+Mills, in 1873, eleven females of the Duchess tribe averaged £4,522
+14s. 2d., and one cow sold for £8,458 6s. 8d. In 1877 Mr. Loder bought
+Third Duchess of Hillhurst for 4,100 guineas; in 1876 Lord Bective
+gave 4,300 guineas for Fifth Duchess of Hillhurst, then 16 months old;
+and in 1875 the bull Duke of Connaught sold for 4,500 guineas. It was
+not likely that with the advent of bad times these prices would
+continue, and nothing like them in the Shorthorn world has occurred
+since.
+
+
+_Herefords._[744]
+
+Herefordshire cattle have long been famous as one of the finest
+breeds in the world. Marshall, writing in 1788, does not hesitate to
+say, 'The Herefordshire breed of cattle, taking it all in all, may
+without risque be deemed the first breed of cattle in the land.'
+Their origin has been accounted for in various ways. Some say they
+were originally brown or reddish-brown from Normandy or Devon, others
+that they came from Wales, while it is recorded that Lord Scudamore
+in the latter half of the seventeenth century introduced red cows
+with white faces from Flanders. However, they do not emerge from
+obscurity until about the middle of the eighteenth century, when
+Messrs. Tomkins, Weyman, Yeomans, Hewer, and Tully devoted their
+energies to establishing a county breed. There were four varieties of
+Herefords, which have now practically merged into the red with white
+face, mane, and throat: the mottle face, with red marks intermixed
+with the parts usually white; the dark greys; light greys; and the
+red with the white face. The rivalry between the breeders of the
+white and the mottle faces almost caused the failure of the Herd-Book
+commenced in 1845 by Mr. Eyton. The mottle-faced party seems to have
+been then the most influential, but the dark and light grey varieties
+also had strong adherents. In 1857 Mr. Duckham took over the
+management of the Herd-Book, and to his exertions the breed owes a
+deep debt of gratitude. One of the greatest supporters of the
+Herefordshire breed was Mr. Westcar of Creslow, who, starting in
+1779, attended Hereford October Fair for forty years, and when the
+Smithfield Show commenced in 1799 won innumerable first prizes there
+with Herefordshire cattle. Between 1799 and 1811 twenty of his
+Herefordshire prize oxen averaged £106 6s. each, and at the sale of
+Mr. Ben Tomkins's herd after his death in 1819 twenty-eight breeding
+animals averaged £152, one cow fetching £262 15s. Herefords are
+famous for their feeding qualities at grass, and good stores are
+scarce, the best being fattened on their native pastures. They are
+not only almost the only breed in their own county, but few English
+counties south of Shropshire are without them; they have done well in
+Ireland, and in Canada, the United States, South America, and
+Australia have attained great success. They are not so well qualified
+for crossing as Shorthorns, but have blended well with that breed,
+and produced good crosses with Ayrshires and Jerseys, but not with
+Devons. It has been said that they are not a favourite sort with
+London butchers, as they require time to ripen, which does not suit a
+hurrying age. Hence they probably flourished best under the old
+school of graziers, who sometimes kept them to six or seven years
+old. At all events they are a very fine breed for beef purposes,
+their meat being particularly tender, juicy, and fine-grained. They
+are seldom kept for dairy purposes, being poor milkers; consequently
+the calf is nearly always allowed to run with the dam, which accounts
+for the fact that one seldom sees pure-bred Herefords that are not
+well grown. The highest price paid for a Hereford was 4,000 guineas
+for Lord Wilton in 1884.
+
+
+_Devons._
+
+The cattle of North Devon can be traced as the peculiar breed of the
+county from which they take their name from the earliest records.
+Bradley mentioned the red cattle of Somerset in 1726, and no doubt
+there were many in Devonshire.[745] William Marshall states (1805),
+and he is supported by subsequent writers, that 'they are of the
+middle horn class', and in his time so nearly resembled the
+Herefordshire breed in frame, colour, and horn, as not to be
+distinguishable from them, except in the greater cleanness of the head
+and fore-quarters, and their smaller size. Yet they could not have had
+the white faces and throats of the Herefords, as they have always been
+famous for their uniformity in colour--a fine dark red.[746] He also
+compares them to the cattle of Sussex and the native cattle of
+Norfolk.[747] The Devons then differed very much in different parts of
+the county; those of North Devon taking the lead, being 'nearly what
+cattle ought to be'. They were, considered as draught animals, the
+best workers anywhere beyond all comparison, though rather small, for
+which deficiency they made up in exertion and agility. As dairy cattle
+they were not very good, since rearing for the east country graziers
+had long been the main object of Devon cattle farmers, but as grazing
+cattle they were excellent.
+
+Vancouver, a few years after this, praised their activity in work and
+their unrivalled aptitude to fatten, but says they were then
+declining in their general standard of excellence, and in numbers,
+owing to the great demand for them from other parts of England, where
+the buyers (Mr. Coke, who had established a valuable herd of them,
+and others) spared neither pains nor price to obtain those of the
+highest excellence.
+
+This danger was clearly perceived by Francis Quartly of Molland, who
+set to work to remedy it by systematically buying the choicest cows he
+could procure. As the reputation and perhaps continuance of the Devon
+breed is due to him more than to any other man, his account of his own
+efforts on behalf of it is specially valuable.[748] At the end of the
+eighteenth century the principal North Devon yeomen were all breeders,
+and every week you might see in the Molton Market, their natural
+locality, animals that would now be called choice. There were few
+cattle shows in those days, and therefore the relative value of
+animals was not so easily tested. The war prices tempted many farmers
+to sell their best bulls and cows out of the district, so that good
+animals were becoming scarce, and the breed generally going back. Mr.
+Quartly therefore for years bought all the best animals he could find
+with rare skill and judgement, and continued to improve his stock till
+he brought it to perfection. About the year 1834 cattle shows began at
+Exeter, and for the first year or two Mr. Quartly did not compete;
+then he allowed his nephews to enter in all the classes, and they
+brought home all the prizes. This lead they kept, and at the Royal
+Show at Exeter in 1850 their stock obtained nine out of the ten prizes
+for Devons. The _Devon Herd-Book_ was first published in 1851 by
+Captain T.T. Davy, and a writer in 1858 says that of twenty-nine
+prize bulls in the first three volumes twenty-seven were descended
+from the Quartly bull Forester, and of thirty-four prize cows
+twenty-nine from the cow Curly, also of their stock.
+
+Among other famous breeders of Devons contemporary with Quartly were
+Messrs. Merson, Davy, Michael Thorne, Yapp, Buckingham, the Halses,
+and George Turner.
+
+In 1829 Moore says, 'The young heifers of North Devon, with their
+taper legs, the exact symmetry of their form, and their clear coats of
+dark red, are pictures of elegance.' Their superiority for grazing and
+draught was proved by the high prices demanded for them, but they were
+not equally esteemed as dairy animals,[749] though of late years this
+reproach has been removed. The ploughing of two acres of fallow land
+was the common work of four oxen, which, when fattened at five years
+old, would reach eleven score a quarter.
+
+Since the publication of the Herd-Book, Devons have spread all over
+the world, to Mexico, Jamaica, Canada, Australia, France, and United
+States, and the fact that in their original home they have been
+largely kept by tenant farmers proves them a good rent-paying breed.
+Yet it cannot be pretended that away from their native country they
+are as much valued as the Shorthorn and Hereford.
+
+The South Hams breed of South Devon is a distinct variety, though it
+is believed to be descended from the 'Rubies'[750] and apparently has
+at some time been crossed with the Guernsey; they are good milkers and
+attain a great size, but the quality of the meat is decidedly inferior
+to that of North Devon.
+
+From the earliest times the real Devon colour has been red, varying
+from a dark to a lighter or almost chestnut shade; half a century ago
+the lighter ones were more numerous than at present, and they are
+often of richer quality though less hardy than the dark ones.
+
+The Sussex is larger and coarser than the Devon, of a deep brown
+chestnut colour, very hardy, a beef-producing but not a milk-yielding
+sort.
+
+Longhorns,[751] a generation ago nearly extinct, once the favourite
+cattle of the midlands and portions of the north, are descended from a
+breed long established in the Craven district of Yorkshire. 'The true
+Lancashire,' said Young in 1770, 'were Longhorns, and in Derbyshire
+were a bastard sort of Lancashires.'[752] It was this breed that
+Bakewell improved, and of late years great efforts, chiefly in
+Warwickshire and Leicestershire, have been made to revive it.
+
+The Red Polled, or Norfolk Polled, is the only hornless breed of
+English cattle, and they are good milkers and fatteners.
+
+The Lincoln Red is a small red variety of the Shorthorn.
+
+Many of the Welsh breeds have spread into the adjacent parts of
+England, and may be classified as North and South Welsh, or Angleseys
+and Castle Martins; black in colour, and generally with long horns.
+
+The Scottish cattle--the Aberdeen Angus, the Galloways, the Highland
+breed, and the Ayrshires--are also seen in England, but not so often
+as the Jerseys and Guernseys from the Channel Islands, while the
+small Dexters and Kerrys from Ireland are favourites with some
+English farmers.
+
+
+SHEEP
+
+The sheep of the British Isles may be divided into three main
+classes:--
+
+1. Longwools, containing Leicesters, Border Leicester's, Cotswolds,
+Lincolns, Kentish, Devon Longwool, South Devon, Wensleydale, and
+Roscommon.
+
+2. Shortwools: the Oxford Downs, Southdowns, Shropshires, Hampshire
+Downs, Suffolks, Ryelands, Somerset and Dorset Horned, and Clun
+Forest.
+
+3. Mountain breeds: Cheviots, Blackfaced Mountain, Herdwick, Lonk,
+Dartmoor, Exmoor, Welsh Mountain, and Limestone.
+
+These are all English except the Border Leicester, Cheviot, and
+Blackfaced Mountain, which are Scotch; the Welsh Mountain is of
+course Welsh, and the Roscommon Irish.
+
+1. The Leicesters, the largest and in many respects the most
+important of British longwool sheep, are the sheep which Bakewell
+improved so greatly. They are capable of being brought to a great
+weight, and their long fine wool averages 7 lb. to the fleece.
+
+The Border Leicesters are an offshoot of the last named, bred on the
+Scottish Border, and originating from the flock which George and
+Matthew Culley in 1767 took from the Tees to the Tweed.
+
+The Cotswolds have been on the Gloucestershire hills for ages, and
+have long been famous for the length of their fleece, hardiness, and
+breeding qualities.
+
+The Lincoln is the result of the old native breed of the county
+improved by Leicester blood. They have larger heads and denser and
+heavier wool than the Leicesters, averaging 8 to 9 lb. to the fleece,
+but have been known to yield 14 lb.
+
+The Kentish or Romney Marsh have long existed in the district whence
+they obtain their name, but are not much known away from that
+locality.
+
+The Devon Longwool is a result of the infusion of Leicester blood
+among the old Bampton stock of Devonshire called Bampton Notts or
+polled sheep.
+
+The South Devons or South Hams are another local breed, and are a
+result of the improvement of the South Hams Notts by the Leicester.
+
+The Wensleydales are descendants of the old Teeswater breed, itself a
+variety of the old Leicester and improved by the new Leicesters of
+Culley.
+
+2. Oxford Downs, a modern black-faced breed, now widely spread all
+over the midland counties, are a mixture of Cotswolds with Hampshire
+Downs and Southdowns, and originated at the beginning of Queen
+Victoria's reign, but were not definitely so called till 1857. This
+cross of two distinct varieties, the long and the short wool, has
+approximated to the shortwool type.
+
+The Southdown, formerly Sussex Down, an old breed bred for ages on
+the chalky soils of the South Downs, is 'perhaps', says Youatt, 'the
+most valuable breed in the kingdom.' It was to John Ellman of Glynde,
+at the end of the eighteenth century, that they owe their present
+perfection, and they have exercised as much influence among the
+shortwools as the Leicesters among the longwools.
+
+The Shropshire sheep is a descendant of the original Longmynd or old
+Shropshire sheep, which began to be crossed by the Southdown at the
+commencement of the nineteenth century.[753] They were recognized as a
+distinct breed in 1853, and since then have become one of the most
+valued breeds, combining the symmetry and quality of the Southdown
+with the weight of the Cotswold and the fattening tendency of the
+Leicester, with a hardier constitution.
+
+The Hampshire Down is another instance of the widespread influence of
+the Southdown, being the result of crossing that breed with the old
+Wiltshire sheep, which had long curling horns, and the Berkshire
+Knott. They are heavier than the Shropshire, and are perhaps more
+distinguished for early maturity than any other breed.
+
+The Suffolk is derived from the old horned Norfolk ewe mated with the
+Southdown, and was first granted its name in 1859.
+
+The Ryeland is a small, hornless, white-faced breed which has been in
+Herefordshire for centuries, but of late years has dwindled in numbers
+before the advent of the Shropshire.
+
+The Somerset and Dorset Horned is another old breed, preserved in a
+pure state, much improved in modern times, and very hardy.
+
+The Clun Forest breed of West Shropshire and the adjacent parts of
+Wales is a mixture of the Ryeland, Shropshire, and Welsh breeds.
+
+3. The Cheviot is found on both sides of the hills of that name,
+though Northumberland is said to be its original home, and it was
+improved in the eighteenth century by crossing with the Lincoln.
+
+The Blackfaced Mountain breed is found chiefly in Scotland, but
+thrives on the bleak grazing lands of the north of England.
+
+The Herdwicks' home is the hills of Cumberland and Westmoreland,
+where they are hardy enough to fatten on the poor, thin pasture.
+
+The Lonk is the largest mountain breed, belonging to the fells of
+Yorkshire and Lancashire.
+
+The Dartmoors and Exmoors almost certainly came from one stock,
+though the former are now the larger, and are the few real survivors
+of the old forest or mountain breeds of England. The Exmoor is
+horned, the Dartmoor hornless.
+
+The Welsh Mountain is a small, hardy, soft-woolled breed, their
+mutton having the best flavour of any sheep, and their wool making
+the famous Welsh flannel.
+
+The Limestone is little known outside the fells of Westmoreland.
+
+
+PIGS
+
+Our pigs may be roughly divided into white, black, and red; the first
+comprising the Large, Middle, and Small Whites, formerly called
+Yorkshires; the second the Small Black (Suffolk or Essex), the Large
+Black only recently recognized, but apparently very ancient, and the
+Berkshire, which often has white marks on face, legs, or tail. The
+red is the Tamworth, one of the oldest breeds, its skin being red
+with dark spots.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[734] Youatt, _Complete Grazier_ (1900), p. 388; cf. pp. 104-5.
+
+[735] Youatt, _Complete Grazier_ (1900), p. 6.
+
+[736] See above.
+
+[737] _Rural Economy of West of England_, i. 235 cf. above, p. 235.
+
+[738] See above.
+
+[739] ii. 126; about 1770.
+
+[740] Youatt, _Complete Grazier_, p. 18, and see 'Druid', _Saddle and
+Sirloin_.
+
+[741] Cf. supra, p. 167.
+
+[742] _Culley on Live Stock_ (1807), p. 42.
+
+[743] See p. 233.
+
+[744] Much of these accounts of Herefords and Devons is from the
+author's articles in the _Victoria County History_.
+
+[745] See above.
+
+[746] Risdon, _Survey_ (1810), Introd. p. viii.
+
+[747] _Rural Economy of West of England_, i. 235. Risdon says of
+Devonshire: 'As to cattle, no part of the Kingdom is better supplied
+with beasts of all sorts, whether for profit or pleasure,' those for
+pleasure being apparently wild ones kept in parks.--Chapple's _Review
+of Risdon's Survey_, p. 23.
+
+[748] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1st ser.), xi. 680. See also ibid. xix. 368,
+and (2nd ser.) v. 107; xiv. 663; xx. 691.
+
+[749] _History of Devon_, i. 456.
+
+[750] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (3rd ser.), i. 527.
+
+[751] See above.
+
+[752] _Northern Tour_, ii. 126.
+
+[753] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1858), p. 42.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX I
+
+AVERAGE PRICES FROM 1259 TO 1700[754]
+
+
+CORN PER QUARTER.
+
+                  WHEAT.          BARLEY.        OATS.
+
+  1259-1400    5s. 10-3/4d.    4s. 3-3/4d.    2s.  5-3/4d.
+  1401-1540    5s. 11-3/4d.    3s. 8-3/4d.    2s.  2-1/4d.
+  1541-82     13s. 10-1/2d.    8s. 5-3/4d.    5s.  5-1/2d.
+  1583-1700   39s.  0-1/2d.   21s. 4d.       13s. 10d.
+
+                  RYE.            BEANS.
+
+  1259-1400    4s. 4-7/8d.     4s. 3-1/2d.
+  1401-1540    4s. 7-3/4d.     3s. 9-1/4d.
+  1541-82        --            9s. 1-1/2d.
+  1583-1700      --           22s. 3-1/4d.
+
+
+ LIVE STOCK.
+
+                OXEN.             COWS.      CART HORSES.[755]
+
+  1259-1400   13s. 1-1/4d.       9s. 5d.     16s. 4d.
+  1401-1540   moderate increase    14s.      unaltered
+  1541-82         55s.             32s.      great increase
+  1583-1700      100s.             60s.      1580-1640  £5 to £10
+                                             1640-1700  £8 to £15
+
+                                               PIGS
+              SHEEP.              LAMBS.      (GROWN).         BOARS.
+
+  1259-1400   1s. 2d. to 1s. 5d.    8d.          3s.           4s. 7d.
+  1401-1540   moderate increase     9d.       unaltered           6s.
+  1541-82     3s. to  4s. 6d.   2s. to 3s.  6s. 8d. to 8s.        --
+  1583-1700     10s. 7d.            --               great increase
+
+
+ POULTRY AND EGGS.
+
+                HENS.        DUCKS.      GEESE.      EGGS.
+
+  1259-1400     1-6/8d.          2d.     3-5/8d.     4-1/2d. per 120
+  1401-1540     2-1/4d.      2-1/4d.     4-3/4d.     6-1/2d     "
+  1541-82       4-3/4d.      4-3/4d.        10d.     7-1/2d.    "
+  1583-1700     8d.-1s.      9-1/4d.         2s.     3s. 3d.    "
+
+              WOOL.          CHEESE.             BUTTER.
+              Per lb.
+
+  1259-1400   3-5/7d.     4-1/2d. per 7 lb.   4-3/4d. per 7 lb.
+  1401-1540   3-5/7d.       1/2d. per lb.         1d. per lb.
+  1541-82     7-1/2d.         1d.    "            3d.    "
+  1583-1702   9d.-1s.     3-1/2d.    "        4-1/2d.    "
+
+                  HAY.              HOPS.
+                  Per load.         Per cwt.
+
+  1259-1400        3s. 8d.            --
+  1401-1540    unaltered 14s.       0-1/2d.
+  1541-82          9s. 6d.          26s. 8d.
+  1583-1702       26s. 4d.          82s. 9d.
+
+
+ LABOUR.
+
+               Reaping          Reaping                  Labourer per
+                 wheat           oats         Mowing      day without
+               per acre.        per acre.    per acre.       food.
+
+  1261-1350     5-5/8d.          4-7/8d.      5-1/4d.        2d.
+  1351-1400     8-1/2d.          8-1/4d.      7d.            3d.
+  1401-1540     9-3/4d.          8-1/4d.      8-1/8d.        4d.
+  1541-82        --[756]           --           --            6-1/2d.
+  1583-1640      --                --          1s. 7d.        8-1/2d.
+  1640-1700      --                --          1s. 8d.        10d.
+
+
+ PRICE OF LAND PER ACRE.
+
+                        To Rent.                    To Buy.
+                  Arable.       Grass.
+
+  1261-1350       4d.-6d.       1s.-2s.        12 years' purchase
+  1351-1400         6d.           2s.                  "
+  1401-1540         6d.           2s.             15-20 years
+  1541-82           slight increase                unaltered
+  1583-1640         great increase                 20 years
+  1641-1700         5s.           8s.                 "
+  1770                    10s.                     30 years
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[754] Summarized from Thorold Rogers' prices in his _History of
+Agriculture and Prices_, with some alterations.
+
+[755] Affri, 13s. 5d. cart horses, 19s. 4d. A good saddle horse about
+1300 was worth £5. By 1580 it was worth £10 to £15, by 1700 £20 to
+£25.
+
+[756] A decided increase, but prices fluctuate so much that it is hard
+to strike an average.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX II
+
+
+  TABLE SHOWING EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF
+  WHEAT AND FLOUR FROM AND INTO ENGLAND,
+  UNIMPORTANT YEARS OMITTED
+
+           Exports.      Imports.
+           Quarters.     Quarters.
+
+  England.
+  1697      14,699           400
+  1703     166,615            50
+  1717      22,954          none
+  1728       3,817        74,574
+  1733     427,199             7
+  1750     947,602           279
+
+  Great Britain.
+  1757      11,545       141,562
+  1758       9,234        20,353
+  1761     441,956          none
+  1767       5,071       497,905
+  1770      75,449            34
+  1775      91,037       560,988
+  1776     210,664        20,578
+  1780     224,059         3,915
+  1786     205,466        51,463
+  1787     120,536        59,339
+  1789     140,014       112,656
+  1791      70,626       469,056
+  1796      24,679       879,200
+  1801      28,406     1,424,765
+  1808      98,005        84,889
+  1810      75,785     1,567,126
+  1815     227,947       384,475
+  1825      38,796       787,606
+  1837     308,420     1,109,492
+  1839      42,512     3,110,729
+  1842      68,047     3,111,290
+
+The above figures are taken from McCulloch's _Commercial
+Dictionary_, 1847, p. 438, and agree roughly with those given by
+McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, iii. 674, and iv. 216 and 532.
+
+After 1842, exports played a very small part, and imports continued
+to increase; in 1847, 4,612,110 _quarters_ of wheat and flour
+came in; and the following figures show their growth in recent
+times:--
+
+   AVERAGE OF ANNUAL IMPORTS
+   OF WHEAT AND FLOUR IN CWTS.
+
+     1861-5        34,651,549
+     1866-70       37,273,678
+     1871-5        50,495,127
+     1876-80       63,309,874
+     1881-5        77,285,881
+     1886-90       77,794,380
+     1891-5        96,582,863
+     1896-1900     95,956,376
+     1901-5       111,638,817
+
+With regard to the exports and imports of all kinds of corn, large
+quantities were exported in the first half of the eighteenth century.
+In 1733, 800,000 quarters were sent to France, Portugal, Spain, and
+Italy,[757] and exports reached their maximum in 1750 with 1,667,778
+quarters, but by 1760 had decreased to 600,000, and after that fell
+considerably; in 1771, for instance, the first year of the corn
+register, they only amounted to 81,665 quarters, whereas imports were
+203,122. The figures of the imports were swollen by the large
+quantities of oats which came into England at this time. The following
+years are typical of the fluctuations in the trade:--
+
+                  Exports.             Imports.
+  1774             47,961              803,844
+  1776            376,249              444,121
+  1780            400,408              219,093
+  1782            278,955              133,663
+  1783            104,274              852,389
+  1784-8      large excess of imports, mainly oats
+  1789            652,764              478,426
+
+the last year when exports of all kinds of corn exceeded imports.[758]
+
+To sum up, according to these figures, England's exports of wheat
+regularly exceeded her imports from 1697 until 1757, with the
+exception of the years 1728-9; then they fluctuated till 1789, the
+last year in which exports of wheat exceeded imports, and as the same
+year is the last time when our exports of all kinds of corn exceeded
+our imports, England at that date ceased to be an exporting country.[759]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[757] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, iii. 198.
+
+[758] Ibid. iii. 674; iv. 216, 532.
+
+[759] The excess of exports of wheat in 1808 was accidentally due to
+the requirements of the army in Spain.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX III
+
+
+AVERAGE PRICES PER IMPERIAL QUARTER OF BRITISH CORN IN ENGLAND
+AND WALES, IN EACH YEAR FROM 1771 TO 1907 INCLUSIVE, ACCORDING TO
+THE RETURNS OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE
+
+  YEARS.   WHEAT.   BARLEY.    OATS.
+           s. d.     s. d.     s. d.
+
+  1771     48  7     26  5     17  2
+  1772     52  3     26  1     16  8
+  1773     52  7     29  2     17  8
+  1774     54  3     29  4     18  4
+  1775     49 10     26  9     17  0
+
+  1776     39  4     20  9     15  5
+  1777     46 11     21  1     16  1
+  1778     43  3     23  4     15  7
+  1779     34  8     20  1     14  5
+  1780     36  9     17  6     13  2
+
+  1781     46  0     17  8     14  1
+  1782     49  3     23  2     15  7
+  1783     54  3     31  3     20  5
+  1784     50  4     28  8     18 10
+  1785     43  1     24  9     17  8
+
+  1786     40  0     25  1     18  6
+  1787     42  5     23  4     17  2
+  1788     46  4     22  8     16  1
+  1789     52  9     23  6     16  6
+  1790     54  9     26  3     19  5
+
+  1791     48  7     26 10     18  1
+  1792     43  0     27  7     16  9
+  1793     49  3     31  1     20  6
+  1794     52  3     31  9     21  3
+  1795     75  2     37  5     24  5
+
+  1796     78  7     35  4     21 10
+  1797     53  9     27  2     16  3
+  1798     51 10     29  0     19  5
+  1799     69  0     36  2     27  6
+  1800    113 10     59 10     39  4
+
+  1801    119  6     68  6     37  0
+  1802     69 10     33  4     20  4
+  1803     58 10     25  4     21  6
+  1804     62  3     31  0     24  3
+  1805     89  9     44  6     28  4
+
+  1806     79  1     38  8     27  7
+  1807     75  4     39  4     28  4
+  1808     81  4     43  5     33  4
+  1809     97  4     47  0     31  5
+  1810    106  5     48  1     28  7
+
+  1811     95  3     42  3     27  7
+  1812    126  6     66  9     44  6
+  1813    109  9     58  6     38  6
+  1814     74  4     37  4     25  8
+  1815     65  7     30  3     23  7
+
+  1816     78  6     33 11     27  2
+  1817     96 11     49  4     32  5
+  1818     86  3     53 10     32  5
+  1819     74  6     45  9     28  2
+  1820     67 10     33 10     24  2
+
+  1821     56  1     26  0     19  6
+  1822     44  7     21 10     18  1
+  1823     53  4     31  6     22 11
+  1824     63 11     36  4     24 10
+  1825     68  6     40  0     25  8
+
+  1826     58  8     34  4     26  8
+  1827     58  6     37  7     28  2
+  1828     60  5     32 10     22  6
+  1829     66  3     32  6     22  9
+  1830     64  3     32  7     24  5
+
+  1831     66  4     38  0     25  4
+  1832     58  8     33  1     20  5
+  1833     52 11     27  6     18  5
+  1834     46  2     29  0     20 11
+  1835     39  4     29 11     22  0
+
+  1836     48  6     32 10     23  1
+  1837     55 10     30  4     23  1
+  1838     64  7     31  5     22  5
+  1839     70  8     39  6     25 11
+  1840     66  4     36  5     25  8
+
+  1841     64  4     32 10     22  5
+  1842     57  3     27  6     19  3
+  1843     50  1     29  6     18  4
+  1844     51  3     33  8     20  7
+  1845     50 10     31  8     22  6
+
+  1846     54  8     32  8     23  8
+  1847     69  9     44  2     28  8
+  1848     50  6     31  6     20  6
+  1849     44  3     27  9     17  6
+  1850     40  3     23  5     16  5
+
+  1851     38  6     24  9     18  7
+  1852     40  9     28  6     19  1
+  1853     53  3     33  2     21  0
+  1854     72  5     36  0     27 11
+  1855     74  8     34  9     27  5
+
+  1856     69  2     41  1     25  2
+  1857     56  4     42  1     25  0
+  1858     44  2     34  8     24  6
+  1859     43  9     33  6     23  2
+  1860     53  3     36  7     24  5
+
+  1861     55  4     36  1     23  9
+  1862     55  5     35  1     22  7
+  1863     44  9     33 11     21  2
+  1864     40  2     29 11     20  1
+  1865     41 10     29  9     21 10
+
+  1866     49 11     37  5     24  7
+  1867     64  5     40  0     26  0
+  1868     63  9     43  0     28  1
+  1869     48  2     39  5     26  0
+  1870     46 11     34  7     22 10
+
+  1871     56  8     36  2     25  2
+  1872     57  0     37  4     23  2
+  1873     58  8     40  5     25  5
+  1874     55  9     44 11     28 10
+  1875     45  2     38  5     28  8
+
+  1876     46  2     35  2     26  3
+  1877     56  9     39  8     25 11
+  1878     46  5     40  2     24  4
+  1879     43 10     34  0     21  9
+  1880     44  4     33  1     23  1
+
+  1881     45  4     31 11     21  9
+  1882     45  1     31  2     21 10
+  1883     41  7     31 10     21  5
+  1884     35  8     30  8     20  3
+  1885     32 10     30  1     20  7
+
+  1886     31  0     26  7     19  0
+  1887     32  6     25  4     16  3
+  1888     31 10     27 10     16  9
+  1889     29  9     25 10     17  9
+  1890     31 11     28  8     18  7
+
+  1891     37  0     28  2     20  0
+  1892     30  3     26  2     19 10
+  1893     26  4     25  7     18  9
+  1894     22 10     24  6     17  1
+  1895     23  1     21 11     14  6
+
+  1896     26  2     22 11     14  9
+  1897     30  2     23  6     16 11
+  1898     34  0     27  2     18  5
+  1899     25  8     25  7     17  0
+  1900     26 11     24 11     17  7
+
+  1901     26  9     25  2     18  5
+  1902     28  1     25  8     20  2
+  1903     26  9     22  8     17  2
+  1904     28  4     22  4     16  4
+  1905     29  8     24  4     17  4
+
+  1906     28  3     24  2     18  4
+  1907     30  7     25  1     18 10
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX IV
+
+MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION
+
+
+Gregory King, at the end of the seventeenth century, estimated the
+acreage of England and Wales at 39,000,000--not at all a bad
+estimate, the area, excluding water, according to the Board of
+Agriculture Returns of 1907, being 37,130,344. The different
+estimates by Grew, Templeman, Petty, Young, Halley, Middleton, and
+others varied between 31,648,000 and 46,916,000 acres. The last, that
+of Arthur Young, was actually adopted by Pitt for his estimate of the
+income-tax.[760]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Caird in 1850[761] estimated the cultivated lands of England at
+27,000,000 acres (in 1907 they were 24,585,455 acres), cultivated
+thus:--
+
+  Permanent grass      13,333,000
+  Arable               13,667,000
+
+the latter being divided as follows:--
+
+                                    Acres.    Bushels     Produce,
+                                              per acre.   quarters.
+
+  Wheat                           3,416,750      27      11,531,531
+  Barley                          1,416,750      38       6,729,562
+  Oats and rye                    2,000,000      44      11,000,000
+  Clover and seeds                2,277,750
+  Beans and peas                  1,139,000      30       4,271,250
+  Turnips, marigolds, & potatoes  2,116,750
+  Rape and fallow                 1,300,000
+
+Davenant, at the end of the seventeenth century, made the following
+estimate showing the importance of wool in English trade[762]:--
+
+  Annual income of England        £43,000,000
+  Yearly rent of land              10,000,000
+  Value of wool shorn yearly        2,000,000
+    "      woollen manufactures    10,000,000
+
+Thus the rents of land formed nearly one-fourth the total income of
+the country, and wool paid one-fifth of the rents.[763]
+
+In the eighteenth century a great quantity of wool was smuggled out
+of England in defiance of the law; in the space of four months in
+1754, 4,000 tods was 'run' into Boulogne.[764]
+
+
+  FOREIGN AND COLONIAL WOOL
+  IMPORTED INTO ENGLAND.[765]
+
+                   lb.
+
+  1766          1,926,000
+  1771          1,829,000
+  1780            323,000
+  1790          2,582,000
+  1800          8,609,000
+  1810         10,914,000
+  1820          9,775,000
+  1830         32,305,000
+  1840         49,436,000
+  1850         74,326,000
+  1855         99,300,000
+  1857        127,390,000
+
+
+  PRICES OF LABOUR IN SURREY IN 1780.[766]
+
+                                                               s.  d.
+
+  Day labourer, per day, in winter                             1   4
+       "           "     in summer                             1   6
+  Reaping wheat, per acre                                      7   0
+        "          "      and according to the crop up to     12   0
+  Mowing barley, per acre                                      2   6
+     "   oats,     "                               1s. 6d. to  2   0
+     "   grass     "                                           2   6
+  Hand-hoeing turnips, per acre, first time                    6   0
+           "              "      second time                   4   0
+  Thatching hayricks, per square of 100 ft.                    1   0
+  Washing and shearing sheep, per score                        3   0
+  Ploughing light land, per acre                               5   0
+      "     stiff   "     "                           7s. to  10   0
+  Common hurdles, each                                             5
+
+
+OCCUPIERS OF LAND.
+
+In 1816 there were said to be 589,374 occupiers of land in Great
+Britain[767]--
+
+  With incomes under £50              114,778
+  Between £50 and £150                432,534
+  Over £150                            42,062
+                                      -------
+                                      589,374
+                                      =======
+
+In 1907 there were 510,954 occupiers of one acre and more.
+
+MULHALL'S CALCULATION OF AVERAGE ANNUAL WAGES IN ENGLAND.
+
+        Bailiff.   Shepherd.   Labourer.   Woman.   Boy.
+
+  1800    £20         £16         £12        £8      £6
+  1850     40          25          20        10       8
+  1880     52          36          30        15      10
+
+The average annual cost of living of an agricultural family of five
+was in 1823 £31, in 1883, £37.
+
+   COMPARATIVE STATEMENT BY A. YOUNG OF PRICES AND WAGES IN ENGLAND
+   FROM 1200 TO 1810 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF REPRESENTING FACTS
+   IN 1810 BY THE NUMBER 20, AND THE FACTS OF THE PRECEDING PERIODS
+   BY THE PROPORTION BORNE BY THEM TO THAT NUMBER.
+
+                                           Labourer's
+ Periods.    Wheat.     Meat.      Wool.      Wages.     Horses.
+
+ 1200-99     5-1/2          ...        3-1/2       ...
+ 1300-99     6-1/4          ...        4-3/4       ...
+ 1400-99     3              ...        5-1/2       ...
+ 1500-99     6              ...        5-1/2       ...
+ 1600-99     9-1/4          ...        8           ...
+ 1700-66     7-3/4       7-1/2     12         10          15-3/4
+ 1767-89    11          11-1/2     15-1/3     12-1/2      17-1/4
+ 1790-1803  13          16-1/2     16-1/6     16-3/4      19-1/2
+ 1804-10    20          20         20         20          20
+
+Thus wheat in 1804-10 had risen 233 per cent. since the sixteenth
+century.
+
+
+THE LABOURER'S WAGES.
+
+The following table, published by Mr. Barton in 1817,[768] shows
+the depreciation of the labourer's wages in purchasing power between
+1742 and 1808:--
+
+             Weekly      Price of    Wages in
+  Period.     pay.        wheat.     pints of
+              s.  d.      s.   d.     bread.
+
+  1742-52     6   0       30   0        102
+  1761-70     7   6       42   6         90
+  1780-90     8   0       51   2         80
+  1795-9      9   0       70   8         65
+  1800-8     11   0       86   8         60
+
+In answer to inquiries sent by the Poor Law Commissioners in 1834 to
+900 parishes in England the average weekly wages of labourers were--
+
+  in summer,
+                                                  s.     d.
+
+         in 254 parishes, with beer or cider      10   4-3/4
+            522    "      without beer or cider   10   5-1/2
+
+  in winter,
+
+         in 200    "      with beer or cider       9   2-1/4
+            544    "      without beer or cider    9   11-3/4
+
+The annual average inclusive earnings of the labourer
+
+                                           £     s.   d.
+
+  himself were stated at                   27   17   10
+  and of his wife and children             13   19   10
+                                           ------------
+                                           41   17    8
+                                           ============
+
+It will thus be seen that the wife and children provided a third of
+the income. The majority of the parishes said the labourer could
+maintain his family on these wages.
+
+Here is the weekly budget of a labourer with an average family in
+1800:--[769]
+
+            Cr.            s.  d.
+
+  Wages                    15  0
+  Garden                    1  6
+  Extras                    1  0
+                           -----
+                           17  6
+                           =====
+
+            Dr.             s. d.
+
+  Rent                      1  7-1/2
+  Bread                     6  0
+  Bacon                     2  6
+  Tea and sugar             1  3
+  Cheese                    1  6
+  Butter                    1  6
+  Fuel                      1  3
+  Candles and soap          0  6
+  Clothes                   1  6
+  Schooling                 0  3
+  Sundries                  0  6
+                           ---------
+                           18  4-1/2
+                           =========
+
+There is no fresh meat, and it is hard to say where any economy could
+be practised.
+
+   CONTRACT PRICES OF
+   BUTCHER'S MEAT PER CWT.
+   AT GREENWICH HOSPITAL,
+   1730-1842.[770]
+
+           £    s.   d.
+
+   1730    1    5    8
+   1740    1    8    0
+   1750    1    6    6
+   1760    1   11    6
+   1770    1    8    6
+   1780    1   12    6
+   1790    1   16   10
+   1800    4    4
+   1810    3   12    0
+   1815    3    8    0
+   1820    3   10    4
+   1825    2   19    6
+   1830    2    3    6
+   1835    2    0    7
+   1840    2   14    0
+   1842    2   12    8
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[760] C. Wren Hoskyns, _Pamphlet on Agricultural Statistics_, p. 19.
+
+[761] _English Agriculture in 1850-1_, p. 521. Cf. above, p. 331.
+
+[762] Smith, _Memoirs of Wool_, i. 157.
+
+[763] In 1908 the rental of agricultural land was 3-1/2 per cent. of
+the total income of the country. See _The Times_ May 13, 1909.
+
+[764] Ibid. ii. 264.
+
+[765] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, ii. 693. Cf. above, p. 328.
+
+[766] Trusler, _Practical Husbandry_, p. 153.
+
+[767] Farmer's Magazine (1817), p. 6. Statistics at this date,
+however, must be taken with caution. They were usually estimates. Cf.
+above, p. 334, for holdings in England.
+
+[768] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1881), xvi, 305.
+
+[769] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1881), xvi. 310.
+
+[770] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1852), p. 271.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+A
+
+Abbot's Ripton, 72.
+
+Aberdeen Angus cattle, 288, 343.
+
+Accounts, keeping, 29, 49.
+
+Accumulation of estates, 123.
+
+Acre, 2; tenantry, 253.
+
+Advantages of large farms, 202.
+
+Affer, the, 35.
+
+Agricultural Holdings Acts, 283, 296, 299-303.
+
+Agricultural revolution, the, of eighteenth century, 162.
+
+Agriculture,
+  state of, 28, 38, 111, 113, 115, 123, 132, 160, 162, 192, 204,
+    211, 221, 229, 244, 245, 250, 265, 267, 274, 287, 305;
+  seventeenth-century writers on, 127;
+  state of, in eighteenth century, 162, 192, 221, 229;
+  nineteenth, 244, 245, 262-70, 271, 287.
+
+Aitchison, 237.
+
+Akermanni, 13.
+
+Alderney cattle, 233.
+
+Ale, 10.
+
+Allotments, 196, 230, 253, 255n., 315-7.
+
+Allowance system, 237.
+
+Allowances, parish, 238, 241, 257, 284.
+
+Almaine, corn from, 20.
+
+Almonds, 93, 136.
+
+Amalgamation of farms, 29, 46, 47, 95, 119, 120, 162, 202, 258, 317.
+
+America,
+  gold discoveries in, 287;
+  imports from, 262, 293, 323-4.
+
+Ancaster, Earl of, estate of, 321.
+
+Andover, 39.
+
+Anti-Corn Law League, 280.
+
+Apples, 15, 65, 93, 129, 130, 131, 135-6, 143, 171, 186-9, 329, 332.
+  (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Apprentices, 108.
+
+Apricots, 93, 136.
+
+Arable district of England (1893), 306n.
+
+Arable fields, 1, 2, 4, 16, 73.
+
+Arable land, 56, 99, 100, 195;
+  amount of, in 1688, 155;
+  decrease of, 59;
+  extent of, in Domesday, 19;
+  in 1770, 199;
+  in 1850, 353;
+  in 1877 and 1907, 332;
+  preponderance of, 25, 30;
+  produce of, in 1688, 155;
+  suffers more than grass, 248, 266, 281, 285, 286, 306;
+  value of, 19, 40, 58, 115-7, 139.
+
+Arch, Joseph, 290-2.
+
+Ardley, Inquisition of, 9.
+
+Argentina, imports from, 324.
+
+Arley, Upper, wine made at, 145.
+
+Artificial grasses, _see_ Clover, improve commons, 166.
+
+Ash timber, value of, 137.
+
+Assize of beer, 13, 14n.
+
+Association, British, 336.
+
+Average crops of corn (1770), 197.
+  (_See under_ Wheat, Oats, Barley, &c.)
+
+Average size of farms in 1768, 202.
+
+Averagium, 10.
+
+Australia, gold discoveries in, 287;
+  imports from, 324;
+  sheep introduced into, 328;
+  wool from, 328.
+
+Axholme, 123, 260, 311, 318.
+
+Ayrshires, 339, 343.
+
+
+B
+
+Bacon, Lord, 322,
+
+Bacon, 'the necessary meate' of the labourer, 102, 140;
+  price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+Badger, a corn dealer, 134.
+
+Bailiff, 12, 29, 49, 51, 61, 71, 103, 109, 110, 137, 139, 355.
+
+Bakewell, 146, 163-7, 214-7, 226, 233, 343, 344.
+
+Balance sheet, estate, 307;
+  farm, in 1805, 247;
+  in 1888, 309.
+
+Balks, 3.
+
+Ball, John, 60.
+
+Banbury cheese, 173.
+
+Bank Restriction Act, 239, 240, 263.
+
+Barking Nunnery, vineyard at, 144.
+
+Barley, 20, 33, 36, 65, 91, 124, 135, 142, 155, 182, 227, 331-2, 353;
+  cost of, per acre, 198;
+  produce, per acre, 165n., 197-8;
+  profit on, 179, 180. (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Barns, size of, 51.
+
+Barren years at end of seventeenth century, 115, 157.
+
+Basic slag, 304.
+
+Bassingthorpe, 103.
+
+Bates, Thomas, 274, 338.
+
+Bath, wine made at, 145.
+
+Beale, John, 128, 130.
+
+Beans, 17, 33, 49, 124, 155, 187, 201, 262, 331-2, 353;
+  cost of growing, 199;
+  profit on, 180. (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Bedford, Duke of, 225, 318, 321.
+
+Bedfordshire, 3, 18, 79, 120, 123, 238, 306.
+
+Beef, price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+Beer, 36, 329.
+
+Belgium,
+  live stock in, 334;
+  wheat crops in, 332n.
+
+Belvoir estate, 115, 286.
+
+Berkeley estates, 3, 27n., 35n., 48, 56, 64, 74, 75.
+
+Berkshire, 104, 175, 237, 284, 286, 306n.
+
+Berkshire Knotts, 345;
+  pigs, 346.
+
+Berlin decrees, 242.
+
+Best, Henry, accounts of, 138-40.
+
+Bideford, 262.
+
+Biggleswade, 318.
+
+Birds eating fruit, 129.
+
+Black Death, 27, 41-3, 59, 75.
+
+Black Year, the, 294.
+
+Blight, Hop, 150.
+
+Blyth, 113, 127, 137, 152.
+
+Board of Agriculture, 192, 193, 214, 229-33, 255;
+  (Government), 290.
+
+Bones for manure, 154-5, 273, 275-6, 299.
+
+Booth, Thomas, 337-8.
+
+Bordarii, 8, 11.
+
+Boston, 308, 318, 327.
+
+Boys' wages, 206.
+
+Bradley, 152, 167, 168-9, 170, 171, 181, 336.
+
+Brampton, 235.
+
+Bread, different kinds of, 54, 102, 206-7, 230;
+  rye, 101, 134, 206;
+  wheaten, a luxury, 101;
+  common, 207, 240;
+  made of turnips, 157;
+  price of (_see_ Prices).
+
+Breeding of stock, 37, 146, 167, 215-7, 256, 273.
+
+Brentford, 157.
+
+Bridport, 262.
+
+Bright, John, 280.
+
+Buckinghamshire, 78, 146, 172, 291, 306n.
+
+Buckwheat, 332.
+
+Budget, labourer's weekly, 206, 208, 356.
+
+Buildings, farm, and repairs, 51, 272, 279, 282, 299, 302, 307, 310.
+
+Bull, description of a (1726), 167.
+
+Burford, riot at, 185.
+
+Buri, 8, 11.
+
+Bury St. Edmunds, 110, 147.
+
+Butter, 33, 63n., 66, 114, 138, 140, 161, 174, 205, 206n., 241, 247
+  (_see_ Prices), 304, 305, 313, 325;
+  exports of, 326-7.
+
+By-industries of peasant, 110, 239, 250, 257, 260, 269, 317.
+
+
+C
+
+Cabbages, 112, 143, 187, 191, 194, 200, 201, 331.
+
+Cadaveratores, 13.
+
+Caird, Sir James, 279, 281, 285, 287, 310, 314, 319n.
+
+Cake, 296, 300, 305, 314.
+
+Calstock, 318.
+
+Calves, killing of, forbidden, 86;
+  rearing, 125.
+
+Cambridgeshire, 79, 151, 167, 222, 262, 306n., 318.
+
+Camden, 173, 335.
+
+Canada, imports from, 323-4.
+
+Canterbury, hops from, 171.
+
+Capital of farmers, 197, 203-4.
+
+Carrington, Lord, 231.
+
+Carrots, 112, 128, 143, 167, 191, 194, 331. 332.
+
+Carter, wages of, 110.
+
+Cart-horses, price of, 35, 114.
+
+Carts, 153.
+
+Cattle, Chillingham, 336;
+  diseases, 85;
+  export of, 326, 330;
+  improvement in, 336, 337, 338 (_see_ Cattle, size of);
+  number of, in 1867 and 1878, 288;
+  in 1907, 333-4;
+  original breed of, 336;
+  price of, _see_ Prices;
+  size of, 37, 104, 146, 169, 288, 336, 342;
+  separation of, for summer pasture, 124;
+  sorts of (1726), 167 (_see under_ Various breeds);
+  about 1800, 235;
+  in 1839, 274;
+  in 1892, 274, 336;
+  time to buy, 125. (_See_ Bakewell, Collings, Exports, _and_ Imports.)
+
+Cattle plagues, of eighteenth century, 172, 185-6, 290;
+  of nineteenth century, 289-90, 294.
+
+Cauliflowers, 143.
+
+Causes of high prices at end of eighteenth century, 240.
+
+Celery, 318.
+
+Chamberlayne, 259.
+
+Cheddar cheese, 173.
+
+Cheese, 33, 63n., 66, 161, 173, 174, 200, 206n., 276, 305, 313, 325.
+  (_See_ Prices, Exports, _and_ Imports.)
+
+Chelmsford, 110, 171, 307.
+
+Chemistry, agricultural, 232, 243, 275.
+
+Cherries, 15, 129, 130, 131, 136, 143, 171, 329, 332.
+
+Cheshire, 3, 110, 167, 173, 224, 276, 295, 306.
+
+Chestnuts, 136.
+
+Cheviots, 344, 346,
+
+Child, Josiah, 117.
+
+Christ Church, Canterbury, 42.
+
+Cider, 37, 130, 131, 135-6, 149, 187-9, 207, 269.
+
+Cistercians, good farmers, 29, 327.
+
+Civil War, checks improvement, 113;
+  family settlements after, 123.
+
+Claret made in Oxfordshire, 145.
+
+Clarke, 236.
+
+Close parishes, 158, 284.
+
+Cloth made in England, 69, 70.
+
+Clothes, part of wages, 28, 109;
+  of labourer, 54, 71, 109, 185, 206-8, 211, 311;
+  of farmer, 105, 213.
+
+Clover, cost of growing, 198;
+  extent of, 331, 333, 353;
+  introduced, 111, 112;
+  spread of, 115, 141-2, 164, 166, 178, 179, 191, 194;
+  seed, price of, 223;
+  sown with corn, 166.
+
+Clun Forest sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Clydesdale horse, 335.
+
+Cobbett, 107, 226, 265, 268.
+
+Cobden, Richard, 279n., 280, 285n.
+
+Coinage, depreciation of, 44, 59, 89.
+
+Coke of Holkham, 163, 182, 224-8, 275, 341.
+
+'Coke's Clippings', 227.
+
+Coleseed, 115.
+
+Coliberti, 8.
+
+Collings, the, 146, 163, 167, 233-5, 337.
+
+Combe, 53.
+
+'Comet,' 234, 235.
+
+Commissions, Royal, on Agriculture, &c., 260, 266, 289, 294-6, 300, 303,
+  304, 305, 311-14, 316, 318, 320, 329.
+
+Committees, Parliamentary, 256, 258, 263n., 266, 267.
+
+Common, John, 303.
+
+Common fields, 22, 26, 78, 112, 113, 118-9, 120, 194, 253, 258.
+
+Common land, 3, 145, 148;
+  evils of, 148, 194, 256, 257;
+  improvement of, 166.
+
+Common pasture, _see_ Pasture _and_ Meadows.
+
+Commons, advantages of, 165;
+  extent of, in 1795, 231;
+  rights of, lost, 253.
+
+Communities and corporations contrasted, 2.
+
+Commutation of labour services for money, 27, 45.
+
+Compensation for improvements, 296, 299-302.
+
+Competition, foreign, 296, 297, 312, 315, 319, 323-30.
+
+Consolidation of farms, _see_ Amalgamation.
+
+Contractors for labour, 209.
+
+Co-operation in agriculture, 1.
+
+Copyholders, 59, 121-2.
+
+Corn laws, 63, 64, 69, 70, 159, 160, 242, 248, 250, 265-6, 277-80.
+
+Cornwall, 136, 186, 295, 309, 318.
+
+Cost of living (1773-1800), 241.
+
+Cotarii, 8, 11, 25.
+
+Cotswold sheep, 233, 275, 343, 344;
+  wool, famous, 172.
+
+Cottages, 52, 117, 121n., 139, 158, 159, 206, 209, 250, 254, 255,
+  267-8, 285, 297, 304, 311n., 315-6.
+
+Court Rolls, of Manydown, 13.
+
+Cowper, John, 165.
+
+Cows, decrease in number of, 96;
+  increase, 325;
+  let out by the year, 34, 57, 65;
+  yield of, 33, 64. (_See_ Prices of Cattle.)
+
+Craik improves drill, 202.
+
+Craven, migration from, 44.
+
+Crimean War, effect of, 277n., 287.
+
+Crondall, 28.
+
+Crows' and magpies' nests to be destroyed, 100.
+
+Culley, George, 217, 234, 337, 344.
+
+Cultivated land, amount of, in 1685, 120;
+  in 1867, 288.
+
+Cultivation, Walter of Henley on, 32;
+  of England, in 1688, 155;
+  the old and new ways of, 177, 180, 194, 200-2.
+
+Cultivation, clauses, 57, 178, 218, 296, 302, 322.
+
+Cumberland, 238, 295, 309, 311, 346.
+
+Currants, 331.
+
+Custom of the country, 299, 300n., 302 (_see_ Tenant right).
+
+Cuxham, manor of, 24.
+
+Cylindrical drain pipes, 272.
+
+
+D
+
+Dairy, the, and dairying, 33, 59, 168, 170, 173, 199-200, 297, 307,
+  306, 313, 319, 325, 340-1.
+  (_See_ Butter, Cheese, _and_ Milk.)
+
+Damsons, 15, 136.
+
+Danegeld, 6.
+
+Dartmoor sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Davenant, 115, 117, 120, 260, 354.
+
+Daventry, common fields at, 115, 117, 120, 260, 354.
+
+Davy, Sir H., 232, 276;
+  T.T., 342.
+
+Dealers, legislation against, 86, 93, 134;
+  complaints against, 237.
+
+Defoe, Daniel, 166, 168, 169, 171, 174, 220, 259.
+
+Degge, Simon, 122.
+
+Demesne, 7, 15, 30, 45, 56, 58, 65, 74, 97, 99.
+
+Denmark, imports from, 241, 262, 323-4;
+  livestock in, 334;
+  wheat crops in, 332n.
+
+Depression, agricultural, 163, 183, 184, 223, 228, 242, 248,
+  262-70, 281, 292, 293-6, 305-14.
+
+Derby, Lord, estate of, 320n.
+
+Derbyshire, 44, 167, 309, 343.
+
+Devon cattle, 168, 217, 225, 233, 274, 288, 336, 339, 340-3.
+  (_See_ Southams.)
+
+Devon sheep, 343, 344.
+
+Devonshire, 37, 73, 107, 113, 128, 132, 136, 186, 187, 244, 245, 269,
+  272, 295, 306, 309, 338.
+
+Devonshiring, 141.
+
+D'Ewes, Sir S., quoted, 117, 133.
+
+Dexters, 343.
+
+Dibbling wheat, 135.
+
+Digging for wheat, 135.
+
+Diseases of Animals Act (1890), 290.
+
+Dishley, 214-6.
+
+Distress, law of, 296, 301;
+  periods of, 42, 68 (_see_ Depression, agricultural), 237, 242.
+
+Divining rod, 232.
+
+Domesday, 5, 14, 16, 19, 60, 79, 144.
+
+Doncaster, roads near, 221.
+
+Dorking, manor of, 65.
+
+Dorset, 3, 263, 285, 291, 312, 318;
+  sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Dovecotes, _see_ Pigeons.
+
+Drainage, 16, 32, 113, 128, 129, 137, 154, 163, 201, 202, 213-4, 219, 230,
+  271, 273, 279, 282, 288, 299, 300, 305, 307, 310.
+
+Drills, 113, 152, 175-7, 180, 183, 200-2, 226, 227, 271, 274.
+
+Drinking habits, 207-8, 269.
+
+Drying hops, 151.
+
+Duchesses, the, 234, 274, 338.
+
+Duckham, Mr., 339.
+
+Ducks, 170 (_see_ Poultry).
+
+Dugdale, 77.
+
+Du-Hamel, 202.
+
+Durham, 119, 337.
+
+Durham ox, 234, 235.
+
+Dutch breed of cattle, _see_ Shorthorns.
+
+
+E
+
+Eakring, common meadows at, 22.
+
+Eardisley, 5.
+
+East Indies, wool from, 328.
+
+Eden, account of potatoes, 106, 207, 238, 256.
+
+Education Acts, 292, 297.
+
+Egypt, imports from, 323.
+
+Eighteenth century, general characteristics of, 162.
+
+Electricity applied to vegetables, 236.
+
+Elevator, hay and straw, 304.
+
+Elkington of Princethorpe, 213-4, 230, 271.
+
+Ellis, Chiltern and Vale Farming, 180.
+
+Ellman, John, 217, 345.
+
+Enclosers prosecuted in Star Chamber, 120.
+
+Enclosure, 74-82, 85, 92, 96, 97, 119, 173, 182, 194, 228, 252-261;
+  agreement as to, 98;
+  acts of, 119, 163, 196, 231, 233, 252, 253, 258;
+  amount of, exaggerated, 121;
+  different kinds of, 73, 119, 165, 196;
+  eighteenth century, 163, 165, 173, 182, 183, 194, 196, 253;
+  evils of, 194, 195, 252-3, 254-61, 316;
+  expense of, 196, 252;
+  non-parliamentary,165, 253;
+  a deed of, 75;
+  a sign of progress, 76, 114, 139, 145-8, 253;
+  legislation against, 79, 80, 120;
+  checked, 120.
+
+England, appearance of, in fifteenth century, 78;
+  in the seventeenth, 120-1.
+
+English invaders, 1.
+
+Entails, barred, 122.
+
+Essex, 62, 78, 106, 128, 173, 190, 225, 286, 295, 306, 309, 319.
+
+Estates, great, accumulation of, 123;
+  advantages of, 322;
+  often a loss, 321.
+
+Evelyn, John, 127, 149.
+
+Evesham, Vale of, 318.
+
+Ewes, milking of, 33, 64, 200.
+
+Exhibition, Great, 287, 304.
+
+Exmoor sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Exporting country, England ceases to be an, 161, 163.
+
+Exports of butter and cheese, 326-7.
+
+Exports of corn, 63n., 64, 70, 159-161, 183, 185, 242, 267, 348-9;
+  reaches its maximum, 186;
+  of livestock, 325-6;
+  of wool, 39, 69, 172, 327.
+
+Extensive cultivation, 2.
+
+Extent of the Manor, 10.
+
+Eyton, Mr., 339.
+
+
+F
+
+Faggots, price of, 114.
+
+Fairs for hops, 171;
+  horses, 105;
+  sheep, 172n.;
+  wool, 172n.
+
+Fallows, utilized, 112, 177, 181, 191, 195;
+  in 1877, 1907, 331;
+  in 1850, 353.
+
+Families employed on common and on enclosed land, 195.
+
+Farm or feorm, 5.
+
+Farmer, day's work of, in seventeenth century, 134;
+  discontent of, 127-8, 184;
+  financial position of, 101, 103, 156, 162, 184, 195, 204, 212-3, 243,
+    247, 257-8, 264-5, 293, 307, 308, 310, 320;
+  growing more skilful, 101, 132.
+
+_Farmer's Letters_, Young's, 192.
+
+Farmhouses, 51, 101, 116, 119, 213, 226.
+
+Farming, bad, 273, 281;
+  improvement in, 28, 111, 113, 115, 132, 160, 162, 192, 204, 211, 221,
+    229, 244, 265, 267, 271, 274, 275, 281, 288.
+
+Farming calendar, 17, 124.
+
+Farms, in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 116-7;
+  size of (1768), 202.
+
+Farnham, hops, 171.
+
+Fashion, farming becomes the, 192, 193.
+
+Fattening oxen, 31, 58, 125, 136-7, 166, 214, 216, 225n., 235, 288;
+  sheep, 112, 166, 225n.;
+  chickens, 170.
+
+'Favourite', 234.
+
+Feeding pigs, 16, 125.
+
+Fences, legislation as to, 4.
+
+Fens, the, 78, 123, 170, 318.
+
+Feversham, fruit growing near, 128, 171.
+
+Fifteenth century, character of, 68.
+
+Figs, 15, 93, 136.
+
+Filberts, 93, 136.
+
+Fitzherbert, 31, 61, 76, 77, 83-5, 111, 132, 135.
+
+Fixtures, 301.
+
+Flanders, cattle, 338;
+  clover from, 111, 166;
+  hops from, 86, 150;
+  wool exported to, 39, 327;
+  sheep exported to, 326.
+
+Flax, 17, 105, 135, 141, 151-2, 191, 251, 331, 332.
+
+Fleece, weight of, 37, 41, 104, 200, 215.
+
+Fleta, quoted, 12, 13.
+
+Floor, for hop-picking, 91, 151.
+
+Flour, exports and imports of, 348-9.
+
+Fluctuations in price of corn, 35, 66, 89, 133, 142, 157, 186, 221,
+  223, 277.
+
+Fold soke, 9.
+
+Folding quality, of sheep, 253.
+
+Food, labourer's, 9, 25, 34, 37, 53, 54, 61, 62, 102, 110, 134,
+    139-40, 164, 200-8, 211, 240n., 268, 290-1, 297, 308, 311;
+  farmer's, 101, 128, 213, 240n., 246, 308.
+
+Foot-and-mouth disease, _see_ Cattle Plagues.
+
+Foot-rot, 294.
+
+Foreman, requirements of, 139.
+
+Forncett, manor of, 25, 45, 46.
+
+Fountains Abbey, 81.
+
+Four-course rotation, 183.
+
+Four-field system, 99.
+
+Fourteenth century, characteristics of, 38.
+
+Fowler, John, 304.
+
+Fox, the, 140, 244.
+
+France, exports to, 349;
+  imports from, 243, 323;
+  livestock in, 334;
+  small holders of, 202-3;
+  wheat crops in, 332.
+
+Freeholders, _see also_ Yeoman, 119, 121-2.
+
+Freemen, 7.
+
+Free tenants, 24, 29, 45.
+
+Free trade, 161, 277-81, 323;
+  effect of, 281, 284, 288, 293, 296.
+
+French War, great, _see_ Wars.
+
+Fruit, 15, 93, 128, 143;
+  imports of 305.
+
+Fruit-growing in seventeenth century, 129-131, 132, 136;
+  in eighteenth century, 171, 186-9;
+  in nineteenth century, 319, 329, 330.
+
+Furlongs, 3, 118.
+
+Furniture of manor house, 52;
+  labourer's home, 52.
+
+
+G
+
+Gafol, 9, 10.
+
+Galloway cattle, 169, 343.
+
+Game, damage by, 302.
+
+Game law, the first, 55.
+
+Gang system, 292.
+
+Geese, 34, 170. (_See_ Poultry.)
+
+Gentry, at the Revolution, 156;
+  estates of under Walpole, 183;
+  status of 50, 97;
+  supplanted, 122, 128, 137, 140, 156, 184, 211, 312, 310.
+ (_See_ Landlords _and_ Squire).
+
+Gerard, 106, 111.
+
+'Gerefa, the', 15.
+
+Germany, exports to, 63;
+  imports from, 20, 66, 69, 241, 243, 262, 323-4, 328;
+  livestock in, 334;
+  wheat crops in, 332n.
+
+Gilbert, 275.
+
+Gilbert's Act, 237.
+
+Gilbey, Sir W.,335.
+
+Glamorganshire, vineyards in, 145.
+
+Glastonbury Abbey, 13.
+
+Gleaning, 133.
+
+Gloucestershire, 19, 78, 128, 136, 143, 144, 173, 207, 295, 344.
+
+Gloves, gifts of, 62.
+
+Gold premium, 305.
+
+Googe, Barnaby, 144, 173.
+
+Gooseberries, 331.
+
+Grafting in seventeenth century, 130.
+
+Grain crops, chief source of lord's income, 25.
+
+Grapes, 136, 329 (_see_ Vineyards).
+
+Grass, acreage under, in 1877 and 1907, 331-2;
+  in 1850, 353;
+  arable land laid down to, 56, 58, 75, 79, 91, 93-4, 117-9, 120, 196,
+    219, 231, 305;
+  converting, to tillage, 231, 263;
+  more profitable than arable, 199;
+  seeds, 165, 191, 194, 226-7.
+
+Grass land, price of, _see_ Pasture and meadow, price of;
+  ploughed up, 186, 218, 245.
+
+Grass section of England in 1893, 306n.
+
+Grasshoppers, plague of, 185.
+
+Graziers, profits of, 184,
+
+Greycoats of Kent, 259.
+
+Ground Game Act, 303.
+
+Guano, 232, 276.
+
+Guernsey cattle, 342, 343.
+
+Gun, the, in seventeenth century, 140.
+
+
+H
+
+Haggard, Rider, Mr., 314-5.
+
+Hallam, 210.
+
+Hambleton, Sir A. Barker of, 142.
+
+Hamlets, 5.
+
+Hampshire, 28, 36, 79, 116, 132, 145, 165n., 240, 253, 266, 268, 306n.,
+    309, 314;
+  sheep, 275, 288, 344, 345.
+
+Handborough, 53.
+
+Harrison, 'Description of England,' 19, 28, 50, 56, 86, 91, 95, 101,
+  104, 149.
+
+Harrow, the, and harrowing, 17, 65, 84, 125, 135, 141, 153-4, 166,
+  176, 176, 179, 194, 201, 203, 246.
+
+Hartlib, Simon, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 142-3.
+
+Harvest, importance of, 9, 108.
+
+Harvest homes, 104, 269.
+
+Harvest work, 25, 62, 125, 138, 209.
+
+Hatfield Chase, 78.
+
+Hawsted, 20, 30, 35, 54, 57, 58, 62, 63, 67, 112, 115, 116, 178,
+  179, 205, 207.
+
+Hay, 112;
+  price of, _see_ Prices;
+  carrying off, 178, 219, 302;
+  imports of, 262.
+
+Hay tedder, 304.
+
+Haymaking, 4, 44, 124, 125, 138, 142.
+
+Headlands, 3.
+
+'Heaths', Shropshire, 220.
+
+Hedges, 124, 148, 150, 163, 178, 282.
+
+Hemp, 100, 105, 135, 151.
+
+Henley, Walter of, 19n., 31, 36, 83.
+
+Henry of Huntingdon, 327.
+
+Hens, number of eggs from, 35.
+
+Herdwick sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Hereford cattle, 233, 235, 274, 288, 336, 338-40, 342.
+
+Herefordshire, 5, 40, 128, 130, 132, 136, 143, 171, 186-7, 188, 240,
+  247, 249, 250, 267, 291, 306, 309, 316.
+
+Hertfordshire, 150, 174, 179, 225, 238, 306n.
+
+Hentzner's description of English fanning, 104.
+
+Hide, 16.
+
+Highland, West, cattle, 217, 343.
+
+Hoeing, 153, 166, 188, 201-2, 354;
+  horse, 198, 201.
+
+Holder, the small, 73, 76, 119, 121-2, 164, 191, 195, 202, 205, 220,
+    253-61, 268, 308, 310, 311, 316-9;
+  decrease of, causes of, 122, 259;
+  new class of, 260.
+
+Holderness cattle, 337.
+
+Holdings, various sizes of, 334.
+
+Holland,
+  Shorthorns from, 337;
+  live stock in, 334;
+  wheat crops in, 332n.
+
+Honey, 10, 144.
+
+Hops, 28, 86-7, 89-91, 111, 125, 128, 143, 149, 150, 171, 297-9,
+    329-30, 331;
+  acreage of, in 1729, 171, 297-8, 329;
+  average crop, 333;
+  duty on, 297-8;
+  imports of, 329-30;
+  profit on, 90, 150, 171, 298-9, 330;
+  substitutes, 298, 329.
+
+Horse fairs, 105.
+
+Horse shoes, 36.
+
+Horses,
+  deterioration of; 85, 146;
+  export of, 325-6;
+  kinds of, 274, 335;
+  number of, 333;
+  size of, 104, 105, 217;
+  tax on, 249;
+  working powers of, 31, 153, 204.
+  (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Houghton, account of potatoes, 106, 127, 165.
+
+Houses, wooden, 50 (_see_ Farmhouses);
+  of the squire and yeoman, 103, 212.
+
+Housing cattle and horses, 126.
+
+Howberry, 175-6.
+
+'Hubback', 234.
+
+Hundred Rolls, 28, 76, 327.
+
+Hunting, 140, 210.
+
+Huntingdonshire, 3, 25n., 72, 120, 123, 222, 306n., 309.
+
+Hurdles, 354.
+
+Husbandry, old and new, _see_ Cultivation.
+
+
+I
+
+Implements, cost of, rises, 242;
+  in seventeenth century, 135, 152-3, 154;
+  in eighteenth century, 188, 194, 203, 229, 236;
+  in nineteenth century, 271, 273-5, 276, 287n., 303-4, 316;
+  improvement in, 113;
+  list of, in eleventh century, 17-52;
+  prices of, 83, 138.
+
+Importing country, England becomes an, 163.
+
+Imports cause low prices, 295.
+
+Imports
+  of clover seed, 166;
+  of corn, 20, 63n., 66, 69, 70, 159-61, 183, 184, 223, 224, 230, 240,
+    241-4, 247, 248, 249, 262, 266, 267, 277-80, 287, 293, 305, 323-4,
+    330, 348-9;
+  of dairy produce, 325;
+  of fruit, 188, 329;
+  of hops, 150;
+  of linen, 105;
+  of livestock, 161, 280-1, 305, 324-6, 337;
+  of meat, 161, 305, 325, 330;
+  of wool, 39, 161, 305, 328, 354.
+
+Improvements, amount expended in, 320-1;
+  needed in eighteenth century, 191;
+  in farming in eighteenth century, 192 (_see_ Agriculture, state of), 193,
+    204 (_see_ Farming).
+
+Inbreeding, Bakewell and, 214;
+  the Collings and, 234-5.
+
+Income and expenditure of landed classes (1688), 156.
+
+Incubators, early, 132.
+
+India,
+  imports from, 324;
+  wool from, 328.
+
+Ine, laws of, as to fencing, 5.
+
+Inherent capabilities of the soil, 301.
+
+Inns, markets for produce, 323.
+
+Inoculation of fruit trees, 131.
+
+Intensive cultivation, 2.
+
+Irish imports, 161, 262, 324-5, 328;
+  labourers, 209, 306.
+
+Irrigation, 113, 132, 217.
+
+Isle of Wight, 172n.
+
+Italy, exports to, 349;
+  wool exported to, 39, 327.
+
+
+J
+
+Jamaica, wool from, 328.
+
+Jersey cattle, 275, 339, (_See_ Alderney.)
+
+Jus faldae, 64.
+
+Justices regulate wages, 107.
+
+
+K
+
+Kent, 40, 128, 143-7, 157, 171, 173, 186, 259, 265, 283, 295, 306n., 309.
+
+Kentish
+  cattle, 168;
+  sheep, 343, 344.
+
+Kerry cattle, 343.
+
+Kett, rising of, 96.
+
+Ketton, 233, 235.
+
+Kilns, hop, 151.
+
+King's, Gregory, statistics, 120, 140, 141, 155, 258-9, 260, 353.
+
+Kingston, Lord, estate rents of, 116.
+
+Knights Hospitallers' estates, 40.
+
+
+L
+
+Labour,
+  cost of, per acre, 313;
+  services, 6, 12, 25, 27, 42, 45, 56, 61.
+
+Labourer, character of, in eighteenth century, 175, 184, 201, 204,
+    205, 210;
+  condition of, at end of eighteenth century, 237-9;
+  condition of, in nineteenth century, 257, 266-8, 269, 270, 279,
+    283-4, 285, 290-2, 297, 311-2, 313-4, 315, 320, 355;
+  decrease of, 305, 311n., 315;
+  life of, in Middle Ages,53, 54, 67, 71, 103;
+  made a land-less man by enclosure, 196, 257;
+  number of (1688), 156;
+  savings of, 102-3, 156;
+  sports of, 55;
+  the home of the, 52, 158;
+  wages of, _see_ Wages.
+
+Lambs, to fall March 25, 126.
+
+Lammas, 4, 112, 137.
+
+Lancashire, 44, 78, 106, 110, 147, 163, 167, 207, 216, 219, 282,
+  283, 284, 309, 312, 316, 320, 343, 346.
+
+Land, value of, 19, 36, 40, 66, 117, 133, 149, 183, 243, 286-7,
+  293, 304, 310, 328, 348.
+
+Landlords,
+  absentee, 184, 191;
+  of the fourteenth century, 48;
+  new class of, 59;
+  houses of the 103 (_see_ Cottages);
+  improve estates, 132, 162, 224, 232, 255, 268, 320;
+  protectionists, 160-1;
+  ignorant of estate management, 175, 193, 249, 281;
+  in nineteenth century, 265, 281, 304, 307, 309, 320-2;
+  position, weakened, 309;
+  relations of, and tenant, 218, 226, 282-3, 299, 301, 322;
+  suffered most from present depression, 320;
+  reserve sporting rights, 115;
+  take to farming, 182.
+
+Landlordship, 6.
+
+Lawes, Sir John, 275, 276, 314, 319.
+
+Lawrence, John, 152, 165, 166, 167, 173, 337.
+
+Laxton, Notts, 22.
+
+Leases,45, 56, 57, 65, 81, 97, 113, 115-6, 121-2, 178, 218, 219,
+  263n., 272, 282, 283.
+
+Leicester sheep, 215-6, 235, 274, 275, 343, 344.
+
+Leicestershire, 8, 78, 79, 120, 151, 172, 174, 214-6, 268, 306n.,
+  309, 343.
+
+'Lemmons', 93.
+
+Leominster,
+  manor of, 18;
+  wool, 40, 171, 172n.
+
+Liberi homines, 7.
+
+Liebig, 275, 276.
+
+Lime, 112, 141, 177, 187, 197.
+
+Limestone sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Liming the land, 77, 113, 218, 219, 246, 300.
+
+Lincoln
+  red cattle, 343;
+  sheep, 215, 235, 275, 288, 343, 344, 346.
+
+Lincolnshire, 3, 8, 40, 99, 100, 103, 123, 151, 168, 172, 250, 252, 255,
+  283, 306n., 307, 318, 321.
+
+Liquorice, 143, 191.
+
+Liverpool,
+  apples at, 188;
+  wheat at, 185.
+
+Liverpool, Lord, 232, 264.
+
+Live stock,
+  depreciation of, 306, 330;
+  exports of, 325-6, 330;
+  number of (1877 and 1907), 333-4;
+  in England (1688), 155, 164;
+  duty on, repealed, 280.
+
+Locusts in England, 185.
+
+London,
+  affects wages, 205;
+  attracts country folk, 209, 210;
+  potato grown near, 106;
+  carrots grown near, 167, 168;
+  roads near, 222;
+  sheep and cattle driven to, 221.
+
+Longhorn cattle, 167, 216-7, 233, 234, 274, 275n., 336, 343.
+
+Longmynd, 345.
+
+Lonk sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Lord of the manor, 6, 14, 19, 25, 42, 121, 127, 255;
+  small holder suffers at his hand, 121.
+
+'Lord Wilton', 340.
+
+Lucerne, 143, 167n., 191, 201.
+
+Luffenham,
+  South, 22;
+  North, 103.
+
+Luxury, spread of, an, 243, 264.
+
+Lyttelton,
+  Sir H., 145;
+  Lord, 183.
+
+
+M
+
+Macadam, 220, 223, 230.
+
+Machinery, use of, 271.
+
+Madder, 17, 143, 191, 194.
+
+Maidstone hops, 171.
+
+Maize, imports of, 262, 296, 313.
+
+Mangolds, 237, 331-2, 333, 353.
+
+Manor, regulations of the, 13, 99.
+
+Manor, the typical, 14.
+
+Manorial balance sheets, 26, 65.
+
+Manorial system, 6, 7, 18, 24, 45, 76, 97.
+
+Manors, 6, 7, 14, 18, 25, 42, 45, 65, 97, 99, 118.
+
+Mansion house, 14, 50.
+
+Manufactures, influence of, on wages, 284, 297, 315.
+
+Manures, 113, 119, 136, 144, 150-4, 177, 178, 179, 187, 191, 197, 201,
+  219, 221, 254, 275-6, 296, 299, 300, 304, 305, 314.
+
+Manydown, Hants, 13.
+
+Market gardening, 306, 308, 319.
+
+Markham, Gervase, 127, 134-7, 146, 151, 171.
+
+Marling, 77, 113, 183, 191, 197, 202, 219, 300.
+
+Marshall, William, 188, 204, 207, 213, 222, 298, 314, 336, 338, 340.
+
+Maryland, wool from, 328.
+
+Mattocks for breaking clods, 129.
+
+McCormick, 303.
+
+McCulloch, 281, 324, 349.
+
+Meadowland, 2, 19, 22, 40, 58, 155.
+
+Meadows,
+  16, 30, 73, 99, 100, 118, 124, 148, 253, 258;
+  value of, 40, 58, 115-6, 139, 231.
+
+Meat, imports of, 161, 305, 325.
+
+Medlars, 136.
+
+Meikle, 230, 236.
+
+Menzies, 236.
+
+Merino sheep, 233, 328n.
+
+Messor, the, 13.
+
+Middlesex, 41, 145, 306n.
+
+Midland counties,
+  enclosure in, 120;
+  sheep in, 216, 218.
+
+Migration of labourers, 44, 158n., 209, 238.
+
+Milk, 63n., 168 (_see_ Dairy), 170, 205, 275, 297, 330.
+
+Mill, suit of, 9.
+
+Mills, excessive number of, 114.
+
+Minimum wage proposed, 241.
+
+Minister of Agriculture, 305.
+
+Mixtil, or mastlin, or mesling, 9, 102, 125, 138, 207n.
+
+Moles, 114, 124.
+
+Molton Market, 341.
+
+Monasteries, 68, 81.
+
+Money payments, 24, 27, 45, 56.
+
+Mortimer abuses the law, 74.
+
+Moryson, 102, 105, 122.
+
+Mountain sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Mowing corn,
+  Fitzherbert's advice, 84, 125, 135, 138, 199, 354;
+  machines for, 303-4.
+
+Mowing grass,
+  cost of, 34, 44, 65, 71, 109, 138, 142, 348, 354;
+  Fitzherbert's advice, 84.
+
+Mulberries, 15, 146.
+
+Murrain, 13, 42n., 68.
+
+Mutton, price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+
+N
+
+New world, influx of precious metals from, 89, 111.
+
+New Zealand, wool from, 328.
+
+Newark, 157.
+
+Nitrate of soda, 276.
+
+Non-intercourse Act of United States, 242.
+
+Norden, Sir John, 127-8, 220.
+
+Norfolk, 8, 40, 45, 63n., 94, 96, 97, 167n., 169, 170, 182, 217,
+  224-8, 306n., 308, 340.
+
+Norfolk, or four-course rotation, 183.
+
+Normandy, 338.
+
+North,
+  difference of wages between, and South, 283-5;
+  superior thrift in, 207-8.
+
+Northamptonshire, 8, 78, 79, 120, 151, 157, 172, 222, 306n.
+
+Northleach, rates at, 295.
+
+Northumberland, 193n., 256, 295, 303, 309, 346.
+
+Norwich, 169, 182.
+
+Nottinghamshire, 8, 22, 78, 116, 144, 172, 237, 276, 283, 306n., 308, 309.
+
+Nowton, Suffolk, 57.
+
+Nucleated villages, 5.
+
+Nuts, 136.
+
+
+O
+
+Oak timber,
+  value of, 137;
+  Coke's, 225-6.
+
+Oakham, 110.
+
+Oats, 20, 33, 65, 91, 124, 135-8, 142, 155, 227, 305, 331-2, 353;
+  cost of growing, in 1770, 199;
+  produce, per acre, in 1712, 105n.;
+  in 1770, 197-9;
+  profit on, 180. (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Occupiers of land, 355.
+
+'Old Comely', 216.
+
+Olives, 93, 136.
+
+Onions, 143, 332.
+
+Open parishes, 158, 284.
+
+Oranges, 93.
+
+Orchards, 17, 128, 131, 143, 186, 188, 255, 332;
+  seventeenth century, 135-6.
+
+Owners and occupiers, percentage of, 334.
+
+Owners of Land, return, 260-1.
+
+Owners, small, _see_ Holders, small.
+
+Ox teams, 16, 31, 64, 84, 143, 147, 153, 191, 204, 340.
+
+Oxen,
+  description of, in 1592, 104;
+  value of, 19, 20, 35, 57, 66, 114. (_See_ Cattle, price of.)
+
+Oxford, 63, 273, 338.
+
+Oxford Down sheep, 275, 288, 344, 345.
+
+Oxfordshire, 24, 40, 78, 99, 145, 151.
+
+
+P
+
+Pack-horses, use of, 138.
+
+Packing fruit in seventeenth century, 129, 130.
+
+Paring and burning, 141, 153.
+
+Parsnips, 143.
+
+Pasture, breaking up, 218.
+
+Pasture,
+  common, 2, 4, 16, 19, 73, 99, 113, 195;
+  often worth little, 256;
+  permanent, in Holdings Act, 299;
+  extent of, in 1688, 155;
+  in 1770, 196;
+  ploughed up during French War, 243;
+  sparing, 124.
+
+Pasture land, price of, 41, 59, 115-7, 139.
+
+Patents, 113, 236.
+
+Peaches, 15, 93, 136.
+
+Pears, 15, 93, 130, 131, 136, 143, 329, 333.
+
+Peas, 33, 69, 124, 155, 200, 227, 331-2, 353.
+
+Peasants' revolt, 60.
+
+Peel's drainage loans, 272.
+
+Penalty for breaking up pasture, 178.
+
+Perry, 130.
+
+Pestilences, 38, 42, 68, 79.
+
+Piecework, 28, 163, 206.
+
+Pigeons, number of, 49, 96, 105, 143, 244, 274, 275.
+
+Pigs,
+  export of, 330;
+  feeding, 16, 125;
+  foot-and-mouth disease attacks, 290;
+  import of, 326;
+  number of, 333-4;
+  profit on, in 1763, 200;
+  size of, in 1592, 104;
+  value of, 20, 35n., 96, 200-3;
+  varieties of, 170, 346.
+  (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Pinchbeck, 103.
+
+Pitt, William, 238, 239.
+
+Plat, Sir Hugh, 127, 152.
+
+Plattes, Gabriel, 76, 127.
+
+Pleuro-pneumonia, _see_ Cattle plagues.
+
+Plot, 145.
+
+Plough, eleventh- and twelfth-century, 17.
+
+Ploughing,
+  cost of, 33, 65, 135, 141, 177, 179, 246;
+  months for, 17, 124.
+
+Ploughland, the, 16, 18.
+
+Ploughs and ploughing, 65, 83, 113, 125, 129, 135, 143, 150,
+  153, 177, 191, 203, 217, 218, 225, 273, 342, 354.
+
+Plums, 15, 93, 130, 131, 136, 329, 332.
+
+Poaching, 48;
+  by labourers, 55, 210, 248, 282, 291.
+
+Population of England, 79, 89, 111, 120, 140, 156, 160, 163, 211, 240, 287.
+
+Pork, price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+Porter, 'Progress of Nation,' 276, 279, 286, 287.
+
+Portugal, exports to, 349.
+
+Potatoes, 106, 107, 112, 187, 191, 194, 227, 318, 331-3, 353;
+  disease, 277.
+
+Poultry, 41n., 66, 80, 132, 169, 170 (_see_ Prices);
+  carrying, to London,171.
+
+Praepositus, 12.
+
+Precarii, or boon days, 9.
+
+Precious metals,
+  influx of, 89, 111;
+  scarcity of, 66n.
+
+Prices:
+  Apples, 15, 65, 188, 189.
+  Bacon and pork, 96, 102, 238, 239, 263, 313, 334.
+  Barley, 20, 35, 69, 114, 133, 138, 142, 155, 179, 223, 247,
+    312, 347, 350-3.
+  Beans, 35, 155, 180, 347.
+  Beef, 96, 102, 114, 164, 206n., 239, 240, 241, 242, 247, 262, 263, 265.
+  Bread, 206n., 207n., 223, 230, 242n., 280, 285, 286, 291.
+  Butter, 33, 66, 114, 206n., 241, 247, 285-6, 312, 334, 347.
+  Carts, 203.
+  Cattle, 19, 20, 35, 41, 65, 89, 105, 114, 119, 133, 146, 163, 165n.,
+    167, 169, 203, 235, 263, 307, 312, 347.
+  Cheese, 173-4, 206n., 241, 242, 312, 334, 347.
+  Clover, 166.
+  Eighteenth century, 145, 160, 163, 164, 165n., 166, 167, 169, 170,
+    172, 173-4, 179, 180, 186, 188, 189, 200, 203, 206n., 222, 223, 227,
+    229, 230, 231, 237, 238, 239, 240, 285, 341, 355.
+  Fifteenth century, 40, 66, 69, 355.
+  Fourteenth century, 39, 40, 41, 59, 65, 327, 355.
+  Flax,152.
+  Grapes, 144.
+  Harness, 203.
+  Hay, 157, 165n., 166, 241-2, 262, 347.
+  Hops, 87, 89, 150, 247, 298, 330, 347.
+  Horses, 19, 20, 35, 36, 114, 142, 165n., 203, 347, 355.
+  Horse-shoes,96.
+  Implements, 83, 138.
+  Malt, 89, 240, 241.
+  Milk, 168, 170, 312.
+  Mutton, 96, 10-2, 206n., 239, 240, 241, 247, 262, 263, 265, 313, 334.
+  Nineteenth century, 227, 235, 240, 242-4, 245, 247-8, 262, 263, 264-6,
+    267, 277-81, 285, 287, 293, 295, 296, 305, 306, 307, 312, 324,
+    329, 330, 334.
+  Oats, 20, 35, 69, 114, 138, 155, 180, 223, 241, 312, 347, 350-3.
+  Peas, 69, 155, 200, 247.
+  Pedigree cattle, 234, 235.
+  Pigs, 20, 41, 96, 200, 203, 347.
+  Potatoes, 106.
+  Poultry and eggs, 41, 96, 114, 133, 170, 247, 347.
+  Rabbits,174.
+  Rams, 202, 215, 235.
+  Rollers, 203.
+  Rye, 4, 16, 91, 125, 133, 138, 155, 347.
+  Saffron, 106.
+  Seventeenth century, 89, 110, 111, 114, 118, 119, 127, 133-4, 138,
+    142, 144, 146, 150, 152, 157, 159, 160, 328, 355.
+  Sheep, 20, 3511., 36, 41, 80, 114, 138, 165n., 203, 206n., 263,
+    312, 347.
+  Sixteenth century, 80, 87, 89, 95, 96, 102-6, 109, 355.
+  Straw, 179, 180.
+  Tenth century, 19.
+  Thirteenth century, 33, 35, 39, 355.
+  Twelfth century, 20.
+  Vetches, 155.
+  Waggons, 203-4.
+  Wheat, 20, 35, 66, 69, 89, 110, 114, 133, 134, 138, 142, 155,
+    157, 160, 163, 164, 179, 186, 223, 231, 237, 238, 239, 240,
+    241, 242-4, 247-8, 262, 265, 277-8, 281, 293, 306, 312,
+    334, 347, 350-3, 355.
+  Wine, 145.
+  Wool, 39, 40, 80, 89, 96, 114, 118, 119, 142, 163, 172, 173,
+    223, 239, 242, 285-6, 306, 312, 327, 328, 329, 347.
+
+Prickly comfrey, 237.
+
+Proclamation as to wages and prices, 42.
+
+Production, increased cost of, 295, 313.
+
+Prosperity,
+  agricultural, 28, 101, 114, 103, 183, 210-1, 229, 243-4, 246,
+    264, 287;
+  during French War, 243-6, 247, 264.
+
+Protecting fruit from blight, Sec., 187.
+
+Protection,
+ effect of, 250, 278-9, 281;
+  highest limit of, 248; 265, 266, 277-9.
+
+Provender rents, 6.
+
+Pruning fruit trees, 131, 136.
+
+Pulverization of soil, 175.
+
+
+Q
+
+Quarter Sessions, assessment of wages by, 108.
+
+Quartly, Francis, 341.
+
+Quiet Emptores, statute of, 29.
+
+Quinces, 15, 136.
+
+Quit, notice to, 300, 301, 302.
+
+
+R
+
+Rabbits,
+  rearing, 174;
+  reserved to landlord, 115.
+
+Railway rates, 295-6.
+
+Rake, horse, 304.
+
+Raleigh introduces potatoes, 106.
+
+Rams,
+  ewes to, 126, 138;
+  price of, 202, 215, 235.
+
+Ramsey, 72.
+
+Raspberries, 331.
+
+Rates, 229, 238, 241, 245, 247, 248, 249, 255, 269, 284, 295, 296,
+  307, 314.
+
+Rathgib, Jacob, 104.,
+
+Reaping,
+  cost of, 34, 44, 65, 71, 109, 110, 138, 177, 179, 180, 246, 348, 354;
+  machines, 303-4;
+  time for, 124;
+  versus mowing corn, 135.
+
+Red Polled cattle, 343.
+
+Reeve, 12;
+  duties of a, 17.
+
+Reigate, Flaunchford near, 64.
+
+Rents:
+  Twelfth century, 27.
+  Thirteenth century, 36, 57, 75, 348.
+  Fourteenth century, 40, 41, 46, 65, 75, 348.
+  Fifteenth century, 57, 58, 66, 348.
+  Sixteenth century, 66, 76, 95, 115, 116, 348.
+  Seventeenth century, 115, 116, 117, 127, 133, 139, 143, 155, 161,
+    348, 354.
+  Eighteenth century, 116, 177, 179, 183, 189, 193n., 224, 227, 328,
+    348.
+  Nineteenth century, 243, 246, 248, 264, 266, 278, 285-6, 287, 297,
+    304, 306-9, 310, 319n., 321-2.
+
+Repairs, _see_ Buildings, farm.
+
+Restrictive covenants, _see_ Cultivation clauses.
+
+Revival, recent, in agriculture, 320.
+
+Revolt, Peasants', 60.
+
+Revolution, agricultural and industrial, 162.
+
+Ridges, high, 129, 175.
+
+Rinderpest, _see_ Cattle plagues.
+
+Riots, 185, 223, 262, 366,
+
+Ripon, 147.
+
+Roads, 21, 68, 105, 138, 171, 175, 182, 204, 210, 219, 220-3, 269,
+  274, 295.
+
+Rock and Far Forest district, 318,
+
+Rogers, Thorold, 107, 229.
+
+Roller, farm, in seventeenth century, 135.
+
+Rolling, 166, 194.
+
+Romney Marsh sheep, 344.
+
+Romsey Abbey, 15n.
+
+Roots, few, used for cows, 200 (_see_ Turnips).
+
+Roscommon sheep, 343.
+
+Roses, 143.
+
+Ross, John, of Warwick, 76.
+
+Rot, _see_ Sheep rot.
+
+Rotation of crops (_see_ Four-course and Three-field system) 225, 275.
+
+Rothamsted, 275.
+
+Roundsman system, 239.
+
+Royal Agrlctttonal Society, 273-4, 281, 308.
+
+Royal Society, helps agriculture, 114.
+
+Russia,
+  imports rom, 323-4;
+  wool from, 328.
+
+Rutland, 22, 102, 109, 110, 120, 134, 143, 151, 255, 268, 306n.;
+  Dukes of, 115, 286.
+
+Rye, 4, 16, 91, 125, 133, 138, 155;
+  in Norfolk, 182, 276;
+  produce, per acre, in 1770, 197.
+
+Rye-grass, 178-9, 218, 276.
+
+Ryeland sheep, 344, 345, 346.
+
+
+S
+
+Saffron, 62, 106, 143, 167;
+  Walden, 106, 167.
+
+Sainfoin, 112, 115, 143, 191, 194, 225, 331.
+
+Saint Paul's, manors of, 16, 29, 50, 57, 58.
+
+Sales, famous, 234n., 235, 338, 339.
+
+Salt, value of, 26.
+
+Samford Hall, 190.
+
+Scotland,
+  cattle of, 336, 343;
+  wheat crop in, 332n.
+
+Scott, Reynold, 89, 151.
+
+Scottish cattle, 168-9.
+
+Scudamore, Lord, 132, 3^8.
+
+Seasons,
+  bad, 20, 42n., 66, 69, 89, 115, 157, 179, 184, 185, 186, 210,
+    223, 224, 237, 239, 242, 243, 247, 262, 265, 277, 292, 293,
+    294, 295, 297, 305;
+  good, 239, 244, 262, 266, 287.
+
+Seed,
+  amount of, for wheat, 33, 67n.,84, 177, 179, 180, 227, 246;
+  for clover, 112, 166, 176, 218;
+  clover, price of, 166.
+
+Sefton, Lord, estate of, 320n.
+
+Selions, 318.
+
+Self-binding reaper, 304.
+
+Seneschal, 12.
+
+Settled Land Acts, 305.
+
+Settlement, law of parochial, 157-8, 209, 238, 269n., 284.
+
+Settlements, family, 123, 259-60.
+
+Seventeenth century, characteristics of, 111.
+
+Sheaf-binding apparatus, 237.
+
+Shearing sheep, 125.
+
+Sheep, 94, 104, 126, 137, 146, 161, 200, 225, 233, 236, 263, 274,
+    275, 288, 290;
+  diseases of, 84;
+  export of, 326, 330 (_see_ Live stock);
+  improvement of, 37, 164, 202;
+  number of,
+    in 1867, 288;
+    in 1877 and 1907, 333-4;
+  price of, _see_ Prices;
+  varieties of, 171, 172, 215-7, 233, 235, 275, 288, 343-6;
+  washing, cost of, 65, 125, 354.
+
+Sheep-rot, 184, 242, 265n., 294.
+
+Shepherd, wages of, 61, 71, 87, 109.
+
+Shire horse, 35, 335;
+  Society, 335.
+
+Shoeing, 36, 65, 84, 203.
+
+Shorthorn cattle, 167, 225, 233-5, 274, 288, 336-8, 339, 342.
+
+Shows, Agricultural, 233, 273-5, 341.
+
+Shropshire, 11n., 16n., 159, 173, 219, 220, 225, 250, 339;
+  sheep, 275, 288, 344, 345, 346.
+
+Siberian Railway, 324.
+
+Sicks, uncultivated patches, 99n.
+
+Sinclair, Sir J., 229, 230, 232.
+
+Sittingboume, 128, 143.
+
+Sixteenth century, character of, 89.
+
+Slaves, 8, 11, 20.
+
+Smith, Adam, 134, 210.
+
+Smith of Deanston, 214, 271-2.
+
+Smithfield, 168, 169;
+  cattle show, 218, 273, 339;
+  prices at, 239, 240, 241, 247, 265.
+
+Smyth, John, 111.
+
+Society, Royal Agricultural, 193.
+
+Society for Encouragement of Arts, &c., 194> 227, 303.
+
+Socmen, 7.
+
+Somerset, 19, 58, 107, 168, 250, 309, 340;
+  sheep, 344.
+
+Somerville, Loid, 231.
+
+Southams cattle, 342.
+
+Southdown sheep, 217, 225, 233, 236, 263, 274, 275, 344, 345.
+
+Spade, prejudice against, 112, 143;
+  for hops, 150.
+
+Spain,
+  exports to, 349;
+  imports from, 323.
+
+Spanish wool, 38-9, 328.
+
+Speculation,
+  in land, 243;
+  in produce, 305.
+
+Speenhamland Act, 237-8.
+
+Spencer, Earl, 273.
+
+Sporting rights reserved, 115.
+
+Spraying fruit, 136.
+
+Squatters, 220, 256.
+
+Squire, the, 103, 128, 137, 140, 193, 211-2.
+
+Stafford, Marquis of, 219.
+
+Staffordshire, 3, 44, 78, 122, 219, 286, 295, 309.
+
+Statesmen, 311.
+
+Statistics, agricultural, 230, 231, 232, 277, 288 (_see_ King, Gregory),
+  331-2, 353.
+
+Statute of labourers, 43.
+
+Statutes _quoted_:
+  20 Hen. III. c. 4, 73.
+  25 Edw. III. 2. c. 1, 43.
+  34 Edw. III. c. 20, 63.
+  12 Ric. II. c. 4, 61.
+  12 Ric. II. c. 5, 64.
+  12 Ric. II. c. 6, 55.
+  13 Ric. II. c. 13, 55.
+  15 Ric. II. c. 5, 71.
+  17 Ric. II. c. 7, 63.
+  4 Hen. IV. c. 14, 67n.
+  7 Hen. IV. c. 17, 70.
+  9 Hen. V. c. 5, 68n.
+  3 Hen. VI. c. 2, 326.
+  3 Hen. VI. c. 4, 327.
+  4 Hen. VI. c. 5, 64.
+  15 Hen. VI. c. 2, 69.
+  23 Hen. VI. c. 12, 71, 87.
+  3 Edw. IV. c. 2, 70.
+  3 Edw. IV. c. 5, 7in.
+  22 Edw. IV. c. 1, 7in.
+  4 Hen. VII. c. 19, 79, 94, 117.
+  11 Hen. VII. c. 13, 325.
+  11 Hen. VII. c. 22, 87.
+  6 Hen. VIII. c. 3, 87.
+  6 Hen. VIII. c. 5, 79.
+  21 Hen. VIII. c. 8, 86.
+  22 Hen. VIII. c. 7, 326.
+  24 Hen. VIII c. 3, 102.
+  24 Hen. VIII. c. 4, 105.
+  24 Hen. VIII. c. 10, 82n.
+  25 Hen, VIII. c. 1, 86.
+  25 Hen. VIII. c. 13, 80.
+  27 Hen. VIII. c. 6, 85.
+  27 Hen. VIII. c. 22, 94.
+  32 Hen. VIII. c. 13, 85.
+  I Edw. VI. c. 5, 326.
+  3 and 4 Edw. VI. c. 19, 86.
+  5 Edw. VI. c. 14, 86.
+  2 and 3 Phil. and Mary, c. 3, 96.
+  5 Eliz. c. 4, 107.
+  5 Eliz. c. 5, 105.
+  8 Eliz. c. 3, 326.
+  8 Eliz. c. 15, 82n.
+  13 Eliz. c. 25, 96.
+  14 Eliz. c. 11, 82n.
+  31 Eliz. c. 7, 121n., 159.
+  39 Eliz. c. 1, 117.
+  39 Eliz, c. 2, 118.
+  39 Eliz. c. 18, 82n.
+  43 Eliz. c. 2, 296.
+  1 Jac. I. c. 18, 150.
+  21 Jac. I. c. 28, 118n.
+  12 Car. II. c. 4, 161.
+  13 and 14 Car. II. c. 18, 326, 327.
+  14 Car. II. c. 12, 157.
+  15 Car. II. c. 7, 134, 326.
+  18 Car. II. c. 2, 161, 326.
+  22 Car. II. c. 13, 326.
+  32 Car. II. c. 2, 161, 326.
+  3 W. and M. c. 2, 158.
+  8 and 9 W. and M. c. 30, 158.
+  7 and 8 Wm. III. c. 28, 327.
+  36 Geo. III. c. 23, 238.
+  41 Geo. III. c. 109, 231-2.
+  9 Geo. IV. c. 60, 278.
+  4 and 5 Wm. IV. c. 76, 269.
+  6 and 7 Wm. IV. c. 71, 270.
+  5 Vict. c. 14, 278.
+  9 and 10 Vict. c. 22, 280.
+  9 and 10 Vict. c. 23, 280.
+  14 and 15 Vict. c. 25, 301.
+  30 and 31 Vict. c. 130, 292.
+  38 and 39 Vict. c. 92, 299.
+  43 and 44 Vict. c. 47, 303.
+  46 and 47 Vict. c. 61, 300.
+  59 and 60 Vict. c. 16, 314n.
+  63 and 64 Vict. c. 50, 301.
+  1 Edw. VII. c. 13, 314n.
+  6 Edw. VII. c. 56, 301.
+  7 Edw. VII. c. 54, 316.
+
+Steam,
+  applied to threshing, 237;
+  cultivator, 304.
+
+Stilton cheese, 173-4.
+
+Stinting the common pasture, 4.
+
+Stock and land leases, 57.
+
+Stocking a farm, 170, 203.
+
+Stores, public grain, 133, 264.
+
+Stott, the, or affer, 35, 57, 65.
+
+Stourbridge Fair, 171, 172n.
+
+Stratfieldsaye, 272.
+
+Straw,
+  as winter food for cattle, 126, 217;
+  carrying off, 178, 219, 302;
+  price of, 179, 180, 330.
+
+Strawberries, 15, 329, 331.
+
+Stubble, grazing of, 4, 125.
+
+Suffolk, 8, 30, 40, 57, 63n., 78, 112, 128, 147, 166, 168, 170,
+    173, 174, 188, 207, 225, 238, 284, 306n., 309, 313;
+  Punch, 335;
+  sheep, 275, 344, 345.
+
+Supplies of com per head, 330 (_see_ Wheat, home supplies).
+
+Surrey, 64, 128, 143, 144, 168, 180, 283, 306n.
+
+Surveyor, the seventeeiith-century, 127.
+
+Sussex, 54, 78, 259, 263, 283, 306n.;
+  cattle, 274, 288, 336, 340, 343.
+
+Swanage, 262.
+
+Swedes, 227, 237, 276, 288, 331-2, 333.
+
+'Swing' riots, 266.
+
+
+T
+
+Taltarum's case, effect of, 122.
+
+Tamworth pigs, 346.
+
+Taunton,
+  manor of, 18;
+  good fanning near, 128.
+
+Taxes, 247, 263-4, 307, 310;
+  weight of, 183, 191, 229, 245, 246, 249, 250, 263, 320, 321.
+
+Tea,
+  drinking, 205, 207, 213, 291;
+  price of, 205.
+
+Teams, composition of, 16.
+
+Telford, 220, 222.
+
+Tenant farmers,
+  assist in agricultural progress, 162;
+  number of, 141, 156;
+  origin of, 46, 119.
+
+Tenant-right, 283.
+
+Teeswater cattle, 337.
+
+Tewkesbury, 255.
+
+Thatchers, 139, 354.
+
+Thomson of Banchory, 276.
+
+Thorney and Woburn estates, 321.
+
+Three-field system, 4, 99.
+
+Threshing,
+  cost of, 34, 44, 65, 163, 179, 180, 198-9, 246;
+  machine, 230, 236-7, 282;
+  time for, 17, 126.
+
+Tillage,
+  decrease of, 79, 80, 94;
+  encouragement of, 79, 108, 117-8;
+  reaction against, 118.
+  (_See_ Arable, _and_ Grass.)
+
+Timber (_see_ Oak timber), 227;
+  spoils crops, 282.
+
+Tiptree, 319.
+
+Tithe,
+  dispute, 102;
+  on turnips, 166;
+  rent charge, 270.
+
+Tithes, 116, 144, 151, 189, 195, 230, 332, 247, 248, 249, 250,
+  270, 305, 307.
+
+Tooke, 179, 266.
+
+_Tours_, Young's, 190, 192.
+
+Towns, movement of rural population towards, 64, 70, 108, 185, 192,
+  195, 209, 315, 316-7.
+
+Townshend, Lord, 163, 182-3, 192, 193.
+
+_Treatise on Husbandry_, 33, 54.
+
+Tull, Jethro, 152, 163, 174-7, 178, 180, 183, 193, 200-1, 204.
+
+Turkeys, 170.
+
+Turkish dominions, imports from, 323.
+
+Turnip cutters, 276.
+
+Turnip fly, remedies for, 166.
+
+Turnips, 93, 111, 112, 115, 141, 143, 157, 164, 166, 168, 178, 183,
+    251, 331-2, 333;
+  cost of growing, in 1770, 198;
+  injure wool, 329;
+  sheep first fattened on, 112;
+  spread of, in eighteenth century, 165, 166, 179, 191, 194, 200,
+    201, 225;
+  varieties of, in 1720, 165.
+
+Tusser, 63, 90, 91, 92, 101, 102, 105, 111, 124, 126.
+
+Two-field system, 3.
+
+'Twopenny', 216.
+
+
+U
+
+Underwood, value of, in seventeenth century, 137.
+
+Unions, Agricultural Labourers', 291-2.
+
+United States, _see_ America.
+
+Unreasonable disturbance, 302.
+
+Upwey, 318.
+
+
+V
+
+Vanghan, Rowland, 132-3.
+
+Vegetables, 15, 93, 106, 112n., 143, 236n.
+
+Ventnor, vineyard at, 145.
+
+Vermin, destruction of, 82, 100, 244.
+
+Vermuyden, Cornelius, 123.
+
+Vetches, 125, 155, 331.
+
+Village, the, of the eighteenth century, 164.
+
+Village smith, the, 35.
+
+Villeins, 6, 7, 8, 18, 24, 29, 42, 45;
+  disappearance of, 46, 59, 60, 105.
+
+Vills or villages, 2, 5, 7, 15, 98, 119.
+
+Vineyards, 15, 16, 111, 144-5.
+
+Virgate, 8.
+
+Virginia,
+  potatoes from, 106;
+  wool from, 328.
+
+
+W
+
+Wages:
+  Twelfth century, 27.
+  Thirteenth century, 27, 28, 34, 348, 355.
+  Fourteenth century, 27, 28, 41, 43, 59, 61, 62, 348, 355.
+  Fifteenth century, 67, 71, 348, 355.
+  Sixteenth century, 67, 87, 348, 355.
+  Seventeenth century, 119, 138, 139, 348, 355.
+  Eighteenth century, 163, 164, 184, 203, 205-6, 210, 237,
+    238, 240, 285, 348, 354-5.
+  Nineteenth century, 241, 242, 249, 267, 268, 283-4, 285, 290-2, 297,
+    309, 311, 312, 313, 315, 355, 356.
+
+Wages,
+  on a farm in 1805, 247;
+  regulated by statute, 43, 61, 71, 87;
+    by Justices, 107, 109, 110.
+
+Waggons, 153, 204.
+
+Wainage, 8.
+
+Wales, cattle of, 167, 336, 338, 343.
+
+Wallachia and Moldavia, imports from, 323.
+
+Walsingham states demands of villeins, 60.
+
+Wars, effect of, 38, 68, 71, 193, 205, 212, 229, 237, 260, 286, 287, 341.
+
+Warwickshire, 40, 77, 78, 94, 110, 172, 173, 213, 215, 216, 272, 282,
+  290, 306n., 309, 343.
+
+Waste land, 231;
+  committee on, 255n., 256;
+  good crops from the, 119;
+  Young and, 191.
+
+Water carriage, cheapness of, 21, 173.
+
+Weaning lambs, time for, 125.
+
+Weaving, 70, 76, 110, 257.
+
+Webster of Canley, 216.
+
+Weeding hook and tongs, 84, 152.
+
+Weeds, 125, 180, 201.
+
+Week work, 8.
+
+Welsh mountain sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Wensleydale sheep, 343, 345.
+
+Westcar of Creslow, 339.
+
+Westcote, 128.
+
+Westmoreland, 216, 295, 346.
+
+Weston, Sir R., introduces clover, 111, 127, 141.
+
+Weyhill Fair, 172.
+
+Wheat,
+  acreage tinder, in 1907, 331-2;
+  consumption of, per head, 279;
+  cost of growing, 177, 180, 198, 199, 246, 307;
+  crops, 33, 67, 77, 91, 129, 142, 155, 165, 179, 180, 197-9, 227,
+     246, 282, 285, 286, 332;
+  cultivation of, 4, 16, 32, 36, 113, 125, 135, 177-9, 180, 184, 353;
+  different kinds of, 146, 107;
+  home supplies of, 277, 279, 313, 330;
+  price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+White, Gilbert, 223.
+
+Wilton, hops near, 171.
+
+Wiltshire, 143, 174, 253, 268, 283, 286, 309, 312, 313;
+  sheep, 345.
+
+Winchelsea, Lord, 255, 257, 268.
+
+Winchester, 147, 150.
+
+Wine, 144-5.
+
+Wire binder, 304.
+
+Wirral, 66.
+
+Wisbech, 318.
+
+Woad, 17, 152.
+
+Women, work of, on the farm, 62, 85, 206, 316.
+
+Wood, W. A., 304.
+
+Woods, 2, 16, 59, 74, 78, 115, 125, 136, 155.
+
+Woodstock, 53.
+
+Wool, 37, 38-41, 69, 75, 80, 94, 104, 114, 118, 119, 142, 161,
+    163, 171-3, 184, 223, 285, 329, 354, 355;
+  export of, _see_ Exports;
+  import of, _see_ Imports;
+  price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+Wool,
+  custom of picking refuse, 100;
+  storing, 125.
+
+Worcestershire, 74, 128, 136, 143, 171, 306.
+
+Work, hours of, 87, 147, 291.
+
+Worlidge, John, 127, 131, 132, 142-8, 150-4, 165.
+
+Worsley, Sir R., 145.
+
+
+Y
+
+Yeoman, the, 50, 71, 123, 128, 140, 156, 207, 258-61, 310, 320;
+  house of, 103.
+
+Yeomen purchase lands of gentry, 122.
+
+Yorkshire, 15, 78, 110, 138-9, 167, 168, 207, 225, 253, 283, 295, 306n.,
+  309, 337, 343, 346.
+
+Young, Arthur, 160, 162, 163, 172, 180, 182, 188, 190-3, 194, 197, 200-6,
+    210, 211, 222, 224, 230, 232, 236, 240, 253, 255, 257, 260, 284,
+    285, 288n., 298, 314, 317, 335, 336, 337, 343, 353, 355;
+  opposed to drilling, 178;
+  pet aversions of, 191;
+  statements of, as to growth of clover, 112.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of English Agriculture
+by W. H. R.  Curtler
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH AGRICULTURE ***
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Short History Of English Agriculture, by W.H.R. Curtler.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of English Agriculture
+by W. H. R.  Curtler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Short History of English Agriculture
+
+Author: W. H. R.  Curtler
+
+Release Date: August 25, 2005 [EBook #16594]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH AGRICULTURE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Million Book Project, Juliet Sutherland, Tricia
+Gilbert and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<p><a name="Page_-7" id="Page_-7"></a></p>
+<h1>A SHORT HISTORY</h1>
+<h3>OF</h3>
+<h1>ENGLISH AGRICULTURE</h1>
+
+<h4><br />BY</h4>
+
+<h3>W.H.R. CURTLER</h3>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+OXFORD<br />
+AT THE CLARENDON PRESS<br />
+1909<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+HENRY FROWDE, M.A.<br /><a name="Page_-6" id="Page_-6"></a>
+PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD<br />
+LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK<br />
+TORONTO AND MELBOURNE<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a><a name="Page_-5" id="Page_-5"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+
+<p>'A husbandman', said Markham, 'is the master of the earth, turning
+barrenness into fruitfulness, whereby all commonwealths are
+maintained and upheld. His labour giveth liberty to all vocations,
+arts, and trades to follow their several functions with peace and
+industrie. What can we say in this world is profitable where
+husbandry is wanting, it being the great nerve and sinew which
+holdeth together all the joints of a monarchy?' And he is confirmed
+by Young: 'Agriculture is, beyond all doubt, the foundation of every
+other art, business, and profession, and it has therefore been the
+ideal policy of every wise and prudent people to encourage it to the
+utmost.' Yet of this important industry, still the greatest in
+England, there is no history covering the whole period.</p>
+
+<p>It is to remedy this defect that this book is offered, with much
+diffidence, and with many thanks to Mr. C.R.L. Fletcher of Magdalen
+College, Oxford, for his valuable assistance in revising the proof
+sheets, and to the Rev. A.H. Johnson of All Souls for some very
+useful information.</p>
+
+<p>As the agriculture of the Middle Ages has often been ably described,
+I have devoted the greater part of this work to the agricultural
+history of the subsequent period, especially the seventeenth,
+eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.</p>
+
+<div class="right">W.H.R. CURTLER.</div>
+
+<p><i>May 22, 1909.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_-4" id="Page_-4"></a>
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>Communistic Farming.&mdash;Growth of the Manor.&mdash;Early Prices.&mdash;The
+Organization and Agriculture of the Manor</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>The Thirteenth Century.&mdash;The Manor at its Zenith, with Seeds of Decay
+already visible.&mdash;Walter of Henley</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>The Fourteenth Century.&mdash;Decline of Agriculture.&mdash;The Black Death.&mdash;
+Statute of Labourers</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>How the Classes connected with the Land lived in the Middle Ages</blockquote>
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>The Break-up of the Manor.&mdash;Spread of Leases.&mdash;The Peasants'
+Revolt.&mdash;Further Attempts to regulate Wages.&mdash;A Harvest
+Home.&mdash;Beginning of the Corn Laws.&mdash;Some Surrey Manors</blockquote>
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>1400-1540. The so-called 'Golden Age of the Labourer' in a Period of
+General Distress</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>Enclosure</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>Fitzherbert.&mdash;The Regulation of Hours and Wages</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a name="Page_-3" id="Page_-3"></a><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>1540-1600. Progress at last&mdash;Hop-growing.&mdash;Progress of Enclosure.&mdash;
+Harrison's <i>Description</i></blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>1540-1600. Live Stock.&mdash;Flax.&mdash;Saffron.&mdash;The Potato.&mdash;The Assessment
+of Wages</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>1600-1700. Clover and Turnips.&mdash;Great Rise in Prices.&mdash;More
+Enclosure.&mdash;A Farming Calendar</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>The Great Agricultural Writers of the Seventeenth Century.&mdash;Fruit-growing.
+&mdash;A Seventeenth-century Orchard</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>The Evils of Common Fields.&mdash;Hops.&mdash;Implements.&mdash;Manures.&mdash;Gregory
+King.&mdash;Corn Laws</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>1700-65. General Characteristics of the Eighteenth Century.&mdash;Crops.
+&mdash;Cattle.&mdash;Dairying.&mdash;Poultry.&mdash;Tull and the New Husbandry.&mdash;Bad
+Times.&mdash;Fruit-growing</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>1700-65. Townshend.&mdash;Sheep-rot.&mdash;Cattle Plague.&mdash;Fruit-growing</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>1765-93. Arthur Young.&mdash;Crops and their Cost.&mdash;The Labourers'
+Wages and Diet.&mdash;The Prosperity of Farmers.&mdash;The Country
+Squire.&mdash;Elkington.&mdash;Bakewell.&mdash;The Roads.&mdash;Coke of Holkham</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a name="Page_-2" id="Page_-2"></a><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>1793-1815. The Great French War.&mdash;The Board of Agriculture.&mdash;High
+Prices, and Heavy Taxation</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>Enclosure.&mdash;The Small Owner</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>1816-37. Depression</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>1837-75. Revival of Agriculture.&mdash;The Royal Agricultural
+Society.&mdash;Corn Law Repeal.&mdash;A Temporary Set-back.&mdash;The Halcyon Days</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>1875-1908. Agricultural Distress again.&mdash;Foreign Competition.&mdash;
+Agricultural Holdings Act.&mdash;New Implements.&mdash;Agricultural
+Commissions.&mdash;The Situation in 1908</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>Imports and Exports.&mdash;Live Stock</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII</b></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>Modern Farm Live Stock</blockquote>
+
+
+<p><b>APPENDICES</b></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><a href="#APPENDIX_I"><b>I.</b></a> Average Prices from 1259 to 1700</p>
+
+<p><a href="#APPENDIX_II"><b>II.</b></a> Exports and Imports of Wheat and Flour from and into England,
+unimportant years omitted</p>
+
+<p><a href="#APPENDIX_III"><b>III.</b></a> Average Prices per Imperial Quarter of British Corn in England
+and Wales, in each year from 1771 to 1907 inclusive</p>
+
+<p><a href="#APPENDIX_IV"><b>IV.</b></a> Miscellaneous Information</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><a href="#INDEX"><b>INDEX</b></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Page_-1" id="Page_-1"></a><a name="LANDMARKS_IN_ENGLISH_AGRICULTURE" id="LANDMARKS_IN_ENGLISH_AGRICULTURE"></a>LANDMARKS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE</h2>
+
+
+<p>1086. Domesday inquest, most cultivated land in tillage. Annual value
+of land about 2<i>d.</i> an acre.</p>
+
+<p>1216-72. Henry III. Assize of Bread and Ale.</p>
+
+<p>1272-1307. Edward I. General progress. Walter of Henley.</p>
+
+<p>1307. Edward II. Decline.</p>
+
+<p>1315. Great famine.</p>
+
+<p>1337. Export of wool prohibited.</p>
+
+<p>1348-9. Black Death. Heavy blow to manorial system. Many demesne
+lands let, and much land laid down to grass.</p>
+
+<p>1351. Statute of Labourers.</p>
+
+<p>1360. Export of corn forbidden.</p>
+
+<p>1381. Villeins' revolt.</p>
+
+<p>1393. Richard II allows export of corn under certain conditions.</p>
+
+<p>1463. Import of wheat under 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> prohibited.
+End of fifteenth century. Increase of enclosure.</p>
+
+<p>1523. Fitzherbert's <i>Surveying and Husbandry</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1540. General rise in prices and rents begins.</p>
+
+<p>1549. Kett's rebellion. The last attempt of the English peasant to
+obtain redress by force.</p>
+
+<p>1586. Potatoes introduced.</p>
+
+<p>1601. Poor Law Act of Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>1645. Turnips and clover introduced as field crops.</p>
+
+<p>1662. Statute of Parochial Settlement.</p>
+
+<p>1664. Importation of cattle, sheep, and swine forbidden.</p>
+
+<p>1688. Bounty of 5<i>s.</i> per quarter on export of wheat, and high duty on
+import.</p>
+
+<p>1733. Tull publishes his <i>Horse-hoeing Husbandry</i>.</p>
+
+<p>1739. Great sheep-rot.</p>
+
+<p>1750. Exports of corn reached their maximum.</p>
+
+<p>1760. Bakewell began experimenting.</p>
+
+<p>1760 (about). Industrial and agrarian revolution, and great increase
+of enclosure.</p>
+
+<p>1764. Elkington's new drainage system.</p>
+
+<p>1773. Wheat allowed to be imported at a nominal duty of 6<i>d.</i> a quarter
+when over 48<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_0" id="Page_0"></a>1777. Bath and West of England Society established, the first in
+England.</p>
+
+<p>1789. England definitely becomes a corn-importing country.</p>
+
+<p>1793. Board of Agriculture established.</p>
+
+<p>1795. Speenhamland Act.
+About same date swedes first grown.</p>
+
+<p>1815. Duty on wheat reached its maximum.</p>
+
+<p>1815-35. Agricultural distress.</p>
+
+<p>1825. Export of wool allowed.</p>
+
+<p>1835. Smith of Deanston, the father of modern drainage.</p>
+
+<p>1838. Foundation of Royal Agricultural Society.</p>
+
+<p>1846. Repeal of the Corn Laws.</p>
+
+<p>1855-75. Great agricultural prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>1875. English agriculture feels the full effect of unrestricted
+competition with disastrous results.</p>
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;First Agricultural Holdings Act.<br />
+
+<p>1879-80. Excessive rainfall, sheep-rot, and general distress.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>COMMUNISTIC FARMING.&mdash;GROWTH OF THE MANOR.&mdash;EARLY PRICES.&mdash;THE
+ORGANIZATION AND AGRICULTURE OF THE MANOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>When the early bands of English invaders came over to take Britain
+from its Celtic owners, it is almost certain that the soil was held by
+groups and not by individuals, and as this was the practice of the
+conquerors also they readily fell in with the system they found.
+<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+These English, unlike their descendants of to day, were a race of
+countrymen and farmers and detested the towns, preferring the lands of
+the Britons to the towns of the Romans. Co-operation in agriculture
+was necessary because to each household were allotted separate strips
+of land, nearly equal in size, in each field set apart for tillage,
+and a share in the meadow and waste land. The strips of arable were
+unfenced and ploughed by common teams, to which each family would
+contribute.</p>
+
+<p>Apparently, as the land was cleared and broken up it was dealt out
+acre by acre to each cultivator; and supposing each group consisted of
+ten families, the typical holding of 120 acres was assigned to each
+family in acre strips, and these strips were not all contiguous but
+mixed up with those of other families. The reason for this mixture of
+strips is obvious to any one who knows how land even in the same field
+varies in quality; it was to give each family its share of both good
+and bad land, for the householders were all equal and the principle on
+which the original distribution of the land depended was that of
+equalizing the shares of the different members of the community.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>In attributing ownership of lands to communities we must be careful
+not to confound communities with corporations. Maitland thinks the
+early land-owning communities blended the character of corporations
+and of co-owners, and co-ownership is ownership by individuals.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> The
+vills or villages founded on their arrival in Britain by our English
+forefathers resembled those they left at home, and even there the
+strips into which the arable fields were divided were owned in
+severalty by the householders of the village. There was co-operation
+in working the fields but no communistic division of the crops, and
+the individual's hold upon his strips developed rapidly into an
+inheritable and partible ownership. 'At the opening of Anglo-Saxon
+history absolute ownership of land in severalty was established and
+becoming the rule.'<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the management of the meadow land communal features were much more
+clearly brought out; the arable was not reallotted,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> but the meadow
+was, annually; while the woods and pastures, the right of using which
+belonged to the householders of the village, were owned by the village
+'community'. There may have been at the time of the English conquest
+Roman 'villas' with slaves and <i>coloni</i> cultivating the owners'
+demesnes, which passed bodily to the new masters; but the former
+theory seems true of the greater part of the country.</p>
+
+<p>At first 'extensive' cultivation was practised; that is, every year a
+fresh arable field was broken up and the one cultivated last year
+abandoned, for a time at all events; but gradually 'intensive' culture
+superseded this, probably not till after the English had conquered the
+land, and the same field was cultivated year after year.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> After the
+various families or households had finished cutting the grass in their
+allotted portions of meadow, and the corn on their strips of tillage,
+<a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>both grass and stubble became common land and were thrown open for the
+whole community to turn their stock upon.</p>
+
+<p>The size of the strips of land in the arable fields varied, but was
+generally an acre, in most places a furlong (furrow long) or 220 yards
+in length, and 22 yards broad; or in other words, 40 rods of 5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>
+yards in length and 4 in breadth. There was, however, little
+uniformity in measurement before the Norman Conquest, the rod by which
+the furlongs and acres were measured varying in length from 12 to 24
+feet, so that one acre might be four times as large as another.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> The
+acre was, roughly speaking, the amount that a team could plough in a
+day, and seems to have been from early times the unit of measuring the
+area of land.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Of necessity the real acre and the ideal acre were
+also different, for the reason that the former had to contend with the
+inequalities of the earth's surface and varied much when no scientific
+measurement was possible. As late as 1820 the acre was of many
+different sizes in England. In Bedfordshire it was 2 roods, in Dorset
+134 perches instead of 160, in Lincolnshire 5 roods, in Staffordshire
+2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub>&nbsp;acres. To-day the Cheshire acre is 10,240 square yards. As,
+however, an acre was and is a day's ploughing for a team, we may
+assume that the most usual acre was the same area then as now. There
+were also half-acre strips, but whatever the size the strips were
+divided one from another by narrow grass paths generally called
+'balks', and at the end of a group of these strips was the 'headland'
+where the plough turned, the name being common to-day. Many of these
+common fields remained until well on in the nineteenth century; in
+1815 half the county of Huntingdon was in this condition, and a few
+still exist.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Cultivating the same field year after year naturally
+exhausted the soil, so that the two-field system came in, under <a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>which
+one was cultivated and the other left fallow; and this was followed by
+the three-field system, by which two were cropped in any one year and
+one lay fallow, the last-named becoming general as it yielded better
+results, though the former continued, especially in the North. Under
+the three-field plan the husbandman early in the autumn would plough
+the field that had been lying fallow during summer, and sow wheat or
+rye; in the spring he broke up the stubble of the field on which the
+last wheat crop had been grown and sowed barley or oats; in June he
+ploughed up the stubble of the last spring crop and fallowed the
+field.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> As soon as the crops began to grow in the arable fields and
+the grass in the meadows to spring, they were carefully fenced to
+prevent trespass of man and beast; and, as soon as the crops came off,
+the fields became common for all the village to turn their stock upon,
+the arable fields being usually common from Lammas (August 1) to
+Candlemas (February 2) and the meadows from July 6, old Midsummer Day,
+to Candlemas<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>; but as in this climate the season both of hay and
+corn harvest varies considerably, these dates cannot have been fixed.</p>
+
+<p>The stock, therefore, besides the common pasture, had after harvest
+the grazing of the common arable fields and of the meadows. The common
+pasture was early 'stinted' or limited, the usual custom being that
+the villager could turn out as many stock as he could keep on his
+holding. The trouble of pulling up and taking down these fences every
+year must have been enormous, and we find legislation on this
+important matter at an early date. About 700 the laws of <a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>Ine, King of
+Wessex, provided that if 'churls have a common meadow or other
+partible land to fence, and some have fenced their part and some have
+not, and cattle stray in and eat up their common corn or grass; let
+those go who own the gap and compensate to the others who have fenced
+their part the damage which then may be done, and let them demand such
+justice on the cattle as may be right. But if there be a beast which
+breaks hedges and goes in everywhere, and he who owns it will not or
+cannot restrain it, let him who finds it in his field take it and slay
+it, and let the owner take its skin and flesh and forfeit the rest.'</p>
+
+<p>England was not given over to one particular type of settlement,
+although villages were more common than hamlets in the greater part of
+the country.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> The vill or village answers to the modern civil
+parish, and the term may be applied to both the true or 'nucleated'
+village of clustered houses and the village of scattered hamlets, each
+of a few houses, existing chiefly on the Celtic fringe. The population
+of some of the villages at the time of the Norman Conquest was
+numerous, 100 households or 500 people; but the average townships
+contained from 10 to 20 households.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> There was also the single
+farm, such as that at Eardisley in Herefordshire, described in
+Domesday, lying in the middle of a forest, perhaps, as in other
+similar cases, a pioneer settlement of some one more adventurous than
+his fellows.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Such was the early village community in England, a community of free
+landholders. But a change began early to come over it.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> The king
+would grant to a church all the rights he had in the village,
+reserving only the <i>trinoda necessitas</i>, these rights including the
+feorm or farm, or provender rent which the king derived from the
+land&mdash;of cattle, <a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>sheep, swine, ale, honey, &amp;c.&mdash;which he collected by
+visiting his villages, thus literally eating his rents. The churchmen
+did not continue these visits, they remained in their monasteries, and
+had the feorm brought them regularly; they had an overseer in the
+village to see to this, and so they tightened their hold on the
+village. Then the smaller people, the peasants, make gifts to the
+Church. They give their land, but they also want to keep it, for it is
+their livelihood; so they surrender the land and take it back as a
+lifelong loan. Probably on the death of the donor his heirs are
+suffered to hold the land. Then labour services are substituted for
+the old provender rents, and thus the Church acquires a demesne, and
+thus the foundations of the manorial system, still to be traced all
+over the country, were laid. Thegns, the predecessors of the Norman
+barons, become the recipients of grants from the churches and from
+kings, and householders 'commend' themselves and their land to them
+also, so that they acquired demesnes. This 'commendation' was
+furthered by the fact that during the long-drawn out conquest of
+Britain the old kindred groups of the English lost their corporate
+sense, and the central power being too weak to protect the ordinary
+householder, who could not stand alone, he had to seek the protection
+of an ecclesiastical corporation or of some thegn, first for himself
+and then for his land. The jurisdictional rights of the king also
+passed to the lord, whether church or thegn; then came the danegeld,
+the tax for buying off the Danes that subsequently became a fixed land
+tax, which was collected from the lord, as the peasants were too poor
+for the State to deal with them; the lord paid the geld for their
+land, consequently their land was his. In this way the free ceorl of
+Anglo-Saxon times gradually becomes the 'villanus' of Domesday.
+Landlordship was well established in the two centuries before the
+Conquest, and the land of England more or less 'carved into
+territorial lordships'.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>Therefore when the Normans brought their
+wonderful genius for organization to this country they found the
+material conditions of manorial life in full growth; it was their task
+to develop its legal and economic side.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p>As the manorial system thus superimposed upon the village community
+was the basis of English rural economy for centuries, there need be no
+apology for describing it at some length.</p>
+
+<p>The term 'manor', which came in with the Conquest,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> has a technical
+meaning in Domesday, referring to the system of taxation, and did not
+always coincide with the vill or village, though it commonly did so,
+except in the eastern portion of England. The village was the agrarian
+unit, the manor the fiscal unit; so that where the manor comprised
+more than one village, as was frequently the case, there would be more
+than one village organization for working the common fields.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p>
+
+<p>The manor then was the 'constitutive cell' of English mediaeval
+society.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> The structure is always the same; under the headship of
+the lord we find two layers of population, the villeins and the
+freeholders; and the territory is divided into demesne land and
+tributary land of two classes, viz. that of the villeins and that of
+the freeholders. The cultivation of the demesne (which usually means
+the land directly occupied and cultivated by the lord, though legally
+it has a wider meaning and includes the villein tenements), depends to
+a certain extent on the work supplied by the tenants of the tributary
+land. Rents are collected, labour superintended, administrative
+business transacted by a set of manorial officers.</p>
+
+<p>We may divide the tillers of the soil at the time of Domesday into
+five great classes<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> in order of dignity and freedom:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>
+1. Liberi homines, or freemen.<br />
+2. Socmen.<br />
+3. Villeins.<br /><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>
+4. Bordarii, cotarii, buri or coliberti.<br />
+5. Slaves.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The two first of these classes were to be found in large numbers in
+Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and
+Northamptonshire. It is not easy to draw the line between them, but
+the chief distinction lay in the latter being more burdened with
+service and customary dues and more especially subject to the
+jurisdictional authority of the lord.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> They were both free, but
+both rendered services to the lord for their land. Both the freemen
+and the slaves by 1086 were rapidly decreasing in number.</p>
+
+<p>The most numerous class<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> on the manors was the third, that of the
+villeins or non-free tenants, who held their land by payment of
+services to the lord. The position of the villein under the feudal
+system is most complicated. He both was and was not a freeman. He was
+absolutely at the disposal of the lord, who could sell him with his
+tenement, and he could not leave his land without his lord's
+permission. He laboured under many disabilities, such as the merchet
+or fine for marrying his daughter, and fines for selling horse or ox.
+On the other hand, he was free against every one but his lord, and
+even against the lord was protected from the forfeiture of his
+'wainage' or instruments of labour and from injury to life and
+limb.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p>His usual holding was a virgate of 30 acres of arable, though the
+virgate differed in size even in the same manors; but in addition to
+this he would have his meadow land and his share in the common pasture
+and wood, altogether about 100 acres of land. For this he rendered the
+following services to the lord of the manor:</p>
+
+<p>1. Week work, or labour on the lord's demesne for two or <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>three days a
+week during most of the year, and four or five days in summer. It was
+not always the villein himself, however, who rendered these services,
+he might send his son or even a hired labourer; and it was the holding
+and not the holder that was considered primarily responsible for the
+rendering of services.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>2. Precarii or boon days: that is, work generally during harvest, at
+the lord's request, sometimes instead of week work, sometimes in
+addition.</p>
+
+<p>3. Gafol or tribute: fixed payments in money or kind, and such
+services as 'fold soke', which forced the tenants' sheep to lie on the
+lord's land for the sake of the manure; and suit of mill, by which the
+tenant was bound to grind his corn in the lord's mill.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the 'boon days' in harvest, it should be remembered
+that harvest time in the Middle Ages was a most important event.
+Agriculture was the great industry, and when the corn was ripe the
+whole village turned out to gather it, the only exceptions being the
+housewives and sometimes the marriageable daughters. Even the larger
+towns suspended work that the townsmen might assist in the harvest,
+and our long vacation was probably intended originally to cover the
+whole work of gathering in the corn and hay. On the occasion of the
+'boon-day' work, the lord usually found food for the labourers which,
+the Inquisition of Ardley<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> tells us, might be of the following
+description: for two men, porridge of beans and peas and two loaves,
+one white, the other of 'mixtil' bread; that is, wheat, barley, and
+rye mixed together, with a piece of meat, and beer for their first
+meal. Then in the evening they had a small loaf of mixtil bread and
+two 'lescas' of cheese. While harvest work was going on the better-off
+tenants, usually the free ones, were sometimes employed to ride about,
+rod in hand, superintending the others.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>The services of the villeins were often very comprehensive, and even
+included such tasks as preparing the lord's bath; but on some manors
+their services were very light.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> When the third of the above
+obligations, the gafol or tribute, was paid in kind it was most
+commonly made in corn; and next came honey, one of the most important
+articles of the Middle Ages, as it was used for both lighting and
+sweetening purposes. Ale was also common, and poultry and eggs, and
+sometimes the material for implements.</p>
+
+<p>These obligations were imposed for the most part on free and unfree
+tenants alike, though those of the free were much lighter than those
+of the unfree; the chief difference between the two, as far as tenure
+of the land went, lay in the fact that the former could exercise
+proprietary rights over his holding more or less freely, the latter
+had none.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> It seems very curious to the modern mind that the
+villein, a man who farmed about 100 acres of land, should have been in
+such a servile condition.</p>
+
+<p>The amount of work due from each villein came to be fixed by the
+extent or survey of the manor, but the quality of it was not<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>;
+that is, each one knew how many days he had to work, but not whether
+he was to plough, sow, or harrow, &amp;c. It is surprising to find, that
+on the festival days of the Church, which were very numerous and
+observed as holy days, the lord lost by no work being done, and the
+same was the case in wet weather.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most important duties of the tenant was the 'averagium', or
+duty of carrying for the lord, especially necessary when his manors
+were often a long way apart. He would often have to carry corn to the
+nearest town for sale, the products of one manor to another, also to
+haul manure on to <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>the demesne. If he owned neither horse nor ox, he
+would sometimes have to use his own back.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p>
+
+<p>The holding of the villein did not admit of partition by sale or
+descent, it remained undivided and entire. When the holder died all
+the land went to one of the sons if there were several, often to the
+youngest. The others sought work on the manor as craftsmen or
+labourers, or remained on the family plot. The holding therefore might
+contain more than one family, but to the lord remained one and
+undivided.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the fourth class came the bordarii, the cotarii, and the coliberti
+or buri; or, as we should say, the crofters, the cottagers, and the
+boors.</p>
+
+<p>The bordarii numbered 82,600 in Domesday, and were subject to the same
+kind of services as the villeins, but the amount of the service was
+considerably less.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> Their usual holding was 5 acres, and they are
+very often found on the demesne of the manor, evidently in this case
+labourers on the demesne, settled in cottages and provided with a bit
+of land of their own. The name failed to take root in this country,
+and the bordarii seem to become villeins or cottiers.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
+
+<p>The cotarii, cottiers or cottagers, were 6,800 in number, with small
+pieces of land sometimes reaching 5 acres.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> Distinctly inferior to
+the villeins, bordarii, and cottars, but distinctly superior to the
+slaves, were the buri or coliberti who, with the bordars and cottars,
+would form a reserve of labour to supplement the ordinary working days
+at times when work was pressing, as in hay time and harvest. At the
+bottom of the social ladder in Domesday came the slaves, some 25,000
+in number, who in the main had no legal rights, a class which <a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>had
+apparently already diminished and was diminishing in numbers, so that
+for the cultivation of the demesne the lord was coming to rely more on
+the labour of his tenants, and consequently the labour services of the
+villeins were being augmented.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> The agricultural labourer as we
+understand him, a landless man working solely for wages in cash, was
+almost unknown.</p>
+
+<p>All the arrangements of the manor aimed at supplying labour for the
+cultivation of the lord's demesne, and he had three chief officers to
+superintend it:</p>
+
+<p>1. The seneschal, who answers to our modern steward or land agent, and
+where there were several manors supervised all of them. He attended to
+the legal business and held the manor courts. It was his duty to be
+acquainted with every particular of the manor, its cultivation,
+extent, number of teams, condition of the stock, &amp;c. He was also the
+legal adviser of his lord; in fact, very much like his modern
+successor.</p>
+
+<p>2. The bailiff for each manor, who collected rents, went to market to
+buy and sell, surveyed the timber, superintended the ploughing,
+mowing, reaping, &amp;c., that were due as services from the tenants on
+the lord's demesne; and according to <i>Fleta</i> he was to prevent their
+'casting off before the work was done', and to measure it when
+done.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> And considering that those he superintended were not paid
+for their work, but rendering more or less unwelcome services, his
+task could not have been easy.</p>
+
+<p>3. The praepositus or reeve, an office obligatory on every holder of a
+certain small quantity of land; a sort of foreman nominated from among
+the villeins, and to a certain extent representing their interests.
+His duties were supplementary to those of the bailiff: he looked after
+all the live and dead stock of the manor, saw to the manuring of the
+land, kept a tally of the day's work, had charge of the granary, and
+delivered therefrom <a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>corn to be baked and malt to be brewed.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a>
+Besides these three officers, on a large estate there would be a
+messor who took charge of the harvest, and many lesser officers, such
+as those of the akermanni, or leaders of the unwieldy plough teams;
+oxherds, shepherds, and swineherds to tend cattle, sheep, and pigs
+when they were turned on the common fields or wandered in the waste;
+also wardens of the woods and fences, often paid by a share in the
+profits connected with their charge; for instance, the swineherd of
+Glastonbury Abbey received a sucking-pig a year, the interior parts of
+the best pig, and the tails of all the others slaughtered.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> On the
+great estates these offices tended to become hereditary, and many
+families did treat them as hereditary property, and were a great
+nuisance in consequence to their lords. At Glastonbury we find the
+chief shepherd so important a person that he was party to an agreement
+concerning a considerable quantity of land.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> There were also on
+some manors 'cadaveratores', whose duty was to look into and report on
+the losses of cattle and sheep from murrain, a melancholy tale of the
+unhealthy conditions of agriculture.</p>
+
+<p>The supervision of the tenants was often incessant and minute.
+According to the Court Rolls of the Manor of Manydown in Hampshire,
+tenants were brought to book for all kinds of transgressions. The
+fines are so numerous that it almost appears that every person on the
+estate was amerced from time to time. In 1365 seven tenants were
+convicted of having pigs in their lord's crops, one let his horse run
+in the growing corn, two had cattle among the peas, four had cattle on
+the lord's pasture, three had made default in rent or service, four
+were convicted of assault, nine broke the assize of beer, <a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>two had
+failed to repair their houses or buildings. In all thirty-four were in
+trouble out of a population of some sixty families. The account is
+eloquent of the irritating restrictions of the manor, and of the
+inconveniences of common farming.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to compare the receipts of the lord of the manor at
+this period with modern rents, or the position of the villein with the
+agricultural labourer; it may be said that the lord received a labour
+rent for the villein's holding, or that the villein received his
+holding as wages for the services done for the lord,<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> and part of
+the return due to the lord was for the use of the oxen with which he
+had stocked the villein's holding.</p>
+
+<p>Though in 1066 there were many free villages, yet by the time of
+Domesday they were fast disappearing and there were manors everywhere,
+usually coinciding with the village which we may picture to ourselves
+as self-sufficing estates, often isolated by stretches of dense
+woodland and moor from one another, and making each veritably a little
+world in itself. At the same time it is evident from the extent of
+arable land described in Domesday that many manors were not greatly
+isolated, and pasture ground was often common to two or more
+villages.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p>
+
+<p>If we picture to ourselves the typical manor, we shall see a large
+part of the lord's demesne forming a compact area within which stood
+his house; this being in addition to the lord's strips in the open
+fields intermixed with those of his tenants. The mansion house was
+usually a very simple affair, built of wood and consisting chiefly of
+a hall; which even as late as the seventeenth century in some cases
+served as kitchen, dining room, parlour, and sleeping room <a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>for the
+men; and one or two other rooms.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> It is probable that in early
+times the thegns possessed in most cases only one manor apiece,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> so
+that the manor house was then nearly always inhabited by the lord, but
+after the Conquest, when manors were bestowed by scores and even
+hundreds by William on his successful soldiers, many of them can only
+have acted as the temporary lodging of the lord when he came to
+collect his rent, or as the house of the bailiff. According to the
+<i>Gerefa</i>, written about 1000&mdash;and there was very little alteration for
+a long time afterwards&mdash;the mansion was adjacent to a court or yard
+which the quadrangular homestead surrounded with its barns, horse and
+cattle stalls, sheep pens and fowlhouse. Within this court were ovens,
+kilns, salt-house, and malt-house, and perhaps the hayricks and wood
+piles. Outside and surrounding the homestead were the enclosed arable
+and grass fields of the portion of the demesne which may be called the
+home farm, a kitchen garden, and probably a vineyard, then common in
+England. The garden of the manor house would not have a large variety
+of vegetables; some onions, leeks, mustard, peas, perhaps cabbage; and
+apples, pears, cherries, probably damsons, plums,<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> strawberries,
+peaches, quinces, and mulberries. Not far off was the village or town
+of the tenants, the houses all clustering close together, each house
+standing in a toft or yard with some buildings, and built of wood,
+turf, clay, or wattles, with only one room which the tenant shared
+with his live stock, as in parts of Ireland to-day. Indeed, in some
+parts of Yorkshire at the beginning of the nineteenth century this
+primitive simplicity still prevailed, live stock were still kept in
+the house, the floors were of clay, and the <a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>family slept in boxes
+round the solitary room. Examples of farmhouses clustered together at
+some distance from their respective holdings still survive, though
+generally built of stone. Next the village, though not always, for
+they were sometimes at a distance by the banks of a stream, were the
+meadows, and right round stretched the three open arable fields,
+beyond which was the common pasture and wood,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> and, encircling all,
+heath, forest, and swamp, often cutting off the manor from the rest of
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>The basis of the whole scheme of measurement in Domesday was the hide,
+usually of 120 acres, the amount of land that could be ploughed by a
+team of 8 oxen in a year; a quarter of this was the virgate, an eighth
+the bovate, which would therefore supply one ox to the common team.
+These teams, however, varied; on the manors of S. Paul's Cathedral in
+1222 they were sometimes composed of horses and oxen, or of 6 horses
+only, sometimes 10 oxen.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p>
+
+<p>The farming year began at Michaelmas when, in addition to the sowing
+of wheat and rye, the cattle were carefully stalled and fed only on
+hay and straw, for roots were in the distant future, and the corn was
+threshed with the flail and winnowed by hand. In the spring, after the
+ploughing of the second arable field, the vineyard, where there was
+one, was set out, and the open ditches, apparently the only drainage
+then known, cleansed. <a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>In May it was time to set up the temporary
+fences round the meadows and arable fields, and to begin fallowing the
+third field.</p>
+
+<p>A valuable document, describing the duties of a reeve, gives many
+interesting details of eleventh-century farming:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'In May, June, and July one may harrow, carry out manure, set
+up sheep hurdles, shear sheep, do repairs, hedge, cut wood,
+weed, and make folds. In harvest one may reap; in August,
+September, and in October one may mow, set woad with a dibble,
+gather home many crops, thatch them and cover them over,
+cleanse the folds, prepare cattle sheds and shelters ere too
+severe a winter come to the farm, and also diligently prepare
+the soil. In winter one should plough and in severe frosts
+cleave timber, make an orchard, and do many affairs indoors,
+thresh, cleave wood, put the cattle in stalls and the swine in
+pigstyes, and provide a hen roost. In spring one should plough
+and graft, sow beans, set a vineyard, make ditches, hew wood
+for a wild deer fence; and soon after that, if the weather
+permit, set madder, sow flax seed and woad seed, plant a garden
+and do many things which I cannot fully enumerate that a good
+steward ought to provide.'<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>The methods of cultivation were simple. The plough, if we may judge by
+contemporary illustrations, had in the eleventh century a large wheel
+and very short handles.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> In the twelfth century Neckham describes
+its parts: a beam, handles, tongue, mouldboard, coulter, and
+share.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> Breaking up the clods was done by the mattock or beetle,
+and harrowing was done by hand with what looks like a large rake; the
+scythes of the haymakers and the sickles of the reapers were very like
+those that still linger on in some districts to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a list of tools and implements for the homestead: an axe,
+adze, bill, awl, plane, saw, spokeshave, tie hook, auger, mattock,
+lever, share, coulter, goad-iron, scythe, <a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>sickle, weed-hook, spade,
+shovel, woad dibble, barrow, besom, beetle, rake, fork, ladder, horse
+comb, shears, fire tongs, weighing scales, and a long list of spinning
+implements necessary when farmers made their own clothes. The author
+wisely remarks that one ought to have coverings for wains, plough
+gear, harrowing tackle, &amp;c.; and adds another list of instruments and
+utensils: a caldron, kettle, ladle, pan, crock, firedog, dishes, bowls
+with handles, tubs, buckets, a churn, cheese vat, baskets, crates,
+bushels, sieves, seed basket, wire sieve, hair sieve, winnowing fans,
+troughs, ashwood pails, hives, honey bins, beer barrels, bathing tub,
+dishes, cups, strainers, candlesticks, salt cellar, spoon case, pepper
+horn, footstools, chairs, basins, lamp, lantern, leathern bottles,
+comb, iron bin, fodder rack, meal ark or box, oil flask, oven rake,
+dung shovel; altogether a very complete list, the compiler of which
+ends by saying that the reeve ought to neglect nothing that should
+prove useful, not even a mousetrap, nor even, what is less, a peg for
+a hasp.</p>
+
+<p>Manors in 1086 were of all sizes, from one virgate to enormous
+organizations like Taunton or Leominster, containing villages by the
+score and hundreds of dependent holdings.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> The ordinary size,
+however, of the Domesday manor was from four to ten hides of 120 acres
+each, or say from 500 to 1,200 acres,<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> and the Manor of Segenehou
+in Bedfordshire may be regarded as typical. Held by Walter brother of
+Seiher it had as much land as ten ploughs could work, four plough
+lands belonging to the demesne and six to the villeins, of whom there
+were twenty-four, with four bordarii and three serfs; thus the
+villeins had 30 acres each, the normal holding. The manorial system
+was in fact a combination of large farming by the lords, and small
+farming by the tenants. Nor must we <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>compare it to an ordinary estate;
+for it was a dominion within which the lord had authority over
+subjects of various ranks; he was not only a proprietor but a prince
+with courts of his own, the arbiter of his tenants' rights as well as
+owner of the land.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most striking features of the Domesday survey is the large
+quantity of arable land and the small quantity of meadow, which
+usually was the only land whence they obtained their hay, for the
+common pasture cannot often have been mown.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> Indeed, it is
+difficult to understand how they fed their stock in hard winters.</p>
+
+<p>According to the returns, in many counties more acres were ploughed in
+1086 than to-day; in some twice as much. In Somerset in 1086 there
+were 577,000 acres of arable; in 1907, 178,967. In Gloucestershire, in
+1086, 589,000 acres; in 1907, 238,456.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> These are extreme
+instances; but the preponderance of arable is startling, even if we
+allow for the recent conversion of arable to pasture on account of the
+low price of corn. Between the eleventh century and the sixteenth, the
+laying down of land to grass must have proceeded on a gigantic scale,
+for Harrison tells us that in his day England was mainly a grazing
+country. No wonder Harrison's contemporaries complained of the decay
+of tillage.</p>
+
+<p>Mediaeval prices and statistics are, it is well known, to be taken
+with great caution; but we may assume that the normal annual value of
+land under cultivation in 1086 was about 2<i>d.</i> an acre.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> Land indeed,
+apart from the stock upon it, was worth very little: in the tenth and
+eleventh centuries it appears that the hide, normally of 120 acres,
+was only worth <i>&pound;</i>5 to buy, apparently with the stock upon it. In the
+time of Athelstan a horse was worth 120<i>d.</i>, an ox 30<i>d.</i>, a cow 20<i>d.</i>, a
+<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>sheep 5<i>d.</i>, a hog 8<i>d.</i>, a slave <i>&pound;</i>1&mdash;so that a slave was worth 8
+oxen<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a>; and these prices do not seem to have advanced by the
+Domesday period.</p>
+
+<p>According to the Pipe Roll of 1156, wheat was 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a quarter; but
+prices then depended entirely on seasons, and we do not know whether
+that was good or bad. However, many years later, in 1243 it was only
+2<i>s.</i> a quarter at Hawsted.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> In dear years, nearly always the result
+of wet seasons, it went up enormously; in 1024 the English Chronicle
+tells us the acre seed of wheat, that is about 2 bushels, sold for
+4<i>s.</i>,<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> 3 bushels of barley for 6<i>s.</i> and 4 bushels of oats for 4<i>s.</i> In
+1190 Holinshed says that, owing to a great dearth, the quarter of
+wheat was 18<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> The average price, however, in the twelfth century
+was probably about 4<i>s.</i> a quarter.</p>
+
+<p>In 1194 Roger of Hoveden<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> says an ox, a cow, and a plough horse
+were the same price, 4<i>s.</i>; a sheep with fine wool 10<i>d.</i>, with coarse
+wool 6<i>d.</i>; a sow 12<i>d.</i>, a boar 12<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p>Sometimes prices were kept down by imports; 1258 was a bad and dear
+year, 'most part of the corn rotted on the ground,' and was not all
+got in till after November 1, so excessive was the wet and rain. And
+upon the dearth a sore death and mortality followed for want of
+necessary food to sustain the pining bodies of the poor people, who
+died so thick that there were great pits made in churchyards to lay
+the dead bodies in. And corn had been dearer if great store had not
+come out of Almaine, but there came fifty great ships with wheat and
+barley, meal and bread out of Dutchland, which greatly relieved the
+poor.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>Were the manors as isolated as some writers have asserted? Generally
+speaking, we may say the means of communication were bad and many an
+estate cut off almost completely from the outside world, yet the
+manors must often have been connected by waterways, and sometimes by
+good roads, with other manors and with the towns. Rivers in the Middle
+Ages were far more used as means of communication than to-day, and
+many streams now silted up and shallow were navigable according to
+Domesday. Water carriage was, as always, much cheaper than land
+carriage, and corn could be carried from Henley to London for 2<i>d.</i> or
+3<i>d.</i> a quarter. The roads left by the Romans, owing to the excellence
+of their construction, remained in use during the Middle Ages, and
+must have been a great advantage to those living near them; but the
+other roads can have been little better than mud tracks, except in the
+immediate vicinity of the few large towns. The keeping of the roads in
+repair, one part of the <i>trinoda necessitas</i> was imposed on all lands;
+but the results often seem to have been very indifferent, and they
+appear largely to have depended on chance, or the goodwill or devotion
+of neighbouring landowners.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> Perhaps they would, except in the case
+of the Roman roads, have been impassable but for the fact that the
+great lords and abbots were constantly visiting their scattered
+estates, and therefore were interested in keeping such roads in order.
+But in those days people were contented with very little, and though
+Edward I enforced the general improvement of roads in 1285, in the
+fourteenth century they were decaying. Parliament adjourned thrice
+between 1331 and 1380 because the state of the roads kept many of the
+members away. In 1353 the high road running from Temple Bar, then the
+western limit of London, to Westminster was 'so full of holes and
+bogs' that the traffic was dangerous for men and carriages; and a
+little later all the roads near London were so bad, that carriers 'are
+oftentimes In peril of losing what they <a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>bring.' What must remote
+country roads have been like when these important highways were in
+this state? If members of Parliament, rich men riding good horses,
+could not get to London, how did the clumsy wagons and carts of the
+day fare? The Church might well pity the traveller, and class him with
+the sick 'and the captive among the unfortunates whom she recommended
+to the daily prayers of pious souls.'<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> Rivers were mainly crossed
+by ford or ferry, though there were some excellent bridges, a few of
+which still remain, maintained by the <i>trinoda necessitas</i>, by gilds,
+by 'indulgences' promised to benefactors, and by toll, the right to
+levy which, called pontage, was often spent otherwise than on the
+repair of the bridge.</p>
+
+<p>A few of the old open fields still exist, and the best surviving example
+of an open-field parish is that of Laxton in Nottinghamshire.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a>
+Nearly half the area of the parish remains in the form of two great
+arable fields, and two smaller ones which are treated as two parts of
+the third field. The different holdings, freehold and leasehold,
+consist in part of strips of land scattered all over these fields. The
+three-course system is rigidly adhered to, first year wheat, second
+year spring corn, third year fallow.</p>
+
+<p>In a corner of the parish is Laxton Heath, a common covered with
+coarse grass where the sheep are grazed according to a 'stint'
+recently determined upon, for when it was unstinted the common was
+overstocked. The commonable meadows which the parish once had were
+enclosed at a date beyond anyone's recollection, though the
+neighbouring parish of Eakring still has some. There are other
+enclosures in the remote parts of the parish which apparently
+represent the old woodland. The inconvenience of the common-field
+system was extreme. South Luffenham in Rutland, not enclosed till
+1879, consisted of <a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>1,074 acres divided among twenty-two owners into
+1,238 pieces. In some places furrows served to divide the lands
+instead of turf balks, which were of course always being altered.
+Another difficulty arose from there being no check to high winds,
+which would sometimes sweep the whole of the crops belonging to
+different farmers in an inextricable heap against the nearest
+obstruction.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_31" id="Footnotes_31"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>Growth of the Manor</i>, p. 18; Medley,
+<i>Constitutional History</i>, p. 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>Villeinage in England</i>, p. 257.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Maitland, <i>Domesday Book and Beyond</i>, pp. 341 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Stubbs, <i>Constitutional History</i>, &sect;36.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>English Society in the Eleventh Century</i>,
+p. 282, says, 'As a rule it was not subject to redivision.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Growth of English Industry and Commerce</i>, i.
+42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Maitland, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 368.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>Anonymous Treatise on Husbandry</i>, Royal Historical
+Society, pp. xli. and 68. About 1230, Smyth, in his <i>Lives of the
+Berkeleys</i>, i. 113, says, 'At this time lay all lands in common
+fields, in one acre or ridge, one man's intermixt with another.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See below.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Growth of English Industry and Commerce</i>,
+i. 74. Maitland thinks the two-field system was as common as the
+three-field, both in early and mediaeval times. <i>Domesday Book and
+Beyond</i>, p. 366.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Nasse, <i>Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages</i>, p.
+5. To-day harvest generally commences about August 1, so that this,
+like the growth of grapes in mediaeval times, seems to show our
+climate has grown colder.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>English Society in the Eleventh Century</i>,
+p. 264.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Maitland, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>English Society in the Eleventh Century</i>,
+p. 265.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Maitland, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. 318 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>English Society in the Eleventh Century</i>,
+p. 345.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>English Society in the Eleventh Century</i>,
+p. 339.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Maitland, <i>Domesday Book</i>, p. 110</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 395.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>Villeinage in England</i>, pp. 225 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Maitland, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 23.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 433.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> In Domesday they number 108,500. Maitland, <i>Domesday
+Book</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Maitland, <i>op. cit.</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>English Society in the Eleventh Century</i>,
+p. 300.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Domesday of S. Paul</i>, p. lxviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Maitland, <i>Domesday Book</i>, p. 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Growth of English Industry and Commerce</i>,
+i. 166. In some manors free tenants could sell their lands without the
+lord's licence, in others not.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>Villeinage in England</i>, p. 279.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>Villeinage in England</i>, p. 285.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Ibid. p. 246; and <i>English Society in the Eleventh
+Century</i>, p. 448. At the end of the eighteenth century, in default of
+sons, lands in some manors in Shropshire descended to the youngest
+daughter.&mdash;Bishton, <i>General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire</i>,
+p. 178.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>English Society in the Eleventh Century</i>,
+p. 456.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Maitland, Domesday Book, p. 40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Ibid.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Maitland, <i>Domesday Book</i>, p. 35.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>Fleta</i>, c. 73.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>Domesday of S. Paul</i>, xxxv. <i>Fleta</i>, 'an anonymous work
+drawn up in the thirteenth century to assist landowners in managing
+their estates' says, the reeve 'shall rise early, and have the ploughs
+yoked, and then walk in the fields to see that all is right and note
+if the men be idle, or if they knock off work before the day's task is
+fully done.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>Villeinage in England</i>, p. 321.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Ibid. p. 324.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> <i>Manor of Manydown</i>, Hampshire Record Society, p. 17.
+Breaking the assize of beer meant selling it without a licence, or of
+bad quality. The village pound was the consequence of the perpetual
+straying of animals, and later on the vicar sometimes kept it. See
+ibid. p. 104.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Growth of English Industry and Commerce</i>,
+i. 106.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>Villeinage in England</i>, p. 264.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Andrews, <i>Old English Manor</i>, p. 111.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> <i>Domesday of S. Paul</i>, p. xxxvii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>Agriculture and Prices</i>, i. 17:
+Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 55: Neckham, <i>De Natura
+Rerum</i>, Rolls Series, ch. clxvi. Rogers says there were no plums, but
+Neckham mentions them. See also Denton, <i>England in the Fifteenth
+Century</i>, p. 64. Matthew Paris says the severe winter in 1257
+destroyed cherries, plums and figs. <i>Chron. Maj.</i>, Rolls Series, v.
+660.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Woods were used as much for pasture as for cutting
+timber and underwood. Not only did the pigs feed there on the mast of
+oak, beech, and chestnut, but goats and horned cattle grazed on the
+grassy portions.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> The illustrations of contemporary MSS. usually show
+teams in the plough of 2 or 4 oxen, and 4 was probably the team
+generally used, according to Vinogradoff, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 253. It must,
+of course, have varied according to the soil. Birch, in his
+<i>Domesday</i>, p. 219, says he has never found a team of 8 in
+contemporary illustrations. To-day oxen can be still seen ploughing in
+teams of two only. However, about a hundred years ago, when oxen were
+in common use, we find teams of 8, as in Shropshire, for a
+single-furrow plough, 'so as to work them easily.' Six hours a day was
+the usual day's work, and when more was required one team was worked
+in the morning, another in the afternoon.&mdash;<i>Victoria County History:
+Shropshire, Agriculture</i>. Walter of Henley says the team stopped work
+at three.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Growth of English Industry and Commerce</i>,
+i. 570.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> See the excellent reproductions of the Calendar of the
+Cott. MSS. in Green's <i>Short History of the English People</i>,
+illustrated edition, i. 155.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> <i>De Natura Rerum</i>, Rolls Series, p, 280.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>English Society in the Eleventh Century</i>,
+p. 307.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Ibid. p. 312. Perhaps one of the most interesting
+features of the smaller manors is that they were constantly being
+swallowed up by the larger.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> As some of the common pasture was held in severalty,
+this may perhaps have been mown in scarce years. Walter of Henley
+mentions mowing the waste, see below, p. 34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Maitland, <i>Domesday Book</i>, 436; <i>Board of Agriculture
+Returns</i>, 1907.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>English Society in the Eleventh Century</i>,
+p. 310; Birch, <i>Domesday</i>, p. 183.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Maitland, <i>Domesday Book</i>. 44; Cunningham, <i>Growth of
+Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 171; <i>Domesday of S. Paul</i>, pp. xliii. and
+xci.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Cullum, <i>History of Hawsted</i>, p. 181.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Rolls Series, ii. 220. According to this, the price of a
+bushel of wheat reckoned in modern money was <i>&pound;</i>3 in that year</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Ibid. iii. 220.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Holinshed, who is supported by William of Malmesbury in
+the assertion that in time of scarcity England imported corn. Matthew
+Paris, <i>Chron. Maj.</i>, v. 673.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> Jusserand, <i>English Wayfaring Life</i>, p. 79.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Jusserand, <i>English Wayfaring Life</i>, p. 89.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Gilbert Slater, <i>The English Peasantry and the Enclosure
+of Common Fields</i>, p. 8.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.&mdash;THE MANOR AT ITS ZENITH, WITH SEEDS OF DECAY
+ALREADY VISIBLE.&mdash;WALTER OF HENLEY</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the thirteenth century the manorial system may be said to have been
+in its zenith; the description therefore of Cuxham Manor in
+Oxfordshire at that date is of special interest. According to
+Professor Thorold Rogers<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> there were two principal tenants, each
+holding the fourth part of a military fee. The prior of Holy Trinity,
+Wallingford, held a messuage, a mill, and 6 acres of land in free
+alms; i.e. under no obligation or liability other than offering
+prayers on behalf of the donor. A free tenant had a messuage and 3<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub>
+acres, the rent of which was 3<i>s.</i> a year. He also had another messuage
+and nine acres, for which he paid the annual rent of 1 lb. of pepper,
+worth about 1<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> The rector of the parish had part of a furrow,
+i.e. one of the divisions of the common arable field, and paid 2<i>d.</i> a
+year for it. Another tenant held a cottage in the demesne under the
+obligation of keeping two lamps lighted in the church. Another person
+was tenant-at-will of the parish mill, at a rent of 40<i>s.</i> a year. The
+rest of the tenants were villeins or cottagers, thirteen of the former
+and eight of the latter. Each of the villeins had a messuage and half
+a virgate, 12 to 15 acres of arable land at least, for which his rent
+was chiefly corn and labour, though there were two money payments, a
+halfpenny on November 12 and a penny whenever he brewed. He had to pay
+a quarter of seed wheat at <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>Michaelmas, a peck of wheat, 4 bushels of
+oats, and 3 hens on November 12, and at Christmas a cock, two hens,
+and two pennyworth of bread. His labour services were to plough, sow,
+and till half an acre of the lord's land, and give his work as
+directed by the bailiff except on Sundays and feast days. In harvest
+time he was to reap three days with one man at his own cost.</p>
+
+<p>Some of these tenants held, besides their half virgates, other plots
+of land for which each had to make hay for one day for the lord, with
+a comrade, and received a halfpenny; also to mow, with another, three
+days in harvest time, at their own charges, and another three days
+when the lord fed them. After harvest six pennyworth of beer was
+divided among them, each received a loaf of bread, and every evening
+when work was over each reaper might carry away the largest sheaf of
+corn he could lift on his sickle.</p>
+
+<p>The cottagers paid from 1<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> to 2<i>s.</i> a year for their holdings, and
+were obliged to work a day or two in the hay-making, receiving
+therefor a halfpenny. They also had to do from one to four days'
+harvest work, during which they were fed at the lord's table. For the
+rest of the year they were free labourers, tending cattle or sheep on
+the common for wages or working at the various crafts usual in the
+village. This manor was a small one, and contained in all twenty-four
+households, numbering from sixty to seventy inhabitants.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p>
+
+<p>On most manors, as in Forncett,<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> which contained about 2,700 acres,
+from the preponderance of arable, the chief source of income to the
+lord was from the grain crops; other sources may be seen from the
+following table of the lord's receipts and expenses in 1272-3:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Receipts and Expenses 1272-3">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='center'>RECEIPTS.<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='center'>EXPENSES.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='center'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='center'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Fixed rents</td><td align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;7<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Rents paid and allowed</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Farm of market</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>2</td><td>&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Ploughs and carts</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>17</td><td>&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Chevage<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a>
+    </td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>8</td><td>&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Buildings and walls</td><td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>&nbsp;5</td><td>10<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Foldage</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Small necessaries</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>&nbsp;7</td><td>10<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Sale of works</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>13</td><td>&nbsp;2<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Dairy</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Herbage</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Threshing</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>15</td><td>&nbsp;5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Hay</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='left'>11&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Meadow and autumn expenses</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Turf, &amp;c.</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>13</td><td>&nbsp;6<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Stock</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>16</td><td>&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Underwood</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Bailiff</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>19</td><td>&nbsp;0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Grain</td><td align='right'>61</td><td align='right'>12</td><td>&nbsp;3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Steward</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;9<sup>&nbsp;1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Cider</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>11<sup>&nbsp;1</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Grain</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>2</td><td>&nbsp;4<sup>&nbsp;1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Stock</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Expenses of acct.</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;8<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Dairy</td><td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;0<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Pleas</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Tallage</td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>13</td><td>&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td colspan="3">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td colspan="3">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i>128</td><td align='right'>2</td><td>&nbsp;2<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i>23</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;9<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The manor was almost entirely self-sufficing; of necessity, for towns
+were few and distant, and the roads to them bad. Each would have its
+smith, millwright, thatcher, &amp;c., paid generally in kind for their
+services. There was little trade with the outside world, except for
+salt&mdash;an invaluable article when meat had to be salted down every
+autumn for winter use, since there were no roots to keep the cattle
+on&mdash;and iron for some of the implements. Nearly everything was made in
+the village.</p>
+
+<p>The mediaeval system of tillage was compulsory; even the freeholders
+could not manage their plots as they wished, because all the soil of
+the township formed one whole and was managed by the entire village.
+Even the lord<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> had to conform to the customs of the community. Any
+other system than this, which must have been galling to the more
+enterprising, was impossible, for as the various holdings lay in
+unfenced strips all over the great common fields, individual
+initiative was <a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>out of the question. As may be imagined, the great
+number of strips all mixed together often led to great confusion,
+sometimes 2 or 3 acres could not be found at all, and disputes owing
+to careless measurement were frequent.</p>
+
+<p>It is not surprising that the services by which the villeins paid rent
+for their holdings to the lord very early began to be commuted for
+money; it was much more convenient to both parties; and with this
+change from a 'natural economy' to a 'money economy' the destruction
+of the manorial system commenced, though it was to take centuries to
+effect it.</p>
+
+<p>The first money payments apparently date from as early as 900,<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>
+but must then have been very few, and services were the rule in the
+thirteenth and earlier centuries, though at the beginning of the
+twelfth we find a great number of rent-paying tenants.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> In the
+fourteenth century money began to be more generally available, and the
+process of commutation grew steadily; a process greatly accelerated by
+the destruction of large numbers of tenants who paid rent in services
+by the Black Death of 1348-9, which forced lords of manors to let
+their lands for money or work them themselves with hired labour.
+Before that visitation, however, it appears that commutation of labour
+services for fixed annual payments had made very little progress.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p>
+
+<p>When these services were commuted for money in the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries they were put at 1<i>d.</i> a day in winter, and 2<i>d.</i> a
+day in summer, and rather more in harvest<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a>; and we may put the
+ordinary agricultural labourers' wages from 1250-1350 all the year
+round at 2<i>d.</i> a day, and from 1350-<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>1400 at 3<i>d.</i>, but few were paid in
+this way. Many were paid by the year, with allowances of food besides
+and sometimes clothes, and many were in harvest at all events paid by
+the piece. At Crondal in Hampshire in 1248 a carter by the year
+received 4<i>s.</i>, a herdsman 2<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i>, a day a or dairymaid, 2<i>s.</i><a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> The
+change to money payments was beneficial to both parties; it stopped
+many of the dishonest practices of the lord's bailiff, apart from the
+fact that farming by officials was an expensive method. It meant, too,
+that religious festivals and bad weather would no longer diminish the
+lord's profits; on the other hand, the tenant could devote himself
+entirely to his holding free from annoying labour services.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p>
+
+<p>The state of agriculture at the time of Domesday was apparently very
+low, judging by the small returns of manors,<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> but by the time of
+Edward I it had made considerable progress. During the reign of Henry
+III England had grown in opulence, and continued to do so under his
+great son, who found time from his manifold tasks to encourage
+agriculture and horticulture. Fruit and forest trees, shrubs and
+flowers, were introduced from the continent, and we are told that the
+hop flourished in the royal gardens.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> At his death England was
+prosperous, the people progressing in comfort, the population
+advancing, the agricultural labourers were increasing in numbers, the
+value of the land had risen and was rising. Then came a reaction from
+which England did not recover for two centuries, and Harrison, who
+wrote his description of England at the end of the sixteenth century,
+says that many of the improvements began to be neglected in process of
+time, so that from Henry IV till the latter end of Henry VII there was
+little or no use for them in England, 'but they remained unknown.'</p>
+
+<p>The Hundred Rolls of Edward I, which embody the results <a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>of the labours
+of a commission appointed by that monarch to inquire into encroachments
+on royal lands and royal jurisdiction, show clearly that there had
+been since the Domesday Survey a very great growth in the rural
+population, a sure sign that agriculture was flourishing; and on some
+estates the number of free tenants had increased largely, but the
+burdens of the villeins were not less onerous than they had been.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the thirteenth century that the practice of keeping strict
+and minute accounts became general, and the accounts of the bailiff of
+those days would be a revelation to the bailiff of these.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time we must not forget that the earliest improvements in
+English agriculture were largely due to the monks, who from their
+constant journeys abroad were able to bring back new plants and seeds;
+while it is well known that many of the religious houses, the
+Cistercians especially, who always settled in the remote country, were
+most energetic farmers, their energy being materially assisted by
+their wealth. It is said that the great Becket when he visited a
+monastery did not disdain to labour in the field.</p>
+
+<p>Among other benefits that the landed interest gained at this time was
+the more easy transference of land provided, <i>inter alia</i>, by the
+statute of <i>Quia Emptores</i>, which led to many tenants selling their
+lands, provided the rights of the lord were preserved, and to a great
+increase consequently of free tenants, many of whom had quite small
+holdings.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> The amalgamation of holdings by the more industrious and
+skilful has, as we should expect, been a well-marked tendency all
+through the history of English agriculture, and began early. For
+instance, according to the records of S. Paul's Cathedral, John
+Durant, whose ancestor in 1222 held only one virgate in 'Cadendon',
+had in 1279 eight or ten at least. At 'Belchamp', Martin de Suthmere,
+one of the free tenants, held 245 acres by himself and his tenants,
+twenty-two in number, who rendered <a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>service to him; one of them being
+de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who held 17 acres under Martin. To such a
+position had the abler of the small holders of a century or so before
+already pushed their way, in spite of the heavy hand of feudalism,
+which did much to hinder individual initiative. At this period and
+until Tudor times England, as regards the cultivated land, was
+essentially a corn-growing country; the greater part of the lord's
+demesne was arable, and the tillage fields of the villeins largely
+exceeded their meadows. For instance, in 1285 the cultivated lands at
+Hawsted in Suffolk were nearly all under the plough; in seven holdings
+there were 968 acres of arable and only 40 of meadow, a proportion of
+24 to 1. No doubt there was plenty of common pasture, but we cannot
+call this cultivated land. The seven holdings were as follows:<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Holdings of land">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td colspan="3" align='center'><i>Acres.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='center'><i>Arable.</i></td><td align='center'><i>Meadow.</i></td><td align='center'><i>Wood.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Thomas Fitzeustace, lord of the manor</td>
+  <td align='right'>240&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>William Tallemache</td>
+  <td align='right'>280&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>12&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>24&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Philip Noel</td>
+  <td align='right'>120&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Robert de Ros</td>
+  <td align='right'>56&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Walter de Stanton</td>
+  <td align='right'>80&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>William de Camaville</td>
+  <td align='right'>140&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>John Beylham</td>
+  <td align='right'>52&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>968&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>40&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>58&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>These were the larger tenants; among the smaller several had no meadow
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>We must not forget that the grazing of the tillage fields after the
+crops were off was of great assistance to those who kept stock; for
+there was plenty to eat on the stubbles. The wheat was cut high, the
+straw often apparently left standing 18 inches or 2 feet high; weeds
+of all kinds abounded, for the land was badly cleaned; and often only
+the upper part of the high ridges, into which the land was thrown for
+purposes <a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>of drainage, was cultivated, the lower parts being left to
+natural grass.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p>
+
+<p>The greatest authority for the farming of the thirteenth century is
+Walter of Henley, who wrote, about the middle of it, a work which held
+the field as an agricultural textbook until Fitzherbert wrote in the
+sixteenth century, and much of his advice is valuable to-day. There
+was from his time until the days of William Marshall, who wrote five
+centuries afterwards, a controversy as to the respective merits of
+horses and oxen as draught animals, and it is a curious fact that the
+later writer agreed with the earlier as to the superiority of oxen. 'A
+plough of oxen', says Walter, 'will go as far in the year as a plough
+of horses, because the malice of the ploughman will not allow the
+plough of horses to go beyond their pace, no more than the plough of
+oxen. Further, in very hard ground where the plough of horses will
+stop, the plough of oxen will pass. And the horse costs more than the
+ox, for he is obliged to have the sixth part of a bushel of oats every
+night, worth a halfpenny at least, and twelve pennyworth of grass in
+the summer. Besides, each week he costs more or less a penny a week in
+shoeing, if he must be shod on all four feet;' which was not the
+universal custom.</p>
+
+<p>'But the ox has only to have 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;sheaves of oats per week (ten
+sheaves yielding a bushel of oats), worth a penny, and the same amount
+of grass as the horse.<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> And when the horse is old and worn out
+there is nothing but his skin, but when the ox is old with ten
+pennyworth of grass he shall be fit for the larder.'<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p>
+
+<p>The labourer of the Middle Ages could not complain of lack of
+holidays; Walter of Henley tells us that, besides Sundays, eight weeks
+were lost in the year from holidays and other hindrances.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>He advises the sowing of spring seed on clay or on stony land early,
+because if it is dry in March the ground will harden too much and the
+stony ground become dry and open; therefore fore sow early that corn
+may be nourished by winter moisture. Chalky and sandy ground need not
+be sown early. At sowing, moreover, do not plough large furrows, but
+little and well laid together, that the seed may fall evenly. Let your
+land be cleaned and weeded after S. John's Day, June 24, for before
+that is not a good time; and if thistles are cut before S. John's Day
+'for every one will come two or three.' Do not sell your straw; if you
+take away the least you lose much; words which many a landlord to-day
+doubtless wishes were fixed in the minds of his tenants.</p>
+
+<p>Manure should be mixed with earth, for it lasts only two or three
+years by itself, but with earth it will last twice as long; for when
+the manure and the earth are harrowed together the earth shall keep
+the manure so that it cannot waste by descending in the soil, which it
+is apt to do.</p>
+
+<p>'Feed your working oxen before some one, and with chaff. Why? I will
+tell you. Because it often happens that the oxherd steals the
+provender.'</p>
+
+<p>The oxen were also to be bathed, and curried when dry with a wisp of
+straw, which would cause them to lick themselves.</p>
+
+<p>'Change your seed every year at Michaelmas; for seed grown on other
+ground will bring more profit than that which is grown on your own.'</p>
+
+<p>Apparently the only drainage then practised was that of furrow and
+open ditch; and we find him saying that to free your lands from too
+much water, let the marshy ground be well ridged, and the water made
+to run, and so the ground may be freed from water.</p>
+
+<p>Here is his estimate of the cost of wheat growing[83]:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'You know surely that an acre sown with wheat takes three
+<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>ploughings, except lands which are sown yearly; and that each
+ploughing is worth 6<i>d.</i> and the harrowing 1<i>d.</i>, and on the acre
+it is necessary to sow at least two bushels. Now two bushels at
+Michaelmas are worth at least 12<i>d.</i>, and weeding <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>, and
+reaping 5<i>d.</i>, and carrying in August 1<i>d.</i>, and the straw will pay
+for the threshing.'<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>The return was wretched: 'at three times your sowing you ought to have
+6 bushels, worth 3<i>s.</i>' The total cost is thus 3<i>s.</i> 1<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>; and without
+debiting anything for rent and manure, the loss would be 1<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> an
+acre.</p>
+
+<p>The anonymous <i>Treatise on Husbandry</i> of about the same date says,
+however, that 'wheat ought to yield to the fifth grain, oats to the
+fourth, barley to the eighth, beans and peas to the sixth.'<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> In the
+years 1243-8 the average yield of wheat at Combe, Oxfordshire, was 5
+bushels per acre, of barley a little over 5, oats 7. In the Manor of
+Forncett, in various years from 1290 to 1306, wheat yielded about 10
+bushels, oats from 12 to 16, barley 16, and peas from 4 to 12 bushels
+per acre.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p>
+
+<p>As for the dairy, 2 cows, says Walter, should yield a wey, (2 cwt) of
+cheese annually, and half a gallon of butter a week, 'if sorted out
+and fed in pasture of salt marsh;' but 'in pasture of wood or in
+meadows after mowing, or in stubble, it should take 3 cows for the
+same.' Twenty ewes, which it was then the custom to milk, fed in
+pasture of salt marsh, ought to yield the same as the 2 cows. A gallon
+of butter was worth 6<i>d.</i>, and weighed 7 lb. And the anonymous treatise
+says each cow ought to yield from the day after Michaelmas until the
+first kalends of May, twenty-eight weeks, 10<i>d.</i> more or less; and from
+the first kalends of May till Michaelmas, twenty-four weeks, the milk
+of a cow should be worth 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>; and she should give also 6 stones
+(14 lb. per stone) of cheese, and 'as <a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>much butter as shall make as
+much cheese.'<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> It was a common practice all through the Middle
+Ages, and survives in localities to-day, to let out the cows by the
+year, at from 3<i>s.</i> to 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> a head, often to the daya or dairymaid,
+the owner supplying the food, and the lessee agreeing to restore them
+in equal number and condition at the end of the term.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> The
+anonymous treatise tells us that 'if you wish to farm out your stock
+you can take 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> clear for each cow and the tithe, and for a sheep
+6<i>d.</i> and the tithe, and a sow should bring you 6<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a year and
+acquit the tithe, and each hen 9<i>d.</i> and the tithe; and Walter says,
+'When I was bailiff the dairymaids had the geese and hens to farm, the
+geese at 12<i>d.</i> and the hens at 3<i>d.</i>'</p>
+
+<p>Among other information conveyed by these two treatises we learn that
+the poor servants or labourers were accustomed to be fed on the
+diseased sheep, salted and dried; but Walter adds, 'I do not wish you
+to do this.' Nor can we point the finger of scorn at this: for in the
+disastrous season of 1879 numbers of rotten sheep were sold to the
+butcher and consumed by the unsuspecting public without even being
+salted and dried.</p>
+
+<p>He further tells us that 'you can well have 3 acres weeded for 1<i>d.</i>,
+and an acre of meadow mown for 4<i>d.</i>, and an acre of waste meadow for
+3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> And know that 5 men can well reap and bind 2 acres a day of
+each kind of corn, and where each takes 2<i>d.</i> a day then you must give
+5<i>d.</i> an acre.'<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> 'One ought to thresh a quarter of wheat or rye for
+2<i>d.</i> and a quarter of oats for 1<i>d.</i> A sow ought to farrow twice a year,
+having each time at least 7 pigs; and each goose 5 goslings a year and
+each <a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>hen 115 eggs and 7 chicks, 3 of which ought to be made capons;
+and for 5 geese you must have one gander, and for 5 hens one cock.'
+The laying qualities of the hen, in spite of the talk of the 200-egg
+bird, were evidently as good then as to-day. In those days of
+self-supporting farms it was the custom to put together the farm
+implements at home, and the farmer is advised that it will be well if
+he can have carters and ploughmen who should know how to work all
+their own wood, though it should be necessary to pay them more.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a>
+The village smith, however, seems, as we should expect, to have done
+most of the iron work that was needed.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p>
+
+<p>These extracts have given the reader some insight into
+thirteenth-century prices, prices which in the case of grain altered
+very little for nearly 300 years: for instance, the average price of
+wheat from 1259 to 1400 was 5<i>s.</i> 10<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i> a quarter, and from 1401 to
+1540 5<i>s.</i> 11<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i>; of barley, 4<i>s.</i> 3<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i> from 1259 to 1400, 3<i>s.</i>
+8<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i> from 1401 to 1540; of oats, 2<i>s.</i> 5<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i> and 2<i>s.</i> 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i> in the
+same two periods respectively; of rye, 4<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i> and 4<i>s.</i> 7<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i>; and of
+beans, 4<i>s.</i> 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> and 3<i>s.</i> 9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> Wheat fluctuated considerably,
+being as we have seen 2<i>s.</i> a quarter at Hawsted in 1243 and in 1290
+14<i>s.</i> 10<i>d.</i>, a most exceptional price. Oxen, which were chiefly valued
+as working animals, were about 13<i>s.</i> apiece<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a>; cows, 9<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i> Farm
+horses were of two varieties: the 'affer' or 'stott', a rough small
+animal, generally worth about 13<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i>, and the cart-horse, probably
+the ancestor of our shire horses, whose <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>average price was 19<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> A
+good saddle-horse fetched as much as <i>&pound;</i>5. Sheep were from 1<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> to
+1<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i> each. In Hampshire in 1248 shoeing ten farm horses for the
+plough for a year cost 5<i>s.</i>; making a gate cost 12<i>d.</i> As Walter of
+Henley said, it cost a penny a week to shoe a horse on all four feet;
+these horses must have been very roughly shod.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> It is evident, from
+what Walter of Henley says, that horses were not always shod on all
+four feet, and their shoes were generally very light. The roads were
+mere tracks without any metalling, so that there was little necessity
+for heavy shoes; and as Professor Thorold Rogers suggests, it is quite
+possible that the hoofs of our horses have become weaker by reason of
+the continual paring and protection which modern shoeing involves.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a>
+They weighed usually less than half a pound, and cost about 4<i>s.</i> a
+hundred.</p>
+
+<p>The most striking fact about agricultural prices at this date is the
+low price of land compared with that of its products. The annual rent
+of land was from 4<i>d.</i> to 6<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> an acre, and it was worth about ten
+years' purchase. Consequently, a quarter of wheat was often worth more
+than an acre of land, a good ox three times as much, a good cart-horse
+four times, while a good war-horse was worth the fee-simple of a small
+farm. A greater breadth of wheat was sown than of any other crop; but
+it seems that none was ever stored except in the castles and
+monasteries, for in spite of successive abundant harvests a bad season
+would send the price up at once. Barley was, as now, chiefly used for
+making beer, which was also made from oats and wheat, of course
+without hops, which were not used till the fifteenth century; and
+sometimes it was made of oats, barley, and wheat, a concoction worth
+<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i> a gallon in <a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>1283.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> Cider was also drunk, and was sold at
+Exminster in Devonshire in 1286 at <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> a gallon, and apples fetched
+2<i>d.</i> a bushel. Thorold Rogers<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> says that wheat was the chief food of
+the English labourer from the earliest times until perhaps the
+seventeenth century, when the enormous prices were prohibitive; but
+this statement must be taken with reserve, as must that of Mr.
+Prothero<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> that rye was the bread-stuff of the peasantry. Where the
+labourer's food is mentioned as part of his wages, wheat, barley, and
+rye all occur, wheat and rye being often mixed together as 'mixtil';
+and it is most probable that in one district wheat, in another one of
+the other cereals, formed his chief bread-stuff, according to the crop
+best adapted to the soil of the locality.</p>
+
+<p>Walter of Henley mentions wheat as if it was the chief crop, for he
+selects it as best illustrating the cost of corn-growing<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a>; and from
+the enormous number of entries enumerated by Thorold Rogers in his
+mediaeval statistics it was apparently more grown than other cereals.
+The chief meat of the lower classes then, as to-day, was bacon from
+the innumerable herds of swine who roamed in the woods and wastes, but
+in bad years, when food was scarce, the poor ate nuts, acorns, fern
+roots, bark, and vetches.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p>
+
+<p>As the cattle of the Middle Ages were like the mountain cattle of
+to-day, so were the sheep like many of the sheep to be seen in the
+Welsh mountains; yet, unlike the cattle, an attempt seems to have been
+made, judging by the high price of rams, to improve the breed; but
+they were probably poor animals worth from 1<i>s.</i> to 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> each, with a
+small fleece weighing about a pound and a half, worth 3<i>d.</i> a lb. or a
+little more.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_45" id="Footnotes_45"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> <i>Six Centuries of Work and Wages</i>, p. 39. No one can
+write on English agriculture without acknowledging a deep debt to his
+monumental industry, though his opinions are often open to question.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Compare the account of the manors in Huntingdonshire
+belonging to Romsey Abbey given in Page <i>End of Villeinage in
+England</i>, pp. 28 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Davenport, <i>A Norfolk Manor</i>, p. 36; and see Hall, <i>Pipe
+Roll of Bishopric of Winchester</i>, p. xxv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Chevage, poll money, paid to the lord.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>Villeinage in England</i>, p. 230.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 117.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Vinogradoff, <i>Villeinage in England</i>, p. 307. On the
+Berkeley estates in 1189-1220 money was so scarce with the tenants
+that the rents, apparently even where services had been commuted, were
+commonly paid in oxen.&mdash;Smyth, <i>Lives of the Berkeleys</i>, i. 101. In
+the thirteenth century the labour services of the villeins were
+stricter than in the eleventh. Vinogradoff, <i>op. cit.</i> 298.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Page, <i>End of Villeinage</i>, p. 39.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>, i.
+82.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Hampshire Record Society, i. 64. See Appendix, i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>English Agricultural Labourer</i>, p. 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> Hallam, <i>Middle Ages</i>, iii. 361</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Denton, <i>England in the Fifteenth Century</i>, p. 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 273.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Cullum, <i>History of Hawsted</i>, 1784 ed., p. 180.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Ballard, <i>Domesday</i>, p. 207.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 12.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Walter reckons the above food of the horse at 12<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i>,
+and of the ox at 3<i>s.</i> 1<i>d.</i>; but both are wrong.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Ibid. p. 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 71.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Davenport, <i>A Norfolk Manor</i>, pp. 29 et seq. See also
+Hall, <i>Pipe Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester</i>, p. xxvi, which gives
+an average yield of wheat over a large area in 1298-9 at 4.3 bushels
+per acre.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 77.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>Agriculture and Prices</i>, i. 397;
+<i>Archaeologia</i>, xviii. 281.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Walter of Henley, pp. 69, 75. In Lancashire, at the end
+of the thirteenth century, mowing 60<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;acres cost 17<i>s.</i> 7<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>
+<i>Victoria County History, Lancashire, Agriculture</i>, and <i>Two Compoti
+of the Lancashire and Cheshire Manors of Henry de Lacy</i> (Cheetham
+Society).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Walter of Henley, p. 63.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> <i>Crondall, Records</i>, Hampshire Record Society, i. 65.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> See Thorold Rogers, various tables in vol. i. of
+<i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>. Compare these with the prices on
+the Berkeley estates from 1281 to 1307, omitting years of scarcity:
+wheat, 2<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> to 5<i>s.</i>; oxen, 10<i>s.</i> to 12<i>s.</i>; cows, 9<i>s.</i> to 10<i>s.</i>; bacon
+hogs, 5<i>s.</i>; fat sheep, 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to 2<i>s.</i>; and in the early part of Edward
+III's reign, wheat, 5<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> to 10<i>s.</i>; oxen, 14<i>s.</i> to 24<i>s.</i> Other prices
+about the same.&mdash;Smyth, <i>Lives of the Berkeleys</i>, i. 160.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> If it is true, as generally stated, that the mediaeval
+ox was one-third the size of his modern successor, it is apparent
+that he was a very dear animal. Cattle at this date suffered from the
+ravages of wolves.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> <i>Crondall, Records</i>, Hampshire Record Society, i. 64.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>, i. 528.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Seebohm, <i>Transactions of Royal Historical Society</i>, New
+Series, xvii. 288, says that rent in the fourteenth century was
+commonly 4<i>d.</i>; the usual average is stated at 6<i>d.</i> an acre.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> <i>Domesday of S. Paul</i>, Camden Society, p. li.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>, i. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> <i>Pioneers of Agriculture</i>, p. 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Ed. Lamond, Royal Historical Society, p. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Denton, <i>England in the Fifteenth Century</i>, p. 93.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.&mdash;DECLINE OF AGRICULTURE.&mdash;THE BLACK DEATH.&mdash;
+STATUTE OF LABOURERS</h3>
+
+
+<p>After the death of Edward I in 1307 the progress of English
+agriculture came to a standstill, and little advance was made till
+after the battle of Bosworth in 1485. The weak government of Edward
+II, the long French War commenced by Edward III and lasting over a
+hundred years, and the Wars of the Roses, all combined to impoverish
+the country. England, too, was repeatedly afflicted during the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by pestilences, sometimes caused by
+famines, sometimes coming with no apparent cause; all probably
+aggravated, if not caused, by the insanitary habits of the people. The
+mention of plagues, indeed, at this time is so frequent that we may
+call them chronic.</p>
+
+<p>At this period corn and wool were the two main products of the farmer;
+corn to feed his household and labourers, and wool to put money in his
+pocket, a somewhat rare thing.</p>
+
+<p>English wool, which came to be called 'the flower and strength and
+revenue and blood of England', was famous in very early times, and was
+exported long before the Conquest. In Edgar's reign the price was
+fixed by law, to prevent it getting into the hands of the foreigner
+too cheaply; a wey, or weigh, was to be sold for 120<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> Patriotic
+Englishmen asserted it was the best in the world, and Henry II, Edward
+III, and Edward IV are said to have improved the Spanish breed by
+presents of English sheep. Spanish wool, however, was considered the
+best from the earliest times until the Peninsular <a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>War, when the Saxon
+and Silesian wools deposed it from its pride of place. Smith, in his
+<i>Memoirs of Wool</i>,<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> is of the opinion that England 'borrowed some
+parts of its breed from thence, as it certainly did the whole from one
+place or another.' Spanish wool, too, was imported into England at an
+early date, the manufacture of it being carried on at Andover in
+1262.<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> Yet until the fourteenth century it was not produced in
+sufficient quantities to compete seriously with English wool in the
+markets of the Continent; and it appears to have been the long wools,
+such as those of the modern Leicester and Lincoln, from which England
+chiefly derived its fame as a wool-producing country.</p>
+
+<p>Our early exports went to Flanders, where weaving had been introduced
+a century before the Conquest, and, in spite of the growth of the
+weaving industry in England, to that country the bulk of it continued
+to go, all through the Middle Ages, though in the thirteenth century a
+determined effort was made to divert a larger share of English wool to
+Italy.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the export
+of wool was frequently forbidden,<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> sometimes for political
+objects, but also to gain the manufacture of cloth for England by
+keeping our wool from the foreigner; but these measures did not stop
+the export, they only hampered it and encouraged much smuggling. It
+commanded what seems to us an astonishing price, for 3<i>d.</i> a lb. in the
+thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is probably equal to nearly 4<i>s.</i> in
+our money. Its value, and the ease with which it could be packed and
+carried, made it an object of great importance to the farmer. In
+1337<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> we have a schedule of the price <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>of wool in the various
+counties of England, for in that year 30,000 sacks of the best wool
+was ordered to be bought in various districts by merchants for Edward
+III, to provide the sinews of war against France. The price for the
+best wool was to be fixed by the king, his council, and the merchants;
+the 'gross' wool being bought by agreement between buyer and seller.
+Of the former the highest price fixed was for the wool of Hereford,
+then and for long afterwards famous for its excellent quality, 12
+marks the sack of 364 lb.; and the lowest for that of the northern
+counties, 5 marks the sack.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat more than a century afterwards we have another similar list
+of wool prices, when in 1454 the Commons petitioned the king that 'as
+the wools growing within this realm have hitherto been the great
+commodity, enriching, and welfare of this land, and how of late the
+price is greatly decayed so that the Commons were not able to pay
+their rents to their lords', the king would fix certain prices under
+which wools should not be bought. The highest price fixed was for the
+wool of 'Hereford, in Leominster', <i>&pound;</i>13 a sack; the lowest for that of
+Suffolk, <i>&pound;</i>2 12<i>s.</i><a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a>; the average being about <i>&pound;</i>4 10<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>The manorial accounts of the Knights' Hospitallers, who then held land
+all over England, afford valuable information as to agriculture in
+1338.<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> From these we gather that the rent of arable land varied
+from 2<i>d.</i> to 2<i>s.</i> an acre; but the latter sum was very exceptional, and
+there are only two instances of it given, in Lincolnshire and Kent.
+Most of the tillage rented for less than 1<i>s.</i> an acre, more than half
+being at 6<i>d.</i> or under, and the average about 6<i>d.</i> On the other hand,
+meadow land is seldom of less value than 2<i>s.</i> an acre, and in
+Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, and Norfolk rose to 3<i>s.</i> This is one of the
+numerous proofs of the great value of meadow land at a time <a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>when hay
+was almost the sole winter food of stock; in some places it was eight
+or ten times as valuable as the arable.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> The pasture on the
+Hospitallers' estates was divided into several and common pasture, the
+former often reaching 1<i>s.</i> an acre and sometimes 2<i>s.</i>, the latter rarely
+exceeding 4<i>d.</i> The most usual way, however, of stating the value of
+pasture was by reckoning the annual cost of feeding stock per head,
+cows being valued at 2<i>s.</i>, oxen at 1<i>s.</i>, a horse at a little less than
+an ox, a sheep at 1<i>d.</i> The reign of Edward III was a great era for
+wool-growers, and the Hospitallers at Hampton in Middlesex had a flock
+of 2,000 sheep whose annual produce was six sacks of wool of 364 lb.
+each, worth <i>&pound;</i>4 a sack, which would make the fleeces weigh a little
+more than 1 lb. each. The profit of cows on one of their manors was
+reckoned at 2<i>s.</i> per head, on another at 3<i>s.</i>; and the profit of 100
+sheep at 20<i>s.</i><a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> The wages paid to the labourers for day work were
+2<i>d.</i> a day, and we must remember that when he was paid by the day his
+wages were rightly higher than when regularly employed, for day labour
+was irregular and casual. The tenants about the same date obtained the
+following prices<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> for some of their stock:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Prices for farm products">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A good ox, alive, fatted on corn</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+  not on corn</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A fatted cow</td><td align='right'>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A two-year-old hog</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A sheep and its fleece</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A fatted sheep, shorn</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;goose</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hens, each<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>20 eggs</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>1</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>In the middle of the fourteenth century occurred the famous Black
+Death, the worst infliction that has ever visited England. <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>Its story
+is too well known for repetition, and it suffices to say that it was
+like the bubonic plague in the East of to-day: it raged in 1348-9, and
+killed from one-third to one-half of the people.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> It is said to
+have effected more important economic results than any other event in
+English history. It is probable that the prices of labour were rising
+before this terrible calamity; the dreadful famine of 1315-6,<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a>
+followed by pestilence, when wheat went up to 26<i>s.</i> a quarter, and
+according to the contemporary chroniclers, in some cases much higher,
+destroyed a large number of the population, and other plagues had done
+their share to make labour scarce, but after the Black Death the
+advance was strongly marked. It also accelerated the break-up of the
+manorial system. A large number of the free labourers were swept away,
+and their labour lost to the lord of the manor; the services of the
+villeins were largely diminished from the same cause; many of the
+tenants, both free and unfree, were dead, and the land thrown on the
+lord's hands. Flocks and herds were wandering about over the country
+because there was no one to tend them. In short, most manors were in a
+state of anarchy, and their lords on the verge of ruin. It is not to
+be wondered at, therefore, that they immediately adopted strong
+measures to save themselves and their property and, no doubt they
+thought, the whole country. Englishmen had by this time learnt to turn
+to Parliament to remedy their ills, but as the plague was still raging
+a proclamation was issued of which the preamble states <a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>that wages had
+already gone up greatly. 'Many, seeing the necessity of masters and
+great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they get excessive
+wages', and it is, therefore, hard to till the land. Every one under
+the age of 60, it was ordered, free or villein, who can work, and has
+no other means of livelihood, is not to refuse to work for any one who
+offers the accustomed wages; no labourer is to receive more wages than
+he did before the plague, and none are to give more wages under severe
+penalties. But besides regulating wages, the proclamation also insists
+on reasonable prices for food and the necessaries of life: it was a
+fair attempt not only to protect the landlords but the labourers also,
+by keeping both wages and prices at their former rate, so that its
+object was not tyrannous as has been stated.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> It was at once
+disregarded, a fate which met many of the proclamations and statutes
+of the Middle Ages, which often seem to have been regarded as mere
+pious aspirations.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, the Statute of 1351, 25 Edw. III, Stat. 2, c. 1, states
+that the servants had paid no regard to the ordinance regulating
+wages, 'but to their ease and singular covetise do withdraw themselves
+unless they have livery and wages to the double or treble of that they
+were wont to take'. Accordingly, it was again laid down that they were
+to take liveries and wages as before the Black Death, and 'where wheat
+was wont to be given they shall take for the bushel 10<i>d.</i> (6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> a
+quarter),<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> or wheat at the will of the giver. And that they be
+hired to serve by the whole year or by other usual terms, and <a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>not by
+the day, and that none pay in the time of sarcling (weeding) or
+hay-making but a penny a day, and a mower of meadows for the acre 5<i>d.</i>,
+or by the day 5<i>d.</i>, and reapers of corn in the first week of August
+2<i>d.</i>, and the second 3<i>d.</i>, without meat or drink.' And none were to take
+for the threshing of a quarter of wheat or rye more than 2<i>d.</i>, and for
+the quarter of beans, peas, and oats more than 1<i>d.</i> These prices are
+certainly difficult to understand. Hay-making has usually been paid
+for at a rate above the ordinary, because of the longer hours; and
+here we find the price fixed at half the usual wages, while mowing is
+five times as much, and double the price paid for reaping, though they
+were normally about the same price.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to learn from the statute that there was a
+considerable migration of labourers at this date for the harvest, from
+Stafford, Lancaster, Derby, Craven, the Marches of Wales and Scotland,
+and other places.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the first attempt made to control the labourers' wages by the
+legislature, and like other legislation of the kind it failed in its
+object, though the attempt was honestly made; and if the rate of wages
+fixed was somewhat low, its inequity was far surpassed by the
+exorbitance of the labourers' demands.<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> It was an endeavour to set
+aside economic laws, and its futility was rendered more certain by the
+depreciation of the coinage in 1351, which led to an advance in
+prices, and compelled the labourers to persevere in their demands for
+higher wages.<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a></p>
+
+<p>Both wages and prices, except those of grain, continued to <a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>increase,
+and labour services were now largely commuted for money payments,<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a>
+with the result that the manorial system began to break up rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the dearth of labourers for hire, and the loss of many of the
+services of their villeins, the lords found it very hard to farm their
+demesne lands. It should be remembered, too, that an additional
+hardship from which they suffered at this time was that the quit rents
+paid to them in lieu of services by tenants who had already become
+free were, owing to the rise in prices, very much depreciated. Their
+chief remedy was to let their demesne lands. The condition of the
+Manor of Forncett in Norfolk well illustrates the changes that were
+now going on. There, in the period 1272-1307, there were many free
+tenants as well as villeins, and the holdings of the latter were
+small, usually only 5 acres. It is also to be noticed that in no year
+were all the labour services actually performed, some were always sold
+for money. Yet in the period named there was not much progress in the
+general commutation of services for money payments, and the same was
+the case in the manors, whose records between 1325 and 1350 Mr. Page
+examined for his <i>End of Villeinage in England</i>.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> The reaping and
+binding of the entire grain crop of the demesne at Forncett was done
+by the tenants exclusively, without the aid of any hired labour.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p>
+
+<p>However, in the period 1307-1376 the manor underwent a great change.
+The economic position of the villeins, the administration of the
+demesne, and the whole organization of the manor were revolutionized.
+Much of the tenants' land had reverted to the lord, partly by the
+deaths in the great pestilence, partly because tenants had left the
+manor; they had run away and left their burdensome holdings in order
+to get high wages as free labourers. This of course led to a
+diminution of labour rents, so the landlord let most of the demesne
+for a term of <a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>years,<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> a process which went on all over England;
+and thus we have the origin of the modern tenant farmer. A fact of
+much importance in connexion with the Peasants' Revolt, soon to take
+place, was that the average money rent of land per acre in Forncett in
+1378 was 10<i>d.</i>, while the labour rents for land, where they were still
+paid by villeins who had not commuted or run away, were, owing to the
+rise in the value of labour, worth two or three times this. We cannot
+wonder that the poor villeins were profoundly discontented.</p>
+
+<p>On this manor, as on others, some of the villeins, in spite of the
+many disadvantages under which they lay, managed to accumulate some
+little wealth. In 1378 and in 1410 one bond tenant had two messuages
+and 78 acres of land; in 1441 another died seized of 5 messuages and
+52 acres; some had a number of servants in their households, but the
+majority were very poor. There are several instances of bondmen
+fleeing from the manor; and the officers of the manor failed to catch
+them. This was common in other manors, and the 'withdrawal' of
+villeins played a considerable part in the disappearance of serfdom
+and the break-up of the system.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> The following table shows the
+gradual disappearance of villeins in the Manor of Forncett:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Servile families with land">
+<tr><td align='right'>In</td><td>1400</td><td>the servile</td><td>families who had land</td><td>numbered</td><td align='right'>16</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td>1500</td><td align='right'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td>1525</td><td align='right'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td>1550</td><td align='right'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td>1575</td><td align='right'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>There is no event of greater importance in the agrarian history of
+England, or which has led to more important consequences, than the
+dissolution of this community in the cultivation of the land, which
+had been in use so long, and the <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>establishment of the complete
+independence and separation of one property from another.<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> As soon
+as the manorial system began to give way, and men to have a free hand,
+the substitution of large for small holdings set in with fresh vigour,
+for we have already seen that it had begun. It was one of the chief
+causes of the stagnation of agriculture in the Middle Ages that it lay
+under the heavy hand of feudalism, by which individualism was checked
+and hindered. Every one had his allotted position on the land, and it
+was hard to get out of it, though some exceptional men did so; as a
+rule there was no chance of striking out a new line for oneself. The
+villein was bound to the lord, and no lord would willingly surrender
+his services. There could be little improvement in farming when the
+custom of the manor and the collective ownership of the teams bound
+all to the same system of farming.<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> In fact, agriculture under
+feudalism suffered from many of the evils of socialism.</p>
+
+<p>But, though hard hit, the old system was to endure for many
+generations, and the modern triumvirate of landlord, tenant, and
+labourer was not completely established in England until the era of
+the first Reform Bill.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_55" id="Footnotes_55"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Growth of English Industry and Commerce</i>,
+i. 130. A weigh in the Middle Ages was 182 lbs., or half a sack.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Second edition, i. 50 n. See also Burnley, <i>History of
+Wool</i>, p. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Gross, <i>Gild Merchant</i>, ii. 4. It is from the Spanish
+merino, crossed with Leicesters and Southdowns, that the vast
+Australian flocks of to-day are descended.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>op. cit.</i> i. 628.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> Ashley, <i>Early History of English Woollen Industry</i>, p.
+34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> <i>Calendar of Close Rolls</i>, 1337-9, pp. 148-9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> <i>Rolls of Parliament</i>, v. 275.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> <i>The Hospitallers in England</i>, Camden Society.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Denton, <i>England in the Fifteenth Century</i>, p. 147.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> <i>Hospitallers in England</i>, p. xxvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> Ibid. pp. 1, li.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> Poultry-keeping was wellnigh universal, judging by the
+number of rents paid in fowls and eggs.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> 1348 seems also to have been an excessively rainy year.
+The wet season was very disastrous to live stock; according to the
+accounts of the manors of Christ Church, Canterbury, about this time
+(<i>Historical MSS. Commission, 5th Report</i>, 444) there died of the
+murrain on their estates 257 oxen, 511 cows, 4,585 sheep. Murrain was
+the name given to all diseases of stock in the Middle Ages, and is of
+constant occurrence in old records.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> The cause of this as usual was incessant rain during
+the greater part of the summer; the chronicles of the time say that
+not only were the crops very short but those that did grow were
+diseased and yielded no nourishment. The 'murrain' was so deadly to
+oxen and sheep that, according to Walsingham, dogs and ravens eating
+them dropped down dead.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> See Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 335. Also
+in an age when the idea of Competitive price had not yet been evolved,
+and when regulation by authority was the custom, it was natural and
+right that the Government in such a crisis should try to check the
+demands of both labourers and producers, which went far beyond what
+employers or consumers could pay. Putnam, <i>Enforcement of the Statute
+of Labourers</i>, 220.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> The average price of wheat in 1351 was 10<i>s.</i> 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>,
+which went down to 7<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> next year, and 4<i>s.</i> 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> the year after;
+but judging by the ineffectiveness of the statute to reduce wages, it
+probably had little effect in causing this fall.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> See Appendix I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> Putnam, <i>op. cit.</i>, 221. The statute for the first ten
+years, however, kept wages from ascending as high as might have been
+the case.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> McPherson, <i>Annals of Commerce</i>, i. 543, says that as
+the plague diminished the number of employers as well as labourers,
+the demand for labour could not have been much greater than before,
+and would have had little effect on the rate of if Edward III had not
+debased the coinage. But if the owners did decrease the lands would
+only accumulate in fewer hands, and would still require cultivation.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> Page, <i>End of Villeinage</i>, pp. 59 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> Ibid. p. 44.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> <i>Transactions</i>, Royal Historical Society, New Series,
+xiv. 123.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> This had been done before, but was now much more
+frequent. Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> 'After the Black Death the flight of villeins was
+extremely common.'&mdash;Page, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> Nasse, <i>Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages</i>, p.
+1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 137.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>HOW THE CLASSES CONNECTED WITH THE LAND LIVED IN THE MIDDLE AGES
+</h3>
+
+<p>The castles of the great landowners have been so often described that
+there is no need to do this again. The popular idea of a baron of the
+Middle Ages is of a man who when he was not fighting was jousting or
+hunting. Such were, no doubt, his chief recreations; so fond was he of
+hunting, indeed, that his own broad lands were not enough, and he was
+a frequent trespasser on those of others; the records of the time are
+full of cases which show that poaching was quite a fashionable
+amusement among the upper classes. But among the barons were many men
+who, like their successors to-day, did their duty as landlords. Of one
+of the Lords of Berkeley in the fourteenth century, it was said he was
+'sometyme in husbandry at home, sometyme at sport in the field,
+sometyme in the campe, sometyme in the Court and Council of State,
+with that promptness and celerity that his body might have bene
+believed to be ubiquitary'. Many of them were farmers on a very large
+scale, though they might not have so much time to devote to it as
+those excellent landlords the monks.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Lord Berkeley, who held the Berkeley estates from 1326 to 1361,
+farmed the demesnes of a quantity of manors, as was the custom, and
+kept thereon great flocks of sheep, ranging from 300 to 1,500 on each
+manor.<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> The stock of the Bishop of Winchester, by an inquisition
+taken at his death in 1367, amounted to 127 draught horses, 1,556 head
+of black cattle, and 12,104 sheep and lambs. Almost every <a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>manor had
+one or two pigeon houses, and the number of pigeons reared is
+astonishing; from one manor Lord Berkeley obtained 2,151 pigeons in a
+single year. No one but the lord was allowed to keep them, and they
+were one of the chief grievances of the villeins, who saw their seed
+devoured by these pests without redress. Their dung, too, was one of
+the most valued manures. Lord Berkeley, like other landlords, went
+often in progress from one of his manors and farmhouses to another,
+making his stay at each of them for one or two nights, overseeing and
+directing the husbandry. The castle of the great noble consumed an
+enormous amount of food in the course of the year; from two manors on
+the Berkeley estate came to the 'standinghouse' of the lord in twelve
+months, 17,000 eggs, 1,008 pigeons, 91 capons, 192 hens, 288 ducks,
+388 chickens, 194 pigs, 45 calves, 315 quarters of wheat, 304 quarters
+of oats; and from several other manors came the like or greater store,
+besides goats, sheep, oxen, butter, cheese, nuts, honey, &amp;c.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> Even
+the lavish hospitality of the lords, and the great number of their
+retainers, must have had some difficulty in disposing of these huge
+supplies.</p>
+
+<p>The examining of their bailiff's accounts must have taken a
+considerable portion of the landlord's time, for those of each manor
+were kept most minutely, and set forth, among other items, 'in what
+sort he husbanded' the demesne farms, 'what sorts of cattle he kept in
+them, and what kinds of graine he yearly sowed according to the
+quality and condition of the ground, and how those kinds of graine
+each second or third yeare were exchanged or brought from one manor to
+another as the vale corne into an upland soyle, and contrarily'. And
+we are told incidentally he 'set with hand, not sowed his beanes'. He
+was also accustomed to move his live stock from one manor to another,
+as they needed it.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>The accounts also stated what days' works were due from each tenant
+according to the season of the year, and at the end of each year there
+was a careful valuation of live and dead stock.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a></p>
+
+<p>The difference
+between the smaller gentry and the more important yeomen<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> who
+farmed their own land must have been very slight. No doubt both of
+them were very rough and ignorant men, who knew a great deal about the
+cultivation of their land and very little about anything else. We may
+be sure that the ordinary house of both was generally of wood; as
+there is no stone in many parts of England, and bricks were not
+reintroduced till the fourteenth century and spread slowly. Even in
+Elizabeth's reign, Harrison<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> tells us that 'the ancient houses of
+our gentry are yet for the most part of strong timber', and he even
+thinks that houses made of oak were luxurious, for in times past men
+had been contented with houses of willow, plum, and elm, but now
+nothing but oak was good enough; and he quaintly says that the men who
+lived in the willow houses were as tough as oak, and those who lived
+in the oak as soft as willow. There are very few mansions left of the
+time before Edward III, for being of timber they naturally decayed.</p>
+
+<p>In a lease, dated 1152, of a manor house belonging to S. Paul's
+Cathedral,<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> is a description of a manor house which contained a
+hall 35 feet long, 30 feet broad, and 22 feet high; that is, 11 feet
+to the tie beam and 11 feet from that to the ridge board; showing that
+the roof was open and that there were no upper rooms. There was a
+chamber between the hall and the thalamus or inner room which was 12
+feet long, <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>17 feet broad, and 17 feet high, the roof being open as in
+the hall; and the thalamus was 22 feet long, 16 feet broad, and 18
+feet high. About the same date the Manor house of Thorp was larger,
+and contained a hall, a chamber, tresantia (apparently part of the
+hall or chamber separated by a screen to form an antechamber), two
+private rooms, a kitchen, brew-house, malt-house, dairy, ox shed, and
+three small hen-houses.</p>
+
+<p>The ordinary manor house of the Middle Ages contained three rooms at
+least, of mean aspect, the floor even of the hall, which was the
+principal eating and sleeping room, being of dirt; and when there was
+an upper room or solar added, which began to be done at the end of the
+twelfth century,<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> access to it was often obtained by an outside
+staircase.</p>
+
+<p>If the manor house belonged to the owner of many manors, it was
+sometimes inhabited by his bailiff.</p>
+
+<p>The barns on the demesnes were often as important buildings as the
+manor houses; one at Wickham, belonging to the canons of S. Paul's<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a>
+in the twelfth century, was 55 feet long, 13 feet high from the floor
+to the principal beam, and 10<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;feet more to the ridge board; the
+breadth between the pillars was 19<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;feet, and on each side it had a
+wing or aisle 6<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;feet wide and 6<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;feet high. The amount of corn
+in the barn was often scored on the door-posts.<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> In the manor
+houses chimneys rarely existed, the fire being made in the middle of
+the hall. Even in the early seventeenth century in Cheshire there were
+no chimneys in the farmhouses, and there the oxen were kept under the
+same roof as the farmer and his family.<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> When chimneys did come in
+they were not much thought of. 'Now we have chimneys our tenderlings
+complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses (colds);' for the smoke not
+only hardened the timbers, but was said by Harrison to be an excellent
+medicine for man. Instead of glass there was much lattice, and that
+<a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>made either of wicker or fine rifts of oak in checkerwise, and horn
+was also used. Beds, of course, were a luxury, the owner of the manor,
+his guests, and retainers flung themselves down on the hall floor
+after supper and all slept together, though sometimes rough mattresses
+were brought in.</p>
+
+<p>Furniture was rude and scanty. In 1150 the farm implements and
+household furniture on the Manor of 'Waleton' was valued and consisted
+of 4 carts, 3 baskets, a basket used in winnowing corn, a pair of
+millstones, 10 tubs, 4 barrels, 2 boilers of lead with stoves, 2
+wooden bowls, 3 three-legged tables, 20 dishes or platters, 2
+tablecloths worth 6<i>d.</i>, 6 metal bowls, half a load of the invaluable
+salt, 2 axes, a table with trestles (the usual form of table), and 5
+beehives made of rushes.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> These articles were handed down from one
+generation to another, and in a lease made 150 years afterwards of the
+same manor most of them reappear. The greater part of the furniture,
+until the fifteenth century, was most likely made by migratory
+workmen, who travelled from village to village; for except the rudest
+pieces it was beyond the village carpenter, and shops there were none.</p>
+
+<p>It is not to be expected that when the master lived in this manner the
+lot of the labourer was a very good one. His home was miserably poor,
+generally of 'wattle and dab', sometimes wholly of mud and clay; many
+with only one room for all purposes. A bill is still in existence for
+a house, if it can be called one, built in 1306 for two labourers by
+Queen's College, Oxford, which cost 20<i>s.</i> in all, and was a mere hovel
+without floor, ceiling, or chimney.<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> Their wretched houses appear
+to have been built on the bare earth, and unfloored. Perhaps as time
+went on a rude upper storey was added, the floor of which was made of
+rough poles or hurdles and was reached by a ladder. The furniture was
+miserably poor; a few pots and pans, cups and dishes, and some tools
+would exhaust <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>the list.<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> The goods and chattels of a landless
+labourer in 1431 consisted of a dish, an adze, a brass pot, 2 plates,
+2 augers, an axe, a three-legged stool, and a barrel.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> Englishmen
+of all classes were hopelessly dirty in their habits; even till the
+sixteenth century they were noted above other countries for the
+profuseness of their diet and their unclean ways. Erasmus spoke of the
+floor of his house as inconceivably filthy. To save fuel, the
+labourer's family in the cold season all lay huddled in a heap on the
+floor, 'pleasantly and hot', as Barclay the poet tells us; and if he
+ever had a bed it was a bundle of fern or straw thrown down, with his
+cloak as a coverlet, though thus he was just as well off as his social
+superiors, for with them the loose cloak of the day was a common
+covering for the night. He was constantly exposed to disease, for
+sanitary precautions were ignored; at the entrance of his hovel was a
+huge heap of decaying refuse, poisoning air and water. Even in the
+sixteenth century a foreigner noticed that 'the peasants dwell in
+small huts and pile up their refuse out of doors in heaps so high that
+you cannot see their houses'.<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> Diseased animals were constantly
+eaten, vegetables were few, and in the winter there was no fresh meat
+for any one, except game and rabbits and, for the well-to-do, fish,
+but we may doubt if the peasant got any but salt fish. The consequence
+was that leprosy and kindred ailments were common; and we do not
+wonder that plagues were frequent and slew the people like flies. The
+peasants' food consisted largely of corn. In the bailiff's accounts of
+the Manor of Woodstock in 1242, six servants at Handborough received
+41<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;bushels of corn each, 2 ox herds at Combe <a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>received the same, and
+4 servants at Bladon had 36 bushels each. In 1274 at Bosham, and in
+1288 at Stoughton in Sussex, the allowance was the same.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> The
+writer of the anonymous <i>Treatise on Husbandry</i> says that in his time,
+the thirteenth century, the average annual allowance of corn to a
+labourer was 36 bushels.<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> Fish, too, seem to have formed a large
+portion of his diet; all classes ate enormous quantities of fish,
+before the Reformation, in Lent and on fast days, and the labourer was
+constantly given salt herrings as part of his pay. In 1359, at
+Hawsted, the villeins when working were allowed 2 herrings a day, some
+milk, a loaf, and some drink.<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> Eden<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> says his food consisted
+of a few fish, principally herrings, a loaf of bread, and some beer;
+but we must certainly add pork, which was his stand-by then as
+now.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> In the fourteenth century, at all events, there were three
+kinds of bread in use&mdash;white bread, ration bread, and black bread; and
+it was no doubt the latter that the peasant ate.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> Clothing was
+dear and cloth coarse, the most valuable personal property consisting
+of clothing and metal vessels. Shirts were the subject of charitable
+gifts.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> By 37 Edw. III, c. 14, labourers were not to wear any
+manner of cloth but 'blanket and russet wool of 12<i>d.</i>' and girdles of
+linen. If they wore anything more extravagant it was forfeited to the
+king.</p>
+
+<p>To the labourer of modern times the life of his forefathers would have
+seemed unutterably dull. No books, no newspapers, no change of scene
+by cheap excursions, no village school, no politics. The very
+cultivation of the soil by the old three-course system was monotonous.
+But there were bright spots in his existence: the village church not
+only afforded him the consolations of religion but also entertainments
+and <a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>society. Religion in the Middle Ages was a part of the people's
+daily life, and its influence permeated even their amusements.
+Miracles and mystery plays, played in the churches and churchyards,
+were a common feature in village life; as were the church ales or
+parish meetings held four or five times a year, where cakes and beer
+were purchased from the churchwarden and consumed for the good of the
+parish. Indeed, there can be no doubt that there was much more
+sociability than to-day, in the country at least. Labour was lightened
+by the co-operation of the common fields; common shepherds and
+herdsmen watched the sheep and cattle of the different tenants, 'a
+common mill ground the corn, a common oven baked the bread, a common
+smith worked at a common forge.' His existence, moreover, was
+enlivened by a considerable number of sports. A statute at the end of
+the fourteenth century (12 Ric. II, c. 6) says he was fond of playing
+at tennis(!), football, quoits, dice, casting the stone, and other
+games, which this statute forbad him, and enacted that he should use
+his bow and arrows on Sundays and holidays instead of such idle sport.
+This is a foretaste of the modern sentiment that seeks to wean him
+from watching football matches and take to miniature rifle clubs. He
+was also, like some of his successors, fond of poaching, though he
+appears to have been rash enough to indulge in it by day. 13 Ric. II,
+c. 13, says he was prone on holidays, when good Christian people be in
+church hearing divine service, to go hunting with greyhounds and other
+dogs, in the parks and warrens of the lord and of others, and
+sometimes these hunts were turned into conferences and conspiracies,'
+for to rise and disobey their allegiance', such as preceded the
+Peasants' Revolt of 1381; and accordingly no one who did not own lands
+worth 40<i>s.</i> a year was to keep a dog to hunt, or ferrets other
+'engines': the first game law on the English statute book.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_63" id="Footnotes_63"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Smyth, <i>Lives of the Berkeleys</i>, i. 302. No doubt the
+riches of the Berkeleys were considerably greater than those of many
+of the barons.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> <i>Lives of the Berkeleys</i>, i. 166. There is no reason to
+doubt Smyth, as he wrote with the original accounts before him.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> <i>Lives of the Berkeleys</i>, i. 156.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> The yeoman is said to have made his appearance in the
+fifteenth century, but the small freeholders of the manor before that
+date were to all intents and purposes yeomen. No doubt, as trade grew
+in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries successful tradesmen bought
+small freeholds in the country and swelled the numbers of yeomen.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> Harrison, <i>Description of Britain</i>, F.J. Furnivall
+edn., p. 337.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> <i>Domesday of S. Paul</i>, Camden Society, p. 129.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> Turner, <i>Domestic Architecture</i>, i. 59.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> <i>Domesday of S. Paul</i>, p. 123.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> <i>Historical MSS. Commission Report</i>, v. 444.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> Ormerod, <i>History of Cheshire</i>, i. 129.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> <i>Domesday of S. Paul</i>, p. xcvii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> Denton, <i>England in the Fifteenth Century</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> Eden, <i>State of the Poor</i>, i. 21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> See Cullum, <i>History of Hawsted</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Harrison, <i>Description of Britain</i>, Appendix ii, lxxxi.
+In some manors, however, there were careful regulations for public
+health. According to the Durham <i>Halmote Rolls</i>, published by the
+Surtees Society, village officials watched over the water supply,
+prevented the fouling of streams; bye-laws were enacted as to the
+regulation of the common place for clothes washing, and the times for
+emptying and cleansing ponds and mill-dams.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> Ballard, <i>Domesday</i>, Antiquary Series, p. 209.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 75.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> Cullum, <i>Hawsted</i>, 1784 ed., p. 182.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> <i>State of the Poor</i>, i. 15.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>, i.
+32.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> See <i>Knights Hospitallers in England</i>, Camden Society,
+Introduction.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>op. cit.</i> i. 66.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR.&mdash;SPREAD OF LEASES.&mdash;THE PEASANTS'
+REVOLT.&mdash;FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO REGULATE WAGES.&mdash;A HARVEST HOME.&mdash;
+BEGINNING OF THE CORN LAWS.&mdash;SOME SURREY MANORS</h3>
+
+
+<p>We have seen that the landlords' profits were seriously diminished by
+the Black Death, and they cast about them for new ways of increasing
+their incomes. Arable land had been until now largely in excess of
+pasture, the cultivation of corn was the chief object of agriculture,
+bread forming a much larger proportion of men's diet than now. This
+began to change. Much of the land was laid down to grass, and there
+was a steady increase in sheep farming; thus commenced that revolution
+in farming which in the sixteenth century led Harrison to say that
+England was mainly a stock-raising country. The lords also let a
+considerable amount of their demesne land on leases for years. 'Then
+began the times to alter' says Smyth of the Lord Berkeley of the end
+of the fourteenth century, 'and hee with them, and he began to tack
+other men's cattle on his pasture by the week, month, and quarter, and
+to sell his meadow grounds by the acre. And in the time of Henry IV
+still more and more was let, and in succeeding times. As for the days'
+works of the copyhold tenants, they also were turned into money.'<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a>
+Such leases had been used long before this, but this is the date of
+their great increase. In the thirteenth century a lease of 2 acres of
+<a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>arable land in Nowton, Suffolk, let the land at 6<i>d.</i> an acre per annum
+for a term of six years.<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> It contains no clauses about
+cultivation; the landlord warrants the said 2 acres to the tenant, and
+the tenant agrees to give them up at the end of the term freely and
+peaceably. The deed was indented, sealed, and witnessed by several
+persons. The impoverished landlords also let much of their land on
+stock and land leases. The custom of stocking the tenants' land was a
+very ancient one: the lord had always found the oxen for the plough
+teams of the villeins. In the leases of the manors of S. Paul's in the
+twelfth century the tenant for life received stock both live and dead,
+which when he entered was carefully enumerated in the lease, and at
+the end of the tenancy he had to leave behind the same quantity.<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a>
+It was a common practice also, before the Black Death, for the lord to
+let out cows and sheep at so much per head per annum.<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> The stock
+and land lease therefore was no novelty. In 1410 there is a lease of
+the demesne lands at Hawsted by which the landlord kept the manor
+house and its appurtenances in his own hands, the tenant apparently
+having the farm buildings, which he was to keep in repair. He was to
+receive at the beginning of the term 20 cows and one bull, worth 9<i>s.</i>
+each; 4 stotts, worth 10<i>s.</i> each; and 4 oxen, worth 13<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> each;
+which, or their value in money, were to be delivered up at the end of
+the term. The tenant was also to leave at the end of the lease as many
+acres well ploughed, sown, and manured as he found at the beginning.
+Otherwise the landlord was not to interfere with the cultivation. If
+the rent or any part thereof was in arrear for a fortnight after the
+two fixed days for payment, the landlord might distrain; and if for a
+month, he might re-enter: and both parties bound themselves to forfeit
+the then huge sum of <i>&pound;</i>100 upon the violation of any clause <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>of the
+lease.<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> There is a lease<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> of a subsequent date (the twentieth
+year of Henry VIII), but one which well illustrates the custom now so
+prevalent, granted by the Prior of the Monastery of Lathe in Somerset
+to William Pole of Combe, Edith his wife, and Thomas his son, for
+their lives. With the land went 360 wethers. For the land they paid 16
+quarters of best wheat, 'purelye thressyd and wynowed,' 22 quarters of
+best barley, and were to carry 4 loads of wood and fatten one ox for
+the prior yearly; the ox to be fattened in stall with the best hay,
+the only way then known of fattening oxen. For the flock of wethers
+they paid <i>&pound;</i>6 yearly. The tenants were bound to keep hedges, ditches,
+and gates in repair. Also they were bound by a 'writing obligatory' in
+the sum of <i>&pound;</i>100 to deliver up the wether flock whole and sound, 'not
+rotten, banyd,<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> nor otherwise diseased.' The consequence of the
+spread of leases was that the portion of the demesne lands which the
+lords farmed themselves dwindled greatly, or it was turned from arable
+into grass. Stock and land leases survived in some parts till the
+beginning of the eighteenth century, when it was still the custom for
+the landlord to stock the land and receive half the crop for
+rent.<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> According to the <i>Domesday of S. Paul</i>, in the thirteenth
+century, a survey of eighteen manors containing 24,000 acres showed
+three-eighths of the land in demesne, the rest in the hands of the
+tenants. In 1359 the lord of the principal manor at Hawsted held in
+his own hand 572 acres of arable land, worth 4<i>d.</i> to 6<i>d.</i> an acre rent,
+and 50 acres of meadow, worth 2<i>s.</i> an acre.<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> He had also pasture
+for 24 cows, which was <a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>considered worth 36<i>s.</i> a year, and for 12 horses
+and 12 oxen worth 48<i>s.</i> a year, with 40 acres of wood, estimated at 1<i>s.</i>
+an acre. In 1387, however, the arable land had decreased to 320 acres,
+but the stock had increased, and now numbered 4 cart horses, 6 stotts
+or smaller horses, 10 oxen, 1 bull, 26 cows, 6 heifers, 6 calves, 92
+wethers, 20 hoggerells or two-year-old sheep, 1 gander, 4 geese, 30
+capons, 26 hens, and only one cock. The dairy of 26 cows was let out,
+according to the custom of the time, for <i>&pound;</i>8 a year; and we are told
+that the oxen were fed on oats, and shod in the winter only.</p>
+
+<p>But if the position of the lords was severely affected by the great
+pestilence that of the villeins was also. The villein himself was
+becoming a copyholder; in the thirteenth century the nature of his
+holding had been written on the court roll, before long he was given a
+copy of the roll, and by the fifteenth century he was a
+copyholder.<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> There was, too, a new spirit abroad in this century
+of disorganization and reform, which stirred even the villeins with a
+desire for better conditions of life. These men, thus rising to a more
+assured position and animated by new hopes, saw all round them hired
+labourers obtaining, in spite of the Statute of Labourers, double the
+amount of wages they had formerly received, while they were bound down
+to the same services as before. The advance in prices was further
+increased by the king's issuing in 1351 an entirely new coinage, of
+the same fineness but of less weight than the old; so that the demands
+of the labourers after the Black Death were largely justified by the
+depreciation in the currency.<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> There had also arisen at this time,
+owing to the increase in the wealth of the country, a new class of
+landlords who did not care for the old system<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a>; and it is probably
+these men who are meant by the statute I Ric. II, c. 6, which
+complains that the villeins daily withdrew their services to their
+lords at the instigation of various <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>counsellors and abettors, who made
+it appear by 'colour of certain exemplifications made out of the Book
+of Domesday' that they were discharged from their services, and
+moreover gathered themselves in great routs and agreed to aid each
+other in resisting their lords, so that justices were appointed to
+check this evil. But there were other 'counsellors and abettors' of
+the Peasants' Revolt than the new landlords. One of its most
+interesting features to modern readers is its thorough organization.
+Travelling agents and agitators like John Ball were all over the
+country, money was subscribed and collected, and everything was ripe
+for the great rising of 1381, which was brought to a head by the bad
+grading of the poll tax of King Richard. It has been said that the
+chief grievance of the villeins was that the lords of manors were
+attempting to reimpose commuted services, but judging by the petition
+to the King when he met them at Mile-end there can be no doubt that
+the chief grievance was the continuance of existing services. 'We
+will', said they, 'that ye make us free for ever, and that we be
+called no more bond, or so reputed.' Also, as Walsingham says,<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a>
+they were careful to destroy the rolls and ancient records whereby
+their services were fixed, and to put to death persons learned in the
+law.</p>
+
+<p>As every one knows, the revolt was a failure; and whether it
+ultimately helped much to extinguish serfdom is doubtful. It probably,
+like the pestilence, accelerated a movement which had been for some
+time in progress and was inevitable. There is ample evidence to prove
+that there was a very general continuance of predial services after
+the revolt, though they went on rapidly decreasing. One of the chief
+methods adopted by the villeins to gain their freedom was desertion,
+and so common did this become that apparently the mere threat of
+desertion enabled the villein to obtain almost any <a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>concession from his
+lord, who was afraid lest his land should be utterly deserted. The
+result was that by the middle of the fifteenth century the abolition
+of labour services was approaching completion.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> It lingered on,
+and Fitzherbert lamented in Elizabeth's reign the continuance of
+villeinage as a disgrace to England; but it had then nearly
+disappeared, and was unheard of after the reign of James I.<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a></p>
+
+<p>Seven years after the Peasants' Revolt another attempt was made to
+regulate agricultural wages by the statute 12 Ric. II, c. 4, which
+stated that 'the hires of the said servants and labourers have not
+been put on certainty before this time', though we have seen that the
+Act of 1351 tried to settle wages. In the preamble it is said that the
+statute was enacted because labourers 'have refused for a long season
+to work without outrageous and excessive hire', and owing to the
+scarcity of labourers 'husbands' could not pay their rents, a sentence
+which shows the general use of money rents.</p>
+
+<p>The wages were as follows, apparently with food:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A bailiff annually, and clothing once a year</td><td align='right'>13</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A master hind, without clothing</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A carter,  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " </td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A shepherd, &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " </td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>An ox or cow herd &nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " </td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Swine herd or female labourer, without clothing</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A plough driver, without clothing </td><td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The farm servants' food would be worth considerably more than the
+actual cash he received; a quarter of wheat, barley, and rye mixed
+every nine weeks was no unusual allowance, which at 4<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> would be
+worth about 25<i>s.</i> a year. He would also have his harvest allowance,
+though the statute above forbids any perquisites, worth about 3<i>s.</i>, and
+sometimes it was accompanied by the gift of a pig, some beer, or some
+<a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>herrings.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> His wife also, at a time when women did the same work
+as the men, could earn 1<i>d.</i> a day, and his boy perhaps <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> If his
+wages were wholly paid in money, we may say that in the last half of
+the fourteenth century the ordinary labourer earned 3<i>d.</i> a day, so that
+as corn and pork, his chief food, had not risen at all, he was much
+better off than in the preceding 100 years.</p>
+
+<p>Cullum, in his invaluable <i>History of Hawsted</i>, gives us a picture of
+harvesting on the demesne lands in 1389 which shows an extraordinarily
+busy scene. There were 200 acres of all kinds of corn to be gathered
+in, and over 300 people took part; though apparently such a crowd was
+only collected for the two principal days of the harvest, and it must
+be remembered that the towns were emptied into the country at this
+important season. The number of people for one day comprised a carter,
+ploughman, head reaper, cook, baker, brewer, shepherd, daya
+(dairymaid); 221 hired reapers; 44 pitchers, stackers, and reapers
+(not hired, evidently villeins paying their rents by work); 22 other
+reapers, hired for goodwill (<i>de amore</i>); and 20 customary tenants.
+This small army of men consumed 22 bushels of wheat, 8 pennyworth of
+beer, and 41 bushels of malt, worth 18<i>s.</i> 9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>; meat to the value of
+9<i>s.</i> 11<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>; fish and herrings, 5<i>s.</i> 1<i>d.</i>; cheese, butter, milk, and
+eggs, 8<i>s.</i> 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>; oatmeal, 5<i>d.</i> salt, 3<i>d.</i>; pepper and saffron, 10<i>d.</i>,
+the latter apparently introduced into England in the time of Edward
+III, and much used for cooking and medicine, but it gradually went out
+of fashion, and by the end of the eighteenth century was only
+cultivated in one or two counties, notably Essex where Saffron Walden
+recalls its use; candles, 6<i>d.</i>; and 5 pairs of gloves 10<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a></p>
+
+<p>The presentation of gloves was a common custom in England; and these
+would be presented as a sign of good husbandry, <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>as in the case of the
+rural bridegroom in the account of Queen Elizabeth's visit to
+Kenilworth who wore gloves to show he was a good farmer. Tusser bids
+the farmer give gloves to his reapers. The custom was still observed
+at Hawsted in 1784, and in Eden's time, 1797, the bursars of New
+College, Oxford, presented each of their tenants with two pairs, which
+the recipients displayed on the following Sunday at church by
+conspicuously hanging their hands over the pew to show their
+neighbours they had paid their rent. In this account of the Hawsted
+harvest the large number of hired men and the few customary tenants is
+noteworthy as a sign of the times, for before the Black Death the
+harvest work on the demesne was the special work of the latter.</p>
+
+<p>In the fourteenth century the long series of corn laws was commenced
+which was to agitate Englishmen for centuries, and after an apparently
+final settlement in 1846 to reappear in our day.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> It was the
+policy of Edward III to make food plentiful and cheap for the whole
+nation, without special regard to the agricultural interest: and by 34
+Edw. III, c. 20, the export of corn to any foreign part except Calais
+and Gascony, then British possessions, or to certain places which the
+king might permit, was forbidden. Richard II, however, reversed this
+policy in answer to the complaints of agriculturists whose rents were
+falling,<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> and endeavoured to encourage the farmer and especially
+the corn-grower; for he saw the landlords turning their attention to
+sheep instead of corn, owing to the high price of labour. Accordingly,
+to give the corn-growers a wider market, he allowed his subjects by
+the statute 17 Ric. II, c. 7, to carry corn, on paying the duties due,
+to <a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>what parts they pleased, except to his enemies, subject however to
+an order of the Council; and owing to the interference of the Council
+the law probably became a dead letter, at all events we find it
+confirmed and amended by 4 Hen. VI, c. 5.</p>
+
+<p>The prohibition of export must have been a serious blow to those
+counties near the sea, for it was much easier to send corn by ship to
+foreign parts than over the bad roads of England to some distant
+market.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> Indeed, judging by the great and frequent discrepancy of
+prices in different places at the same date, the dispatch of corn from
+one inland locality to another was not very frequent. Richard also
+attempted to stop the movement, which had even then set in, of the
+countrymen to the growing towns, forbidding by 12 Ric. II, c. 5, those
+who had served in agriculture until 12 years of age to be apprenticed
+in the towns, but to 'abide in husbandry'.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most unjust customs of the Middle Ages was that which bade
+the tenants of manors, except those who held the <i>jus faldae</i>, fold
+their sheep on the land of the lord, thus losing both the manure and
+the valuable treading.<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> However, sometimes, as in Surrey, the
+sheepfold was in a fixed place and the manure from it was from time to
+time taken out and spread on the land.<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the same district horses had been hitherto used for farm work, as
+it was considered worthy of note that oxen were beginning to be added
+to the horse teams. The milk of two good cows in twenty-four weeks was
+considered able to make a wey of cheese, and in addition half a gallon
+of butter a week; and the milk of 20 ewes was equal to that of 3 cows.</p>
+
+<p>On the Manor of Flaunchford, near Reigate, the demesne land amounted
+to 56 acres of arable and two meadows, but <a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>there must have been the
+usual pasture in addition to keep the following head of stock: 13
+cows, who in the winter were fed from the racks in the yard; 4 calves,
+bought at 1<i>s.</i> each; 12 oxen for ploughing, whose food was oats and
+hay&mdash;a very large number for 56 acres of arable, and they were
+probably used on another manor; 1 stott, used for harrowing; a goat,
+and a sow.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='center'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>In 1382 the total receipts of this manor were</td>
+  <td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='left'>9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>The total expenses</td>
+  <td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='left'>5</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="6" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Profit</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i>1</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='left'>4<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="6" align='right'>=========</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Among the receipts were:&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>For the lord's plough, let to farmers</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(perhaps this accounts for the large team of oxen kept)</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>6</td><td align='left'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>14 bushels of apples</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='left'>2</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>5 loads of charcoal</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>16</td><td align='left'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>A cow</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>10</td><td align='left'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Among the payments:&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>For keeping plough in repair, and the wages of a</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;blacksmith, one year by agreement</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>6</td><td align='left'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Making a new plough from the lord's timber</td>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Mowing 2 acres of meadow</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='left'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Making and carrying hay of ditto, with</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;help of lord's servants</td>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Threshing wheat, peas, and tares, per quarter</td>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; oats, per quarter</td>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Winnowing 3 quarters of corn</td>
+   <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Cutting and binding wheat and oats, per acre</td>
+   <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>6</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>On the Manor of Dorking the harvest lasted five weeks as a rule; the
+fore feet only of oxen used for ploughing, and of heifers used for
+harrowing, were shod. For washing and shearing sheep 10<i>d.</i> a hundred
+was the price; ploughing for winter corn cost 6<i>d.</i> an acre, and
+harrowing <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> 30<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;acres of barley produced 41<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;quarters; 28
+acres of oats produced 38<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;quarters; 13 cows were let for the
+season at 5<i>s.</i> each. In the same reign, at Merstham, the demesne lands
+of 166<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;acres were let on lease with all the live and dead stock,
+which was valued at <i>&pound;</i>22 9<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i>, and the rent was <i>&pound;</i>36 or about 4<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>
+an acre, an enormous price even including the stock.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_73" id="Footnotes_73"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> Smyth, <i>Lives of the Berkeleys</i>, ii. 5. There is no
+doubt the lease system was growing in the thirteenth century. About
+1240 the writ <i>Quare ejecit infra terminum</i> protected the person of a
+tenant for a term of years, who formerly had been regarded as having
+no more than a personal right enforceable by an action of covenant.
+Vinogradoff, <i>Villeinage in England</i>, p. 330; but leases for lives and
+not for years seem the rule at that date.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> Cullum, <i>Hawsted</i>, p. 175.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> See <i>Domesday of S. Paul</i>, Introduction.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>, i.
+25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> Cullum, <i>Hawsted</i>, p. 195.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 586.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> Banyd, afflicted with sheep rot.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> Eden, <i>State of the Poor</i>, i. 55.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> Cullum, <i>Hawsted</i>, p. 182. Another instance of the
+difference in value between arable and tillage. At the inquisition of
+the Manor of Great Tey in Essex, 1326, the jury found that 500 acres
+of arable land was worth 6<i>d.</i> an acre rent, 20 acres of meadow 3<i>s.</i> an
+acre, and 10 acres of pasture 1<i>s.</i> an acre. <i>Archaeologia</i>, xii. 30.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> Medley, <i>Constitutional History</i>, p. 52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>op. cit.</i> i. 328, and 335-6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> <i>Domesday of S. Paul</i>, p. lvii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> <i>Hist. Angl.</i>, Rolls Series, i. 455. The other
+political and social causes of the revolt do not concern us here. The
+attempt to minimize its agrarian importance is strange in the light of
+the words and acts above mentioned.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> Page, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 77.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 402, 534;
+<i>Transactions of the Royal Historical Society</i>, New Series, xvii. 235.
+Fitzherbert probably referred more to villein status, which continued
+longer than villein tenure.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>, i.
+278, 288.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> Harrison, <i>Description of Britain</i>, p. 233, says the
+produce of an acre of saffron was usually worth <i>&pound;</i>20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> Exportation of corn is mentioned in 1181, when a fine
+was paid to the king for licence to ship corn from Norfolk and Suffolk
+to Norway.&mdash;McPherson, <i>Annals of Commerce</i>, i. 345. As early as the
+reign of Henry II, Henry of Huntingdon says, German silver came to buy
+our most precious wool, our milk (no doubt converted into butter and
+cheese), and our innumerable cattle.&mdash;Rolls Series, p. 5. In 1400, the
+<i>Chronicle of London</i> says the country was saved from dearth by the
+importation of rye from Prussia.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i>. p. 32.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> Lord Berkeley, about 1360, had a ship of his own for
+exporting wool and corn and bringing back foreign wine and
+wares.&mdash;Smyth, <i>Lives of the Berkeleys</i>, i. 365.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> Nasse, <i>Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages</i>, p.
+66.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> Customs in some Surrey manors in the time of Richard
+II, <i>Archaeologia</i>, xviii. 281.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>1400-1540</h3>
+
+<h3>THE SO-CALLED 'GOLDEN AGE OF THE LABOURER' IN A PERIOD OF GENERAL
+DISTRESS</h3>
+
+
+<p>In this period the average prices of grain remained almost unchanged
+until the last three decades, when they began slowly and steadily to
+creep up, this advance being helped to some extent by defective
+harvests. In 1527, according to Holinshed it rained from April 12 to
+June 3 every day or night; in May thirty hours without ceasing; and
+the floods did much damage to the corn. In 1528 incessant deluges of
+rain prevented the corn being sown in the spring, and grain had to be
+imported from Germany. The price of wheat was a trifle higher than in
+the period 1259-1400; barley, oats, and beans lower; rye higher.<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a>
+Oxen and cows were dearer, horses about the same, sheep a little
+higher, pigs the same, poultry and eggs dearer, wool the same, cheese
+and butter dearer. The price of wheat was sometimes subject to
+astonishing fluctuations: in 1439 it varied from 8<i>s.</i> to 26<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>; in
+1440 from 4<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> to 25<i>s.</i> The rent of land continued the same, arable
+averaging 6<i>d.</i> an acre,<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> though this was partly due to the fact
+that rents, although now generally paid in money, were still fixed and
+customary; for the purchase value of land had now risen to twenty
+years instead of twelve.<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> The art of farming hardly made any
+progress, and the produce of the land was consequently <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>about the same
+or a little better than in the preceding period.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a></p>
+
+<p>At the end of the fourteenth century the ordinary wheat crop at
+Hawsted was in favourable years about a quarter to the acre, but it
+was often not more than 6 bushels; and this was on demesne land,
+usually better tilled than non-demesne land.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> As for the labourer,
+it is well known that Thorold Rogers calls the fifteenth century his
+golden age, and seeing that his days' wages, if he 'found himself',
+were now 4<i>d.</i> and prices were hardly any higher all round than when he
+earned half the money in the thirteenth century, there is much to
+support his view. As to whether he was better off than the modern
+labourer it is somewhat difficult to determine; as far as wages went
+he certainly was, for his 4<i>d.</i> a day was equal to about 4<i>s.</i> now; it is
+true that on the innumerable holidays of the Church he sometimes did
+not work,<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> but no doubt he then busied himself on his bit of
+common. But so many factors enter into the question of the general
+material comfort of the labourer in different ages that it is almost
+impossible to come to a satisfactory conclusion. Denton paints a very
+gloomy picture of him at this time<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a>; so does Mr. Jessop, who says,
+the agricultural labourers of the fifteenth century were, compared
+with those of to-day, 'more wretched in their poverty, incomparably
+less prosperous in their prosperity; worse clad, worse fed, worse
+housed, worse taught, worse governed; they were sufferers from
+loathsome diseases, of which their descendants know nothing; the very
+beasts of the field were dwarfed and stunted; the disregard of <a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>to
+sell their corn at low prices to the detriment of the whole kingdom: a
+typical example of the political economy of the time, which considered
+the prosperity of agriculture indispensable to the welfare of the
+country, even if the consumer suffered. Accordingly, it was enacted
+that wheat could be exported without a licence when it was under 6<i>s.</i>
+8<i>d.</i> a quarter, except to the king's enemies. On imports of corn there
+had been no restriction until 1463, when 3 Edw. IV, c. 2 forbade the
+import of corn when under 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> a statute due partly to the fear
+that the increase of pasture was a danger to tillage land and the
+national food supply, and partly to the fact that the landed interest
+had become by now fully awake to the importance of protecting
+themselves by promoting the gains of the farmer.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> It may be
+doubted, however, if much wheat was imported except in emergencies at
+this time, for many countries forbade export. These two statutes were
+practically unaltered till 1571,<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> and by that of 1463 was
+initiated the policy which held the field for nearly 400 years.</p>
+
+<p>Thorold Rogers denounces the landlords for legislating with the object
+of keeping up rents, but, as Mr. Cunningham has pointed out, this
+ignores the fact that the land was the great fund of national wealth
+from which taxation was paid; if rents therefore rose it was a gain to
+the whole country, since the fund from which the revenue was drawn was
+increased.<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p>
+
+<p>In spite of the high wages of agricultural labourers, the movement
+towards the towns noticed by Richard II continued. The statute 7 Hen.
+IV, c. 17, asserts that there is a great scarcity of labourers in
+husbandry and that gentlemen are much impoverished by the rate of
+wages; the cause of the scarcity lying in the fact that many people
+were becoming weavers,<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> and <a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>it therefore re-enacted 12 Ric. II,
+c. 5, which ordained that no one who had been a servant in husbandry
+until 12 years old should be bound apprentice, and further enacted
+that no person with less than 20<i>s.</i> a year in land should be able to
+apprentice his son. Like many other statutes of the time this seems to
+have been inoperative, for we find 23 Hen. VI, c. 12 (1444), enacting
+that if a servant in husbandry purposed leaving his master he was to
+give him warning, and was obliged either to engage with a new one or
+continue with the old. It also regulated the wages anew, those fixed
+showing a substantial increase since the statute of 1388. By the
+year:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>
+A bailiff was to have <i>&pound;</i>1 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>, and 5<i>s.</i> worth of clothes.<br />
+A chief hind, carter, or shepherd, <i>&pound;</i>1, and 4<i>s.</i> worth of clothes.<br />
+A common servant in husbandry, 15<i>s.</i>, and 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> worth of clothes.<br />
+A woman servant, 10<i>s.</i>, and 4<i>s.</i> worth of clothes.<br />
+All with meat and drink.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>By the day, in harvest, wages were to be:&mdash;</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>
+A mower, with meat and drink, 4<i>d.</i>; without, 6<i>d.</i><br />
+A reaper or carter, with meat and drink, 3<i>d.</i>; without, 5<i>d.</i><br />
+A woman or labourer, with meat and drink, 2<i>d.</i>; without, 4<i>d.</i>
+</p></div>
+
+<p>In the next reign the labourer's dress was again regulated for him,
+and he was forbidden to wear any cloth exceeding 2<i>s.</i> a yard in price,
+nor any 'close hosen', apparently tight long stockings, nor any hosen
+at all which cost more than 14<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> Yeomen and those below them were
+forbidden to wear any bolsters or stuff of wool, cotton wadding, or
+other stuff in their doublets, but only lining; and somewhat
+gratuitously it was ordered that no one under the degree of a
+gentleman should wear pikes to his shoes.</p>
+
+<p>In 1455 England's Thirty Years' War, the War of the Roses, began, and
+agriculture received another set back. The view that the war was a
+mere faction fight between nobles and their retainers, while the rest
+of the country went about their <a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>business, is somewhat exaggerated. No
+doubt, the mass of Englishmen, as in the civil war of the seventeenth
+century, preferred to 'sit still', as Clarendon said, but the business
+of many must have been very much upset. The various armies were
+compelled to obtain their supplies from the country, and with the
+lawless habits of the times plundered friend and foe alike, as
+Cavalier and Roundhead did afterwards; and many a farmer must have
+seen all his stock driven off and his grain seized to feed the
+combatants. For instance, it was said before the battle called Easter
+Day Field that all the tenants of Abbot's Ripton in Huntingdonshire
+were copyholders of the Abbot of Ramsey, and the northern army lay
+there so long that they impoverished the country and the tenants had
+to give up their copyholds through poverty.<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> The loss of life,
+too, must have told heavily on a country already suffering from
+frequent pestilence. It is calculated that about one-tenth of the
+whole population of the country were killed in battle or died of
+wounds and disease during the war; and as these must have been nearly
+all men in the prime of life, it is difficult to understand how the
+effect on the labour market was not more marked. The enclosing of land
+for pasture farms, which we shall next have to consider, was probably
+in many cases an absolute necessity, for the number of men left to
+till the soil must have been seriously diminished.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_78" id="Footnotes_78"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> See table at end of volume. The shrinkage of prices
+which occurred in the fifteenth century was due to the scarcity of
+precious metals.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>,
+iv. 128. The rent of arable land on Lord Derby's estate in Wirral in
+1522 was a little under 6<i>d.</i> a statute acre; of meadow, about 1<i>s.</i>
+6<i>d.</i>&mdash;<i>Cheshire Sheaf</i> (Ser. 3), iv. 23.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>op. cit.</i> iv. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>op. cit.</i> iv. 39.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> Cullum, <i>Hawsted</i>, p. 187. The amount of seed for the
+various crops was, wheat 2 bushels per acre, barley 4, oats 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> By 4 Hen. IV, c. 14, labourers were to receive no hire
+for holy days, or on the eves of feasts for more than half a day; but
+the statute was largely disregarded.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> See <i>England in the Fifteenth Century</i>, p. 105: 'The
+undrained neglected soil, the shallow stagnant waters which lay on the
+surface of the ground, the unhealthy homes of all classes,
+insufficient and unwholesome food, the abundance of stale fish eaten,
+and the scanty supply of vegetables predisposed rural and town
+population to disease.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 448.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> McCulloch, <i>Commercial Dictionary</i> (1852), p. 412. In
+1449 Parliament had decided that all foreign merchants importing corn
+should spend the money so obtained on English goods to prevent it
+leaving the country.&mdash;McPherson, <i>Annals of Commerce</i>, i. 655.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 191.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> Much of the weaving, however, was done in rural
+districts.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> See 3 Edw. IV, c. 5; <i>Rot. Parl.</i> v. 105; 22 Edw. IV,
+c. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>op. cit.</i> i. 456.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>ENCLOSURE</h3>
+
+
+<p>We have now reached a time when the enclosure question was becoming of
+paramount importance,<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> and began to cause constant anxiety to
+legislators, while the writers of the day are full of it. Enclosure
+was of four kinds:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>1. Enclosing the common arable fields for grazing, generally
+   in large tracts.<br />
+
+2. Enclosing the same by dividing them into smaller fields,
+   generally of arable.<br />
+
+3. Enclosing the common pasture, for grazing or tillage.<br />
+
+4. Enclosing the common meadows or mowing grounds.</p></div>
+
+<p>It is the first mainly, and to a less degree the third of these, which
+were so frequent a source of complaint in the fifteenth and sixteenth
+centuries; for the first, besides displacing the small holder, threw
+out of employment a large number of people who had hitherto gained
+their livelihood by the various work connected with tillage, and the
+third deprived a large number of their common rights.</p>
+
+<p>The first Enclosure Act was the Statute of Merton, passed in 1235, 20
+Henry III, c. 4, which permitted lords of manors to add to their
+demesnes such parts of the waste pasture and woods as were beyond the
+needs of the tenants. There is evidence, however, that enclosure,
+probably of waste land, was going on before this statute, as the
+charter of John, by which all Devonshire except Dartmoor and Exmoor
+was deforested, expressly forbids the making of hedges, a proof of
+enclosure, in those two forests.<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> We may be sure that the <a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>needs of
+the tenants were by an arbitrary lord estimated at a very low figure.
+At the same time many proceeded in due legal form. Thomas, Lord
+Berkeley, about the period of the Act reduced great quantities of
+ground into enclosures by procuring many releases of common land from
+freeholders.<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> His successor, Lord Maurice, was not so observant of
+legality. He had a wood wherein many of his tenants and freeholders
+had right of pasture. He wished to make this into a park, and treated
+with them for that purpose; but things not going smoothly, he made the
+wood into a park without their leave, and then treated with his
+tenants, most of whom perforce fell in with his highhanded plan; those
+who did not 'fell after upon his sonne with suits, in their small
+comfort and less gaines.'<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> Sometimes the rich made the law aid
+their covetousness, as did Roger Mortimer the paramour of the 'She
+Wolf of France'. Some men had common of pasture in King's Norton Wood,
+Worcestershire, who, when Mortimer enclosed part of their common land
+with a dike, filled the dike up, for they were deprived of their
+inheritance. Thereupon Mortimer brought an action of trespass against
+them 'by means of jurors dwelling far from the said land', who were
+put on the panel by his steward, who was also sheriff of the county,
+and the commoners were convicted and cast in damages of <i>&pound;</i>300, not
+daring to appear at the time for fear of assault, or even death.<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a>
+Neither dared they say a word about the matter till Mortimer was dead,
+when it is satisfactory to learn that Edward III gave them all their
+money back save 20 marks. We are told that Lord Maurice Berkeley
+consolidated much of his demesne lands, throwing together the
+scattered strips and exchanging those that lay far apart from the
+manor houses for those that lay near; trying evidently to get the home
+farms into a ring fence as we should term it.<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> In this policy he
+<a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>was followed by his successor Thomas the Second, who during his
+ownership of the estate from 1281 to 1320, to the great profit of his
+tenants and himself, encouraged them to make exchanges, so as to make
+their lands lie in convenient parcels instead of scattered strips, by
+which he raised the rent of an acre from 4<i>d.</i> and 6<i>d.</i> to 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a>
+There is a deed of enclosure made in the year 1250, preserved, by
+which the free men of North Dichton 'appropriated and divided between
+them and so kept for ever in fee all that place called Sywyneland,
+with the moor,' and they were to have licence to appropriate that
+place, which was common pasture (the boundaries of which are given),
+'save, however, to the grantor William de Ros and his heirs' common of
+pasture in a portion thereof named by bounds, with entry and exit for
+beasts after the wheat is carried. The men of North Dichton were also
+to have all the wood called Rouhowthwicke, and to do what they liked
+with it.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> In return they gave the lord 10 marks of silver and a
+concession as regards a certain wood. It has been noticed that the
+Black Death, besides causing many of the landlords to let their
+demesnes, also made them turn much tillage into grass to save labour,
+which had grown so dear. We have also seen that the statutes
+regulating wages were of little effect, and they went on rising, so
+that more land was laid down to grass. The landowners may be said to
+have given up ordinary farming and turned to sheep raising.</p>
+
+<p>English wool could always find a ready sale, although Spanish sheep
+farming had developed greatly; and the profitable trade of growing
+wool attracted the new capitalist class who had sprung up, so that
+they often invested their recently made fortunes in it, buying up many
+of the great estates that were scattered during the war.<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a></p>
+
+<p>The increase of sheep farming was assisted by the fact that <a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>the
+domestic system of the manufacture of wool, which supplanted the guild
+system, led, owing to its rapid and successful growth, to a constant
+and increasing demand for wool. At the same time this development of
+the cloth industry helped to alleviate the evils it had itself caused
+by giving employment to many whom the agricultural changes wholly or
+partially deprived of work. 'It is important to remember, that where
+peasant proprietorship and small farming did maintain their ground it
+was largely due to the domestic industries which supplemented the
+profits of agriculture.'<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a></p>
+
+<p>Much of the land laid down to grass was demesne land, but many of the
+common arable fields were enclosed and laid down. John Ross of Warwick
+about 1460 compares the country as he knew it with the picture
+presented by the Hundred Rolls in Edward I's time, showing how many
+villages had been depopulated; and he mentions the inconvenience to
+travellers in having to get down frequently to open the gates of
+enclosed fields.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a></p>
+
+<p>Enclosure was really a sure sign of agricultural progress; nearly all
+the agricultural writers from Fitzherbert onwards are agreed that
+enclosed land produced much more than uninclosed. Fitzherbert, in the
+first quarter of the sixteenth century, said an acre of land rented
+for 6<i>d.</i> uninclosed was worth 8<i>d.</i> when enclosed. Gabriel Plattes, in
+the seventeenth century, said an acre enclosed was worth four in
+common. In fact, the history of enclosures is part of the history of
+the great revolution in agriculture by which the manorial system was
+converted into the modern system as we know it to-day of several
+ownership and the triumvirate of landlord, tenant farmer, and
+labourer. No one could have objected to the enclosure of waste; it was
+that of the common arable fields and of the common pasture that
+excited the indignation of contemporaries. They saw many of the small
+holders displaced and the countryside <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>depopulated; many of the
+labourers were also thrown out of employment, for there was no need in
+enclosed fields of the swineherd and shepherd and oxherd who had
+tended the common flocks of the villagers in the old unfenced fields.
+But much of the opposition was founded on ignorance and hatred of
+change; England had been for ages mainly a corn-growing land, and,
+many thought, ought to remain so. As a matter of fact, what much of
+the arable land wanted was laying down to grass; it was worn out and
+needed a rest. The common field system was wasteful; the land, for
+instance, could never be properly ploughed, for the long narrow strips
+could not be cross-ploughed, and much of it must have suffered
+grievously from want of manure at a time when hardly any stock was
+kept in the winter to make manure. The beneficial effect of the rest
+is shown by the fact that at the end of the sixteenth century, when
+some of the land came to be broken up, the produce per acre of wheat
+had gone up largely.<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> Marling and liming the land, too, which had
+been the salvation of much of it for centuries, had gone out partly
+because of insecurity of tenure, partly because in the unsettled state
+of England men knew not if they could reap any benefit therefrom; and
+partly because, says Fitzherbert, men were lazier than their fathers.
+There can be no doubt that enclosures were often accompanied with
+great hardships and injustice. Dugdale, speaking of Stretton in
+Warwickshire,<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> says that in Henry VII's time Thomas Twyford,
+having begun the depopulation thereof, decaying four messuages and
+three cottages whereunto 160 acres of 'errable' land belonged, sold it
+to Henry Smith; which Henry, following that example, enclosed 640
+acres of land more, whereby twelve messuages and four cottages fell to
+ruins and eighty persons there inhabiting, being employed about
+tillage and husbandry, were constrained to depart thence and live
+miserably. By means whereof the church grew to <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>such ruin that it was
+of no other use than for the shelter of cattle. A sad picture, and
+true of many districts, but much of the depopulation ascribed to
+enclosures was due to the devastation of the Civil Wars.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of these enclosures, which began to change the England of
+open fields into the country we know of hedgerows and winding roads,
+great part of the land was in a wild and uncultivated state of fen,
+heath, and wood, the latter sometimes growing right up to the walls of
+the towns.<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> An unbroken series of woods and fens stretched right
+across England from Lincoln to the Mersey, and northwards from the
+Mersey to the Solway and the Tweed; Warwickshire, Northamptonshire,
+and Leicestershire were largely covered by forests, and Sherwood
+Forest extended over nearly the whole of Notts. Cannock Chase was
+covered with oaks, and in the forest of Needwood in Camden's time the
+neighbouring gentry eagerly pursued the cheerful sport of hunting. The
+great forest of Andredesweald, though much diminished, still covered a
+large part of Sussex, and the Chiltern district in Bucks and
+Oxfordshire was thick with woods which hid many a robber. The great
+fen in the east covered 300,000 acres of land in six counties, in
+spite of various efforts to reclaim the land, and was to remain in a
+state of marsh and shallow water till the seventeenth century.</p>
+
+<p>North and west of the great fen was Hatfield Chase, 180,000 acres
+mostly swamp and bog, with here and there a strip of cultivated land,
+much of which had been tilled and neglected; a great part too of
+Yorkshire was swamp, heath, and forest, and of Lancashire marshes and
+mosses, some of which were not drained till recent times. The best
+corn-growing counties were those lying immediately to the north of
+London, stretching from Suffolk to Gloucestershire, and including the
+southern portions of Staffordshire and Leicestershire; Essex was a
+<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>great cheese county; Hants, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, and
+Bedfordshire were famous for malt, and Leicestershire for peas and
+beans. The population of England in 1485 was probably from two to two
+and a half millions. At the time of Domesday it was under two
+millions, and from that date increased perhaps to nearly four millions
+at the time of the Black Death in 1348-9, which swept away from
+one-third to one-half of the people, and repeated wars and pestilences
+seem to have kept it from increasing until Tudor times. Of the whole
+population no fewer than eleven-twelfths were employed in
+agriculture.<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was sought to remedy enclosure and depopulation by legislation, and
+the statute of 4 Hen. VII, c. 19, was passed, which stated in its
+preamble that where in some towns (meaning townships or villages) 200
+persons used to be occupied and lived by their lawful labours, now
+there are occupied only two or three herdsmen, so that the residue
+fall into idleness, and husbandry is greatly decayed, churches
+destroyed, the bodies there buried not prayed for, the parsons and
+curates wronged, and the defence of this land enfeebled and impaired;
+the latter point being wisely deemed one of the most serious defects
+in the new system of farming. Indeed, the encouragement of tillage was
+largely prompted by the desire to see the people fed on good
+home-grown corn and made strong and healthy by rural labour for the
+defence of England. It therefore enacted that houses which within
+three years before had been let for farms with 20 acres of tillage
+land should be kept in that condition, under a penalty of forfeiting
+half the profits to the king or the lord of the fee. Soon after Henry
+VIII ascended the throne came another statute, 6 Hen. VIII, c. 5, that
+all townships, villages, &amp;c., decayed and turned from husbandry and
+tillage into pasture, shall by the owner be rebuilt and the land made
+mete for tillage within one year; and this <a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>was repeated and made
+perpetual by a law of the next year.<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a></p>
+
+<p>But legislation was in vain; the price of wool was now beginning to
+advance so that the attraction of sheep farming was irresistible, and
+laws, which asked landowners and farmers to turn from what was
+profitable to what was not, were little likely to be observed,
+especially as the administration of these laws was in the hands of
+those whose interest it was that they should not be observed.</p>
+
+<p>Their ill success, however, did not deter the Parliament from fresh
+efforts. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 13, sets forth the condition of affairs in
+its preamble: as many persons have accumulated into few, great
+multitude of farms and great plenty of cattle, especially sheep,
+putting such land as they can get into pasture, and enhanced the old
+rents and raised the prices of corn, cattle, wool, and poultry almost
+double, 'by reason whereof a mervaylous multitude and nombre of the
+people of this realme be not able to provide drynke and clothes
+necessary for themselves, but be so discoraged with myserie and
+povertie that they fall dayly to thefte and robberye or pitifully dye
+for hunger and colde.' So greedy and covetous were some of these
+accumulators that they had as many as 24,000 sheep; and a good sheep,
+that was used to be sold for 2<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> or 3<i>s.</i> at the most, was now from
+4<i>s.</i> to 6<i>s.</i>; and a stone of clothing wool, that in some shires was
+accustomed to be sold for 18<i>d.</i> or 20<i>d.</i>, is now 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> to 4<i>s.</i>; and in
+others, where it was 2<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> to 3<i>s.</i> it is now 4<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> to 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>It was therefore enacted that no man, with some exceptions, was to
+keep more than 2,000 sheep at one time in any part of the realm,
+though lambs under one year were not to count. The frequency of these
+laws proves their inefficacy, and the conduct of Henry VIII was the
+chief cause of it; for while Parliament was complaining of the
+decrease of tillage he gave huge tracts of land taken from the
+monasteries to greedy courtiers, <a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>who evicted the tenants and lived on
+the profits of sheep farming.<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> For the dissolution of the
+monasteries was now taking Place,<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> and the best landowners in
+England, some of whom farmed their own land long after most of the lay
+landlords had given it up or turned it into grass, and whose lands are
+said to have fetched a higher rent than any others, were robbed and
+ruined. Including the dissolution of the monasteries and the
+confiscation of the chantry lands in 1549 by Edward VI, about
+one-fifteenth of the land of England changed hands at this time. The
+transfer of the abbey lands to Henry's favourites was very prejudicial
+to farming; it was a source of serious dislocation of agricultural
+industry, marked by all the inconvenience, injustice, and loss that
+attends a violent transfer of property. It is probable also that many
+of the monastic lands were let on stock and land leases; and the stock
+was confiscated, with inevitable ruin to the tenant as well as the
+landlord.<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> And not only was a serious injury wrought to
+agriculture by the spoliation of a large number of landlords generally
+noted for their generosity and good farming, but with the religious
+houses disappeared a large number of consumers of country produce, the
+amount of which may be gathered from the following list of stores of
+the great Abbey of Fountains at the dissolution: 2,356 horned cattle,
+1,326 sheep, 86 horses, 79 swine, and large quantities of wheat, oats,
+rye, and malt, with 392 loads of hay.<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> It must indeed have seemed
+to many as if the poor farmer was never to have any rest; no sooner
+were the long wars over and pestilences in some sense diminished, than
+the evils of enclosure and the dissolution of the monasteries came
+upon him. Many ills were popularly ascribed to the fall of the
+monasteries; in an old ballad in Percy's <i>Reliques</i> one of the
+characters says, in western dialect:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">'Chill tell the what, good vellowe,<br /><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a></span>
+<span class="i1">Before the friers went hence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A bushel of the best wheate<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Was zold vor vorteen pence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And vorty eggs a penny<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That were both good and newe.'</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>NOTE.&mdash;If any further proof were needed of the constant attention
+given by Parliament to agricultural matters, it would be furnished by
+the Acts for the destruction of vermin.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> Our forefathers had no
+doubt that rooks did more harm than good, yearly destroying a
+'wonderfull and marvelous greate quantitie of corne and graine'; and
+destroying the 'covertures of thatched housery, bernes, rekes,
+stakkes, and other such like'; so that all persons were to do their
+best to kill them, 'on pain of a grevous amerciament'.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_88" id="Footnotes_88"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> Much the same tendencies were at work in other
+countries, especially in Germany.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> Slater, <i>English Peasantry and Enclosure</i>, 248.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> Smyth, <i>Lives of the Berkeleys</i>, i. 113.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> <i>Cal. Pat. Rolls</i>, 1331, p. 127.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> <i>Lives of the Berkeleys</i>, i. 141.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> Ibid. i. 141.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> <i>Lives of the Berkeleys</i>, i. 160.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> <i>Historical MSS. Commission, 6th Report</i>, p. 359.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 379.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> Ashley, <i>English Woollen Industry</i>, pp. 80-1. Broadly
+speaking, there are four stages in the development of industry&mdash;the
+family system, the guild system, the domestic system, and the factory
+system.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> <i>Hist. Reg. Angl.</i>, p. 120.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> Gisborne, <i>Agricultural Essays</i>, pp. 186-9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> <i>Antiquities of Warwickshire</i> 2nd ed., p. 51.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> Denton, <i>England in the Fifteenth Century</i>, p. 135.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> See Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 331;
+Denton, <i>England in the Fifteenth Century</i>, p. 127.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> 7 Hen. VIII, c. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 489.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> Dissolution of small monasteries, 1536; of greater,
+1539-40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>,
+iv. 129.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> Dugdale, <i>Monasticon</i>, v, 291.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> 24 Hen. VIII, c. 10; 8 Eliz. c. 15; 14 Eliz. c. 11; 39
+Eliz. c. 18.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>FITZHERBERT.&mdash;THE REGULATION OF HOURS AND WAGES</h3>
+
+<p>The farming of this period is portrayed for us by Fitzherbert, the
+first agricultural writer of any merit since Walter of Henley in the
+thirteenth century. He was one of the Justices of Common Pleas, and
+had been a farmer for forty years before he wrote his books on
+husbandry, and on surveying in 1523, so that he knew what he was
+writing about; 'there is nothing touching husbandry contained in this
+book but I have had experience thereof and proved the same.' In spite
+of the increase of grazing in his time he says the 'plough is the most
+necessarie instrument that an husbandman can occupy', and describes
+those used in various counties; in Kent, for instance, 'they have some
+go with wheeles as they do in many other places'; but the plough of
+his time is apparently the same as that of Walter of Henley, and
+altered little till the seventeenth century. The rudeness of it may be
+judged from the fact that in some places it only cost 10<i>d.</i> or 1<i>s.</i>
+though in other parts they were as much as 6<i>s.</i> or even 8<i>s.</i> He
+says<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> it was too costly for a farmer to buy all his implements,
+wherefore it is necessary for him to learn to make them, as he had
+done in the Middle Ages before the era of ready-made implements, when
+he always bought the materials and put them together at home. On the
+vexed question of whether to use horses or oxen for ploughing, he says
+it depends on the locality; for instance, oxen will plough in tough
+clay and upon hilly ground, whereas horses will stand still; but
+horses go <a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>faster than oxen on even ground and light ground, and are
+'quicke for carriages, but they be far more costly to keep in winter.'</p>
+
+<p>According to him, oxen had no shoes as horses had.<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> Here is his
+description of a harrow: it is 'made of six final peeces of timber
+called harow bulles, made either of ashe or oke; they be two yardes
+long, and as much as the small of a man's leg; in every bulle are five
+sharpe peeces of iron called harow tyndes, set somewhat a slope
+forward.' This harrow, drawn by oxen, was good to break the big clods,
+and then the horse harrow came after to break the smaller clods. It
+differed slightly from the former, some having wooden tines. For
+weeding corn the chief instrument 'is a pair of tongs made of wood,
+and in dry weather ye must have a weeding hoke with a socket set upon
+a staffe a yard long.'<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p>
+
+<p>He recommends that grass be mown early, for the younger and greener
+the grass is the softer and sweeter it will be when it is hay, and the
+seeds will be in it instead of fallen out as when left late; advice
+which many slovenly farmers need to-day. He does not approve of the
+custom of reaping rye and wheat high up and mowing them after, but
+advises that they be cut clean; barley and oats, however, should be
+commonly mown. Both wheat and rye were to be sown at Michaelmas, and
+were cast upon the fallow and ploughed under, two London bushels of
+wheat and rye being the necessary amount of seed per acre. In spite of
+his praise of the plough he allows that the sheep 'is the most
+profitablest cattel that a man can have', and he gives a list of their
+diseases, among the things that rot them being a grass called
+sperewort, another called peny grass, while marshy ground, mildewed
+grass, and grass growing upon fallow and therefore full of weeds were
+all conducive to rot. The chief cause, however, is mildew, the sign of
+whose presence is the honeydew on the oak leaves. In buying cattle to
+feed the purchaser is <a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>to see that the hair stare not, and that the
+beast lacks no teeth, has a broad rib, a thick hide, and be loose
+skinned, for if it stick hard to his ribs he will not feed<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a>; it
+should be handled to see if it be soft on the forecrop, behind the
+shoulder, on the hindermost rib upon the huck bone, and at the nache
+by the tail. Among other diseases of cattle he mentions the gout,
+'commonly in the hinder feet'; but he never knew a man who could find
+a remedy. He was a great advocate of enclosures; for it was much
+better to have several closes and pastures to put his cattle in, which
+should be well quick-setted, ditched, and hedged, so as to divide
+those of different ages, as this was more profitable than to have his
+cattle go before the herdsman (in the common field).</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen from the above that Fitzherbert made no idle boast in
+saying he wrote of what he knew, and much of his advice is applicable
+to-day, though the time is past for the farmer's wife to 'wynowe all
+manner of cornes, to make malte, to shere corne, and in time of nede
+to helpe her husbande to fyll the mucke wayne or dounge carte, dryve
+the plough, lode heye, corne, and such other'; though she may go or
+ride to the market 'to sel butter, cheese, milke, eggs, chekyns,
+hennes, and geese.'<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> It appears that the horses of England at this
+time had considerably deteriorated, for the statute 27 Hen. VIII, c.
+6, mentions the great decay of the breed, the cause it is stated being
+that 'in most places of this Realme little horsis and naggis of small
+stature and valeu be suffered to depasture and also to covour marys
+and felys of very small stature'; therefore owners and farmers of deer
+parks shall keep in every such park two brood mares of 13 'hand
+fulles' (hands) at least. Another statute, 32 Hen. VIII, c. 13, strove
+to remedy this evil by enacting that no entire horse under 15 hands
+was to feed on any forest, chase, waste, or common land.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>This statute was a useful one, so also was 21 Hen. VIII, c. 8, which
+forbade for three years the killing of calves between January 1 and
+May 1, under a penalty of 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>, because so many had been killed by
+'covetous persons' that the cattle of the country were dwindling in
+number. Others, however, were merely meddlesome, and directed against
+that unpopular man the dealer. For instance, owners refusing to sell
+cattle at assessed prices were to answer first in the Star Chamber (25
+Hen. VIII, c. 1); and by 3 and 4 Edw. VI, c. 19, no cattle were to be
+bought but in open fair or market, and not to be resold then alive,
+though a man might buy cattle anywhere for his own use. No person,
+again, was to resell cattle within five weeks after he bought them (5
+Edw. VI, c. 14); and a common drover had by the same Act to have a
+licence from three justices before he could buy and sell cattle. We
+may be sure that these laws were more honoured in the breach than in
+the observance, as they deserved to be.</p>
+
+<p>Hops were said to have been introduced from the Low Countries about
+the middle of Henry VIII's reign; but there can be no doubt that this
+is a mistake. It has been mentioned that they flourished in the
+gardens of Edward I, and a distinguished authority<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> says the hop
+may with probability be reckoned a native of Britain; but it was first
+used as a salad or vegetable for the table, the young sprouts having
+the flavour of asparagus and coming earlier. Hasted, the historian of
+Kent, states<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> that a petition was presented to Parliament against
+the hop plant in 1428 wherein it was called a 'wicked weed'. Harrison
+says, 'Hops in time past were plentiful in this land, afterwards their
+maintenance did cease, and now (cir. 1580) being revived where are
+anie better to be found?'<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> Even then growers had to face foreign
+competition, as the customs accounts prove that considerable
+quantities were <a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>imported into England. In 1482 a cwt. was sold for 8<i>s.</i>
+and 1 cwt. 21 lb. for 19<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, an early example of that fluctuation
+in price which has long characterized them.<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> Their average price
+about this time seems to have been 14<i>s.</i> <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> a cwt.</p>
+
+<p>During the Tudor period the number of day labourers increased, largely
+owing to the enclosures having deprived the small holder and commoner
+of their land and rights. But judging by the statutes those paid
+yearly and boarded in the farm house were still most numerous.</p>
+
+<p>In 1495 the hours of labourers were first regulated by law. The
+statute II Hen. VII, c. 22, says that 23 Hen. VI, c. 12,<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> was
+insufficiently observed; and besides increasing wages slightly set
+forth the following hours for work on the farm: the labourer was to be
+at his work from the middle of March to the middle of September before
+5 a.m., and have half an hour for breakfast and an hour and a half for
+dinner and sleep, when sleep was allowed, that is from the middle of
+May to the middle of August; when sleep was not allowed, an hour for
+dinner and half an hour for his nonemete or lunch; and he was to work
+till between 7 and 8 p.m. During the rest of the year he was to work
+from daylight to dark. The attempt to regulate hours, which seem fair
+and reasonable, no doubt met with better success than that to regulate
+wages, for 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3 (1514), says the previous statutes had
+been very much disregarded, and sets down the rates once more:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>A bailiff's yearly wages, with diet, were to be not more
+  than <i>&pound;</i>1 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>, and 5<i>s.</i> for clothes.<br />
+A chief hind, carter, or chief shepherd, with diet, not more
+  than <i>&pound;</i>1, and 5<i>s.</i> for clothes.<br />
+A common servant or labourer, with diet, not more than
+  16<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>, and 4<i>s.</i> for clothes.<br />
+A woman servant, with diet, not more than 10<i>s.</i>, and 4<i>s.</i>
+  for clothes.</p></div>
+
+<p>By the day, except in harvest, a common labourer from <a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>Easter to
+Michaelmas was to have 2<i>d.</i> with food and drink, 4<i>d.</i> without; and from
+Michaelmas to Easter 1<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> with food and drink, and 3<i>d.</i> without. In
+harvest:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>A mower, with food, 4<i>d.</i> a day; without, 6<i>d.</i><br />
+A reaper, with food, 3<i>d.</i> a day; without, 5<i>d.</i><br />
+A carter, with food, 3<i>d.</i>; without, 5<i>d.</i><br />
+Other labourers, with food, 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>; without, 4<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i><br />
+Women, with food, 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>; without, 4<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_94" id="Footnotes_94"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> <i>Booke of Husbandry</i> (ed. 1568), fol. 5. The surveyor
+of Fitzherbert's day combined some of the duties of the modern bailiff
+and land agent: he bought and sold for his employer, valued his
+property, and supervised the rents.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> <i>Booke of Husbandry</i> (ed. 1568), fol. vi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> Ibid. fol. xv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> <i>Booke of Husbandry</i> (ed. 1568), fol. xxix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> Fitzherbert adds pigs and all manner of cornes, so
+altogether the farmer's wife seems to have done as much as the farmer.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> Sir Jas. E. Smith, <i>English Flora</i>, iv. 241.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> <i>History of Kent</i> (ed. 1778), i. 123.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> <i>Description of Britain</i> (Furnivall ed.), p. 325.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>,
+iii. 254.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> See above.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>1540-1600</h3>
+
+<h3>PROGRESS AT LAST.&mdash;HOP-GROWING.&mdash;PROGRESS OF ENCLOSURE.&mdash;HARRISON'S
+'DESCRIPTION'</h3>
+
+
+<p>The period we have now reached was one of steady growth in the value
+of land and its products. In 1543 Henry VIII, who had given away or
+squandered, in addition to the great treasure left him by his thrifty
+father, all the wealth obtained from the dissolution of the
+monasteries, debased the coinage in order to get more money into his
+insatiable hands, and prices went up in consequence. But there were
+other causes: the influx of precious metals from newly discovered
+America into Europe had commenced to make itself felt, and the
+population of the country began to grow steadily. Also, it must not be
+forgotten that the seasons, which in the early part of the century had
+been normal, were for the next sixty years frequently rainy and bad.
+It is unnecessary to say that this must have largely helped to raise
+the price of corn. The average price of wheat from 1540-1583 was 13<i>s.</i>
+10<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> a quarter; from 1583-1702, 39<i>s.</i> 0<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> Corn was still
+subject to extraordinary fluctuations: in 1557, Holinshed says before
+harvest wheat was 53<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> a quarter, malt 44<i>s.</i> After harvest wheat
+was 5<i>s.</i>, malt 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>, the former prices being due to a terrible
+drought in England. Oxen in the period 1583-1703 were worth 75<i>s.</i>
+instead of under <i>&pound;</i>1 in the period 1400-1540. Wool was from 9<i>d.</i> to 1<i>s.</i>
+a lb. instead of about 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>, and all other farm products increased
+with these.<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> Hops were from 1540-1582 about 26<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> a cwt., and
+from 1583-1700, 82<i>s.</i> 9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> In 1574 Reynold Scott <a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>published the first
+English treatise on hops,<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> in which he says, 'one man may well
+keep 2,000 hils, upon every hil well ordered you shall have 3 lb. of
+hoppes at the least, one hundred pounds of these hoppes are commonly
+worth 26<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>, one acre of ground and the third part of one man's
+labour with small cost beside, shall yield unto him that ordereth the
+same well, fortie marks yearly and that for ever,' an optimistic
+estimate that many growers to-day would like to see realized. 'In the
+preparation of a hop garden', says the same writer, 'if your ground be
+grasse, it should be first sowen with hempe or beanes which maketh the
+ground melowe, destroyeth weedes, and leaveth the same in good season
+for this purpose.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> At the end of Marche, repayre to some good
+garden to compound with the owner for choice rootes, which in some
+places will cost 5<i>d.</i> an hundredth. And now you must choose the biggest
+rootes you can find, such as are three or four inches about, and let
+every root be nine or ten inches long, and contain three joints.'
+Holes were then to be dug at least 8 feet apart, one foot square, and
+one foot deep, and in each two or three roots planted and well hilled
+up. Tusser, however, recommended them much closer:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">'Five foot from another each hillock should stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As straight as a levelled line with the hand.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Let every hillock be four foot wide.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Three poles to a hillock, I pas not how long,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shall yield the more profit set deeplie and strong.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Three or four poles were to be set to each hill 15 or 16 feet long,
+unless the ground was very rich, the poles 9 or 10 inches in
+circumference at the butt, so as to last longer and stand the wind
+well. After they were put up, the ground <a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>round the poles was to be
+well rammed. Rushes or grass were used for tieing the hops. During
+the growth of the hops, not more than two or three bines were to be
+allowed to each pole; and after the first year the hills were to be
+gradually raised from the alleys between the rows until, according to
+the illustrations in Scott's book, they were 3 or 4 feet high, the
+'greater you make your hylles the more hoppes you shall have upon
+your poals'. When the time for picking came, the bines when cut were
+carried to a 'floore prepared for the purpose', apparently of
+hardened earth, where they were stripped into baskets, and Scott
+thought that 'it is not hurtfull greatly though the smaller leaves be
+mingled with the hoppes'. In wet weather the hops were to be stripped
+in the house. The fire for drying hops was of wood, and some dried
+their hops in the sun, both processes to us appearing very risky; as
+the first would be too quick, and the latter next to impossible in
+September in England. They were sometimes packed in barrels, as
+Tusser tells us, 'Some close them up drie in a hogshead or vat, yet
+canvas or sontage (coarse cloth) is better than that.'</p>
+
+<p>By this time England had largely changed from a corn-growing to a
+stock-raising country; Harrison, writing in the middle of Queen
+Elizabeth's reign, says, 'the soile of Britaine is more inclined
+to feeding and grazing than profitable for tillage and bearing of
+corne ... and such store is there of cattle in everie place that the
+fourth part of the land is scarcely manured for the provision of
+graine.' But this statement seems exaggerated. We know that by
+Harrison's time enclosures had affected but a small area, and the
+greater part of the cultivated land was in open arable fields. The
+yield of corn was now much greater than in the Middle Ages; rye or
+wheat well tilled and dressed now produced 15 to 20 bushels to the
+acre instead of 6 or 8, barley 36 bushels, oats 4 or 5 quarters<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a>,
+though in the north, which was still greatly behind the rest of
+<a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>England, crops were smaller. No doubt this was partly due to the
+much-abused enclosures: the industrious farmer could now do what he
+liked with his own, without hindrance from his lazy or unskilful
+neighbour. Tusser's preference for the 'several' field is very
+decided; comparing it with the 'champion' or common field he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">The countrie inclosed I praise<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">the tother delighteth me not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">There swineherd that keepeth the hog<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">there neetherd with cur and his horne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">There shepherd with whistle and dog<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">be fence to the medowe and corne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">There horse being tide on a balke<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">is readie with theefe for to walke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Where all things in common doth reste<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">corne field with the pasture and meade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Tho' common ye do for the best<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">yet what doth it stand ye in steade?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">More plentie of mutton and beefe<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">corne butter and cheese of the best<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">More wealth any where (to be briefe)<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">more people, more handsome and prest (neat.)<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Where find ye? (go search any coaste)<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">than there where enclosure is most.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">More work for the labouring man<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">as well in the towne as the fielde.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For commons these commoners crie<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">inclosing they may not abide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Yet some be not able to bie<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">a cow with her calf by her side.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Nor laie (intend) not to live by their wurke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But thievishly loiter and lurke.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">What footpaths are made and how brode<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Annoiance too much to be borne,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With horse and with cattle what rode<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">is made thorowe erie man's come.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But the rich graziers boasted that they did not grow corn because
+they could buy it cheaper in the market; and they are said to have
+traded on the necessity of the poor <a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>farmer to sell at Michaelmas in
+order to pay his rent, and when they had got the corn into their
+hands they raised the price. The corn-dealers of the time were looked
+upon with dislike by every one; many of the dearths then so frequent,
+and nearly always caused by bad seasons, were ascribed to 'engrossers
+buying of corn and witholding it for sale'. By a statute of 1552 the
+freedom of internal corn trade was entirely suppressed, and no one
+could carry corn from one part of England to another without a
+licence, and any one who bought corn to sell it again was liable to
+two months' imprisonment and forfeited his corn. Although we shall
+see that this policy was reversed in the next century, the feeling
+against corn-dealers survived for many years and was loudly
+expressed during the Napoleonic war; indeed, we may doubt if it
+is extinct to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the fruits and garden produce, which had been neglected since
+the first Edward, had by now come into use again, 'not onlie among the
+poor commons, I meane of melons, pompions, gourds, cucumbers,
+radishes, skirets (probably a sort of carrot), parsneps, carrots,
+cabbages, navewes (turnip radishes (?)), turnips,<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> and all kinds
+of salad herbes, but also at the tables of delicate merchants,
+gentlemen, and the nobilitie.'<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p>
+
+<p>'Also we have most delicate apples, plummes, pears, walnuts, filberts,
+&amp;c., and those of sundrie sorts, planted within fortie years past, in
+comparison of which most of the old trees are nothing worth: so have
+we no less store of strange fruite, as abricotes, almonds, peaches,
+figges, cornetrees (probably cornels) in noblemen's orchards. I have
+seen capers, orenges, and lemmons, and heard of wild olives growing
+here, besides other strange trees.'<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a></p>
+
+<p>As a proof of the growth of grass in proportion to tillage <a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>between
+the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, Eden gives several
+examples,<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> of which the following are significant:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>Arable.</i></td><td align='right'><i>Grass.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>acres.</i></td><td align='right'><i>acres.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1339. 18 messuages in Norfolk had</td>
+  <td align='right'>160&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>60&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1354. a Norfolk manor </td>
+  <td align='right'>300&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>59&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1395. 2 messuages in Warwickshire </td>
+  <td align='right'>400&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>60&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1560. 2 messuages in Warwickshire </td>
+  <td align='right'>600&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>660&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1567. a Norfolk estate </td>
+  <td align='right'>200&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>400&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1569. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; manor</td>
+  <td align='right'>60&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>60&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>'Our sheepe are very excellent for sweetness of flesh, and our woolles
+are preferred before those of Milesia and other places.'<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> So
+thought Harrison and many English landowners and farmers too, so that
+legislation was powerless to stop the spread of sheep farming. In 1517
+a commission of inquiry instigated by Wolsey held inquisition on
+enclosures and the decay of tillage, and it seems to have been the
+only honest effort to stop the evil. It was to inquire what decays,
+conversions, and park enclosures had been made since 1489, but the
+result even of this attempt was small. In 1535 a fresh statute, 27
+Hen. VIII, c. 22, stated that the Act limiting the number of sheep to
+be kept had only been observed on lands held of the king, whereon many
+houses had been rebuilt and much pasture reconverted to tillage; but
+on lands holden of other lords this was not the case, therefore the
+king was to have the moiety of the profits of such lands as had been
+converted from tillage to pasture since 4 Hen. VII until a proper
+house was built and the land returned to tillage; but the Act only
+applied to fourteen counties therein enumerated. The enclosing for
+sheep-runs still went on, however, often with ruthless selfishness;
+houses and townships were levelled, says Sir Thomas More, and nothing
+left standing except the church, which was turned into a sheep-house:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>'The towns go down, the land decays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of corn-fields plain lays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Great men maketh nowadays<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A sheepcot of the church',<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>said a contemporary ballad.</p>
+
+<p>Latimer wrote, 'where there were a great many householders and
+inhabitants there is now but a shepherd and his dog.' 'I am sorie to
+report it,' says Harrison,<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> 'but most sorrowful of all to
+understand that men of great port and countenance are so far from
+suffering their farmers to have anie gaine at all that they themselves
+become graziers, butchers, tanners, sheepmasters, and woodmen, thereby
+to enrich themselves.' The Act against pulling down farmhouses was
+evaded by repairing one room for the use of a shepherd; a single
+furrow was driven across a field to prove it was still under the
+plough; to avoid holding illegal numbers of sheep flocks were held in
+the names of sons and servants.<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> The country swarmed with heaps of
+miserable paupers, 'sturdy and valiant' beggars, and thieves who,
+though hanged twenty at a time on a single gallows, still infested all
+the countryside, their numbers being swollen by the dissolution of the
+monasteries and the breaking up of the bands of retainers kept by the
+great nobles.</p>
+
+<p>Rents also were rising rapidly. Latimer's account of his father's farm
+is too well known to be again quoted; his opinions were shared by all
+the writers of the day. Sir William Forrest, about 1540, says that
+landlords now demand fourfold rents, so that the farmer has to raise
+his prices in proportion, and beef and mutton were so dear that a poor
+man could not 'bye a morsell'. 'Howe joyne they lordshyp to
+lordshyppe, manner to manner, ferme to ferme. How do the rych men, and
+especially such as be shepemongers, oppresse the king's people by
+devourynge their common pastures with <a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>the shepe so that the poore are
+not able to keepe a cowe, but are like to starve. And yet when was
+beef ever so dere or mutton, wool now 8<i>s.</i> a stone.</p>
+
+<p>'Now', says another, later in the century, 'I can never get a horse
+shoed under 10<i>d.</i> or 12<i>d.</i>, when I have also seen the common pryce was
+6<i>d.</i> And cannot your neighbour remember that within these thirty years
+I could bye the best pigge or goose that I could lay my hand on for
+four pence which now costeth 12<i>d.</i>, a good capon for 3<i>d.</i> or 4<i>d.</i>, a hen
+for 2<i>d.</i>, which now costeth me double and triple.'<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a></p>
+
+<p>Parliament, of course, tried to regulate the price of food; an Act of
+1532, 24 Hen. VIII, c. 3, ordained that beef and pork should be <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>
+a lb. and mutton and veal <sup>5</sup>/<sub>8</sub><i>d.</i> a lb. The decrease in the number of
+cows also received its attention; 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 3,
+states that forasmuch of late years a great number of persons have fed
+in their pastures sheep and cattle with no regard to breeding, so that
+there was great scarcity of stock, therefore for every 60 sheep kept
+one milk cow shall be kept, and for every 120 sheep one calf shall be
+bred, and for every 10 head of horned cattle shall be kept one milk
+cow, and for every two cows so kept one calf shall be bred. The Act
+was to last seven years, but 13 Eliz. c. 25 made it perpetual.</p>
+
+<p>In 1549 came the rising of Robert Kett in Norfolk, the last attempt of
+the English labourer to obtain redress of his wrongs by force of arms,
+though Kett himself belonged to the landlord class and took the side
+of the people probably by accident. The petition of grievances drawn
+up by his followers aimed at diminishing the power of lords of manors
+as regards enclosures, the keeping of dove-cots, and other feudal
+wrongs. 'We pray', said the insurgents, 'that all bondmen may be made
+free, for God made all free with His precious blood-shedding.' The
+rebellion came to nothing, and some of <a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>the abuses at which it was
+aimed were dying a natural death, though enclosure often acted hardly
+on the poor man.</p>
+
+<p>The manorial system went on steadily decaying, and by this time the
+demesne lands had much diminished in area on most manors. Many parcels
+had been sold to the new landlord class, who had made their fortunes
+in the towns and, like most Englishmen, desired to become country
+gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>Much of the demesne had been sold in small lots to well-off tradesmen,
+and as the villeins had become copyholders a large part of the land
+was owned or occupied by yeomen or tenant farmers, who cultivated from
+20 to 150 acres. Many of the labourers also owned or rented cottages
+with 4 or 5 acres attached to them. Such was the rural society at the
+end of the Tudor period. The progress of enclosures helped to destroy
+this, for the labourers gradually ceased to own or occupy land, farms
+increased in size, the ownership of land came to be more and more the
+privilege of the rich, and people flocked in increasing numbers to the
+towns.<a name="FNanchor_227A_227" id="FNanchor_227A_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227A_227" class="fnanchor">[227a]</a> In five Norfolk manors in Elizabeth's time only from
+one-seventh to one-tenth was in demesne, and little of what was left
+was farmed by the lord, but let to farmers on leases.<a name="FNanchor_227B_228" id="FNanchor_227B_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_227B_228" class="fnanchor">[227b]</a> On some
+manors the demesne land lay in compact blocks near the manor house; on
+others it was in scattered strips of various size; in others it lay in
+blocks and strips. The following particulars of a manor in Norfolk
+give a good picture of an estate in 1586-8, the tenants on it, their
+rank, and the size of their holdings:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'>Horstead with Staninghall, 2,746 acres.</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='left'>The tenants with messuages in the village were:&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>Acres.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>1.</td><td align='left'> J. Topliffe, gentleman</td><td align='right'>280</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>2.</td><td align='left'> F. Woodhouse, Esquire</td><td align='right'>270</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>3.</td><td align='left'> R. Ward, gentleman</td><td align='right'>265</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>4.</td><td align='left'> H. Shreve </td><td align='right'>180</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>5.</td><td align='left'> A. Pightling, widow</td><td align='right'>120</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>6.</td><td align='left'> W. Rose's heirs</td><td align='right'>110</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>7.</td><td align='left'> G. Berde </td><td align='right'> 60<a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>8.</td><td align='left'> A. Thetford, gentleman</td><td align='right'>60</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>9.</td><td align='left'> T. Pightling</td><td align='right'>60</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>10.</td><td align='left'> R. Pightling </td><td align='right'> 60</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>11.</td><td align='left'> J. Rose </td><td align='right'>40</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>12.</td><td align='left'> R. Lincoln</td><td align='right'>40</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>13.</td><td align='left'> W. Jeckell </td><td align='right'> 20</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>14.</td><td align='left'> W. Bulwer </td><td align='right'>20</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>15.</td><td align='left'> E. Newerby, gentleman</td><td align='right'>15</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>16.</td><td align='left'> T. Barnard </td><td align='right'> 12</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>17.</td><td align='left'> E. Sparke </td><td align='right'>10</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>There were also 12 tenants without houses, holding from 1 to 20
+acres; the demesne was 230 acres; there were two glebes containing 84
+acres, and town lands of 7 acres. The waste amounted to 350 acres,
+which by 1599 had all disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>On this manor the houses were not collected together in a village as
+usual in most parts of England, but scattered about the estate. In
+two other manors the amount of waste remaining at this period was
+very small, but in three others little had been 'approved' and much
+consequently remained; most of the 'approvements', where made, seem
+to have been of long standing, and all the enclosures made were for
+tillage, not for grass as we should expect. The 350 acres of waste
+that remained at Horstead in 1586-8 was enclosed in 1599 by agreement
+between the lords of the manor and the tenants on the following
+terms:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>1. Lords to take 80 acres in severalty.<br />
+
+2. Lords to reserve all rights to treasure trove, minerals,
+waifs, &amp;c., with right of entry to take the same.<br />
+
+3. All rights of pasture, shack, and foldage were to be
+extinguished on all lands in the village.<br />
+
+4. The tenants were to pay an annual quit rent of <i>&pound;</i>7 14<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i>
+for their shares of the common.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Before a man enclosed he consolidated his holding by exchange, so as
+to bring it into a compact parcel instead of scattered strips, a very
+lengthy process; then he ploughed up the bounds between the strips;
+after which he changed the direction of the ploughing, ploughing the
+land crossways, a very necessary change, as it had all been ploughed
+lengthways <a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>for centuries; and lastly he erected his fences: the
+bounds of the strips, however, were sometimes left to show which were
+freehold and which copyhold. On the other hand, there were exceptions
+to the curtailment of the demesne: on an Oxfordshire manor of the
+sixteenth century the greater part of the 64 yard-lands of which it
+consisted had by then passed from the possession of the peasants to
+the private use of the lord of the manor.<a name="FNanchor_228_229" id="FNanchor_228_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_229" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> To each yard-land
+belonged a house and farmyard, 24 to 28<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub>&nbsp;acres of arable land, a
+share in the commonable meadows which for each occupier came to some 8
+acres, also the right to turn out 8 oxen or cows, or 6 horses and 40
+sheep on to the common pasture. Probably, as in other manors in
+ancient times, each occupier had a right to as much firewood as was
+necessary, and timber for building purposes and fences. The arable
+land lay in numerous small plots of half an acre each and less,
+mingled together in a state of great confusion, and was farmed on the
+four-field system&mdash;wheat, beans, oats, fallow&mdash;though 200 years before
+the three-field system had been most common in the district. Many of
+the common arable fields evidently often contained, in those days of
+poor cultivation and inefficient drainage, patches of boggy and poor
+land which were left uncultivated.<a name="FNanchor_229_230" id="FNanchor_229_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_230" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> In the rolls of the Manor of
+Scotter in Lincolnshire, in the early part of the sixteenth century,
+no one was to allow his horses to depasture in the arable fields
+unless they were tethered on these bad spots to prevent them wandering
+into the growing corn.<a name="FNanchor_230_231" id="FNanchor_230_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_231" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> Many of the other regulations of this
+manor throw a flood of light on the farming of the day. In 1557 it was
+ordered that no man should drive his cattle unyoked through the
+corn-field under a penalty of 3<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>Every man shall keep a
+sufficient fence against his neighbour under the same penalty. No man
+shall make a footpath over the corn-field, the penalty for so doing
+being 4<i>d.</i> Every one shall both ring and yoke their swine before S.
+Ellen's Day (probably May 3), under a penalty of 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>, the custom
+of yoking swine to prevent them breaking fences being common until
+recent times. It was the custom in some manors to sow peas in a plot
+especially set apart for the poor. Another rule was that no one should
+bake or brew by night for fear of burning down the flimsy houses and
+buildings. The penalty for ploughing up the balks which divided the
+strips, or meere (marc) furrows as they were called in Lincolnshire,
+was 2<i>d.</i>, a very light one for so serious an offence. In 1565 a penalty
+of 10<i>s.</i> was imposed on Thomas Dawson for breaking his hemp, i.e.
+separating the fibre from the bark in his large open chimney on winter
+nights, a habit which the manor courts severely punished owing to the
+risk of fire, for hemp refuse is very inflammable. It 1578 it was laid
+down that every one was to sow the outside portion of their arable
+lands, and not leave it waste for weeds to the damage of his
+neighbours; and that those who were too poor to keep sheep should not
+gather wool before 8 o'clock in the morning, in reference to the
+custom of allowing the poor to pick refuse wool found on bushes and
+thorns, and this rule was to prevent them tearing wool from the sheep
+at night under that pretext. No man was to keep any beasts apart from
+the herdsman, for if the herdsman did not know the animals he could
+not tell them from strays. Every one was to sweep their chimney four
+times a year, for fear of sparks falling on the thatch. No man was to
+suffer the nests of crows or magpies in his ground, but pull them down
+before May Day. In the meadows, before each man began to mow his grass
+he was to mark the exact limits of his own land with 'wadsticks' or
+tall rods, so that there could be no mistake as to boundaries. The
+health of the community and of the live stock also received attention:
+in 1583 <a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>one Pattynson was fined 1<i>s.</i> for allowing a 'scabbed' horse to
+go on the common; dead cattle were to be buried the day after death,
+and all unwholesome meat was to be buried.</p>
+
+<p>Harrison praises the farmer of his day highly: 'the soyle is even now
+in these oure dayes growne to be much more fruitfulle; the cause is
+that our country men are grown more skilful and careful throwe
+recompense of gayne.' He was also doing well by means of his skill and
+care; and in spite of the raising of rents by the much-abused
+landlords; for in former times 'for all their frugality they were
+scarcely able to live and pay their rents on rent day without selling
+a cow or a horse'. Such also used to be their poverty, that if a
+farmer went to the alehouse, 'a thing greatly used in those days,' and
+there, 'in a braverie to show what store he had, did caste downe his
+purse and therein a noble or 6 shillings in silver unto them, it was
+very likely that all the rest could not lay downe so much against it.'
+And In Henry's time, though rents of <i>&pound;</i>4 had increased to <i>&pound;</i>40, <i>&pound;</i>50, or
+<i>&pound;</i>100, yet the farmer generally had at the end of his term saved six or
+seven years' rent, besides a 'fair garnish of pewter on his cupboard',
+and odd vessels, also 'three or four feather beds, so manie coverlids
+and carpets of tapestry, a silver salt, a bowle for wine, and a dozzen
+of spoones to furnish up the sute'. His food consisted principally of
+beef, and 'such food as the butcher selleth', mutton, veal, lamb,
+pork, besides souse, brawn, bacon, fruit, fruit pies, cheese, butter,
+and eggs.<a name="FNanchor_231_232" id="FNanchor_231_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_232" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> In feasting, the husbandman or farmer exceeded,
+especially at bridals, purifications of women, and such other
+meetings, where 'it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and
+spent'. But, besides these, there were many poorer farmers who lived
+at home 'with hard and pinching diet'. Wheaten bread was at this time
+a luxury confined to the gentility, the farmer's loaf, according to
+Tusser, was sometimes wheat, sometimes rye, sometimes <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>mastlin, a
+mixture of wheat and rye, though the poorer farmer on uninclosed land
+ate bread made of beans.</p>
+
+<p>The poor ate bread of rye or barley, and in time of dearth of beans,
+peas, and oats, and sometimes acorns.<a name="FNanchor_232_233" id="FNanchor_232_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_233" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> According to Tusser, the
+labourer was allowed roast meat twice a week,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">'Good plowmen looke weekly of custom and right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For roast meate on Sundaies, and Thursdaies at night';<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and Latimer calls bacon 'the necessary meate' of the labourer, and it
+seems to have been his great stand-by then as now. The bread and bacon
+were supplemented largely by milk and porridge.<a name="FNanchor_233_234" id="FNanchor_233_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_234" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> The statute, 24
+Hen. VIII, c. 3, says that all food, and especially beef, mutton,
+pork, and veal, 'which is the common feeding of mean and poor
+persons.' was too dear for them to buy, and fixed the price of beef
+and pork at <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> a lb. and of mutton and veal at <sup>5</sup>/<sub>8</sub><i>d.</i> a lb.; but the
+statute, like others of the kind, was of little avail, and the price
+of beef was in the middle of the sixteenth century about 1<i>d.</i> a lb. or
+8<i>d.</i> in our money. As the average price of wheat at the same date was
+14<i>s.</i> a quarter, or about 112<i>s.</i> in our money, fresh meat was
+comparatively much cheaper, and it is no wonder that even the farmer
+could not afford wheaten bread regularly. Moryson, writing in
+Elizabeth's reign, says 'Englishmen eate barley and rye brown bread,
+and prefer it to white as abiding longer in the stomeck and not so
+soon digested'.<a name="FNanchor_234_235" id="FNanchor_234_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_235" class="fnanchor">[234]</a></p>
+
+<p>A tithe dispute at North Luffenham in Rutlandshire throws considerable
+light on the financial position of the various classes interested in
+the land about 1576. At the trial several witnesses were examined, who
+all made statements as to the amount of their worldly wealth, and it
+is a noteworthy fact that even the humblest had saved something;
+perhaps because there was no poor law or State pension fund to
+discourage thrift.<a name="FNanchor_235_236" id="FNanchor_235_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_236" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> Thomas Blackburne, a husbandman, who <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>had
+served his master as 'chief baylie of his husbandrie', had at the end
+of a long life saved <i>&pound;</i>40. Another, William Walker, eighty years of
+age, during forty years of service to Mr. John Wymarke had put by <i>&pound;</i>10.
+Robert Sculthorp, who had at one time been a farmer, was worth <i>&pound;</i>26 6<i>s.</i>
+8<i>d.</i>, but the size of his farm is unfortunately not told us. Roland
+Wymarke, a gentleman farmer, who had farmed for forty years at North
+Luffenham, was little better off than Thomas Blackburne, the baylie,
+for he estimated his capital at <i>&pound;</i>50. <i>&pound;</i>50, however, must not be taken
+as representing the average wealth of a 'gentleman', though a few
+hundred pounds was then considered a considerable fortune. In 1577
+Thomas Corny, a prosperous landlord at Bassingthorpe, Lincolnshire,
+had a house with a hall, three parlours, seven chambers, a high
+garret, maid's garret, five chambers for yeomen hinds, shepherd, &amp;c.,
+two kitchens, two larders, milk-house, brew-house, buttery, and
+cellar; and it was furnished with tables, carpets, cushions, pictures,
+beds, curtains, chairs, chests, and numerous kitchen and other
+utensils, besides a quantity of plate, which was then looked upon not
+only as a useful luxury but as a safe form of investment. The small
+squire was not nearly so well off as this. In 1527 the house of John
+Asfordby, who was of that degree, contained a hall, parlour, small
+parlour, low parlour, a chamber over the parlour, gallery chamber,
+buttery, and kitchen, and furniture was scanty, but the plate cupboard
+was well filled.<a name="FNanchor_236_237" id="FNanchor_236_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_237" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> A prosperous yeoman was often comparatively
+better off than the small squire. Richard Cust, of Pinchbeck in the
+same county, though his house was small, consisting only of a hall,
+parlour with chamber over, kitchen with chamber over, brew-house,
+milne-house (mill-house), and milk-house, was richer in furniture,
+possessing a folding-table, 4 chairs, 6 cushions, 27 pieces of pewter,
+10 candlesticks, 4 basins, 1 laver, 6 beds, and other articles.<a name="FNanchor_237_238" id="FNanchor_237_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_238" class="fnanchor">[237]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_109" id="Footnotes_109"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> See table at end, and Thorold Rogers's prices in Vol.
+V. of his great work.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> 'A perfite platforme of a Hoppegarden', in <i>Arte of
+Gardening</i>, by R. Scott, 1574.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> Tusser recommends that the hopyard be dug. Thomas
+Tusser was born in Essex, about 1525, and died in 1580. He led a
+roving life, which included a good deal of farming; but the statement
+that he died poor appears to be inaccurate. Much of his advice is not
+very valuable.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> Harrison, <i>Description of Britain</i>, p. 110.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> Usually grown in gardens, until the middle of the
+seventeenth century. Tusser also mentions them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> <i>Description of Britain</i>, ii. 324 (Furnivall ed.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> Harrison, <i>Description of Britain</i>, ii. 329.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> <i>State of the Poor</i>, i. 48-9. Blomefield's <i>Norfolk</i>,
+iv. 569, i. 51, i. 649. Dugdale, <i>Warwickshire</i>, p. 557.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> <i>Description of Britain</i>, iii. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> <i>Description of Britain</i> (ed. Furnivall), ii. 243.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> Froude, <i>History of England</i>, v. III.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> 'A compendious or brief examination of certain ordinary
+complaints', quoted by Eden, <i>State of the Poor</i>, 1. 119.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227A_227" id="Footnote_227A_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227A_227"><span class="label">[227a]</span></a> <i>Transactions of the Royal Historical Society</i> (New
+Series), xix. 103.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227B_228" id="Footnote_227B_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227B_228"><span class="label">[227b]</span></a> Ibid. xi. 74 sq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_229" id="Footnote_228_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_229"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> Nasse, <i>Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages</i>, p.
+9. <i>Archaeologia</i>, xxxiii. 270.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_230" id="Footnote_229_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_230"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> In the still surviving open fields at Laxton, mentioned
+above, there are certain unploughed portions called 'sicks', or grassy
+patches, never cultivated.&mdash;Slater, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_231" id="Footnote_230_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_231"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> <i>Archaeologia</i>, xlvi. 374.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_232" id="Footnote_231_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_232"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> <i>Description of Britain</i>, ii. 150.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_233" id="Footnote_232_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_233"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> In the reign of Mary, 'the plain poor people did make
+very much of acorns.' Cullum, <i>Hawsted</i>, p. 181.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_234" id="Footnote_233_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_234"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> Eden, <i>State of the Poor</i>, i. 116.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_235" id="Footnote_234_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_235"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> <i>Itinerary</i>, iii. 140.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_236" id="Footnote_235_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_236"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> <i>Rutland Magazine</i>, i. 64.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_237" id="Footnote_236_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_237"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> <i>Victoria County History: Lincolnshire</i>, ii. 331.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_238" id="Footnote_237_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_238"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> See <i>Records of Cust Family</i>, i. 56.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>1540-1600</h3>
+
+<h3>LIVE STOCK.&mdash;FLAX.&mdash;SAFFRON.&mdash;THE POTATO. THE ASSESSMENT OF WAGES
+</h3>
+
+<p>The cattle and sheep of this period have generally been described as
+poor animals, and no doubt they would seem small to us. To Jacob
+Rathgib, a traveller, writing in 1592, they seemed worthy of praise:
+'England has beautiful oxen and cows, with very large horns, low and
+heavy and for the most part black; there is abundance of sheep and
+wethers, which graze by themselves winter and summer without
+shepherds.' The heaviest wethers, according to him, weighed 60 lb. and
+had at the most 6 lb. of wool, a much heavier fleece than is generally
+ascribed to them; others had 4 or 5 lb. Horses were abundant, and,
+though low and small, were very fleet; the riding horses being
+geldings and generally excellent. Immense numbers of swine were in the
+country, 'larger than in any other.' Six years later another
+traveller, Hentzner, noticed that the soil abounded with cattle, and
+the inhabitants were more inclined to feeding than ploughing. He saw,
+too, a Berkshire harvest-home: 'As we were returning to our inn (at
+Windsor) we happened to meet some country people celebrating their
+harvest-home, their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having
+besides an image richly dressed by which perhaps they would signify
+Ceres; this they keep moving about, while men and women, men and
+maid-servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud
+as they can till they arrive at the barn.' Harrison<a name="FNanchor_238_239" id="FNanchor_238_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_239" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> tells us, no
+doubt with patriotic bias, that 'our oxen are such as the like are not
+to be found in any country of Europe both for greatness of body and
+sweetness of flesh, their horns a yard <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>between the tips.' Cows had
+doubled in price in his time, from 26<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> to 53<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> 'Our horses
+are high, but not of such huge greatness as in other places,' yet
+remarkable for the easiness of their pace; and 5 or 6 cart-horses will
+draw 30 cwt. a long journey, and a pack-horse will carry 4 cwt.
+without any hurt,&mdash;a statement which is one more proof of the poorness
+of the roads. The chief horse fairs were at 'Ripon, Newportpond,
+Wolfpit, and Harborow,' where horse dealers were as great rogues as
+ever. Pigeons were still the curse of the farmer, and their cotes were
+called dens of thieves.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of the sixteenth century, certainly by the first quarter of
+the seventeenth, the villein, who in the Middle Ages had formed the
+bulk of the population, had disappeared.<a name="FNanchor_239_240" id="FNanchor_239_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_240" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> It is probable that even
+at the beginning of the Tudor period the great majority of the bondmen
+had become free, and that the serf then only formed one per cent. of
+the population, and many of those had left the country and become
+artizans in the towns, for personal serfdom had outlasted demesne
+farming; though even there the heavy hand of the lord was upon them
+and enforced the ancient customs.</p>
+
+<p>In the sixteenth century flax was apparently grown upon most farms,
+the statutes 34 Hen. VIII, c. 4, and 5 Eliz., c. 5, obliging every
+person occupying 60 acres of tillage to have a quarter of an acre in
+flax or hemp, and Moryson says the husbandmen wore garments of coarse
+cloth made at home, so did their wives, and 'in generall' their linen
+was coarse and made at home.<a name="FNanchor_240_241" id="FNanchor_240_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_241" class="fnanchor">[240]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">'Good flax and good hemp to have of her own<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In Maie a good housewife will see it be sowne',<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>sings Tusser. The statute of Henry VIII enjoined the sowing of flax
+and hemp because of the great increase of idle people in the realm, to
+which the numerous imports, especially linen cloth, contributed.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>Saffron also was much grown, that at Saffron Walden in Essex was said
+to be the best in the world, the profit from it being reckoned at <i>&pound;</i>13
+an acre. Its virtues were innumerable, if we may believe the
+contemporary writers; it flavoured dishes, helped digestion, was good
+for short wind, killed moths, helped deafness, dissolved gravel, and,
+lastly, 'drunk in wine doth haste on drunkenesse.'</p>
+
+<p>The most important novelty of this century was the potato, which the
+colonists, sent out in 1586 by Sir Walter Raleigh, brought from
+Virginia to Ireland, though it had been introduced into Europe by the
+Spaniards before this. According to Gerard, the old English botanist,
+it was, on its first introduction from America, only cultivated in the
+gardens of the nobility and gentry as a curious exotic; and in 1606 it
+occurs among the vegetables considered necessary for a nobleman's
+household.<a name="FNanchor_241_242" id="FNanchor_241_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_242" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> It is curious to find Gerard comparing it to what he
+calls the 'common potato', in reality the sweet potato brought to
+England by Drake and Hawkins earlier in the century. In James I's
+reign the root was considered a great delicacy, and was sold to the
+queen's household at 2<i>s.</i> a lb., an enormous price.</p>
+
+<p>Like most agricultural novelties it spread very slowly, but about the
+middle of the seventeenth century began to be planted out in the
+fields in small patches in Lancashire, whence it spread all over the
+kingdom and to France.<a name="FNanchor_242_243" id="FNanchor_242_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_243" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> At this date it was looked upon as a very
+second-rate article of food, if we may judge by the <i>Spectator</i> (No.
+232), which alludes to it as the diet of beggars. About 1690, Houghton
+says, 'now they begin to spread all the kingdom over,' and recommends
+them boiled or roasted and eaten with butter and sugar.<a name="FNanchor_243_244" id="FNanchor_243_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_244" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> Eden
+notes its increasing popularity during the eighteenth century, and by
+his time (the end of that century) <a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>in many parts it was the staple
+article of food for the poor; in Somerset the children mainly
+subsisted on it, and in Devon it was made into bread. Its cultivation
+on a large scale in the field did not, however, spread all over
+England till the Napoleonic war, and the ignorance and prejudice
+against it lasted for long; even Cobbett called it 'the lazy root,'
+and whole potatoes were used for seed regardless of the number of
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>In 1563 was passed the famous Act, 5 Eliz., c. 4, which Thorold Rogers
+has asserted to be the commencement of a conspiracy for cheating the
+English workman of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to deprive him
+of hope, and to degrade him into irremediable poverty.<a name="FNanchor_244_245" id="FNanchor_244_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_245" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> The
+violence of this language is a prima facie reason for doubting the
+correctness of his assertion, which on examination is found to be
+grossly exaggerated. Under Richard II the justices were authorized to
+fix the rate of wages, provided they did not exceed the maximum fixed
+by Parliament. The Elizabethan statute abolished the maximum and left
+the justices to fix reasonable rates. So far from being an attempt to
+keep wages down it seems to have been an honest effort to regulate
+them according to prices,<a name="FNanchor_245_246" id="FNanchor_245_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_246" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> whereas most previous statutes had
+merely reduced wages. The preamble of the Act states this clearly
+enough, saying that the existing laws with regard to the hiring and
+wages of servants were insufficient; chiefly because the wages 'are in
+dyvers places to small and not answerable to this time respecting the
+advancement of prices in all things that belong to the said servants
+and labourers, the said lawes cannot conveniently without the great
+greefe and burden of the poore labourer and hired man be put in due
+execution.' But as several of these Acts were still beneficial it was
+proposed to consolidate them into one statute in order to banish
+idleness, advance husbandry, and give the labourer decent wages. It
+was enacted therefore that all persons <a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>between the ages of twelve
+years and sixty, not being otherwise occupied, 'nor being a gentleman
+born, nor having lands of the yearly value of 40<i>s.</i>, nor goods to the
+value of <i>&pound;</i>10,' should be compellable to serve in husbandry with 'any
+person that keepeth husbandry' by the year, and the hours of work were
+re-enacted.</p>
+
+<p>The rates of wages of artificers, husbandmen, &amp;c., were to be
+ascertained yearly by the justices and the sheriff, 'if he
+conveniently may,' at quarter sessions, 'calling unto them such
+discrete and grave persons as they shall thinck meete and conferring
+together respecting the plentie or scarcitie of the tyme and other
+circumstances necessary to be considered,' and the wages fixed were to
+be certified into Chancery. Then proclamations of the wages thus
+determined were to be made in the cities and market towns. Every
+person who gave higher wages than those established by the
+proclamation was to be imprisoned for ten days and fined <i>&pound;</i>5, every
+receiver to be imprisoned twenty-one days. The importance still
+attached to the harvest season is shown by the section that all
+artificers and others were compellable to work in harvest or be put in
+the stocks two days and a night. For the better advancement of
+husbandry and tillage every householder farming 60 acres of tillage or
+more might receive an apprentice in husbandry, but no tradesman or
+merchant might take an apprentice save his own son, unless his parents
+had freehold of the annual value of 40<i>s.</i>; and no person was to use
+'any art mistery or manual occupation now in use' unless he had served
+seven years' apprenticeship to it. There can be no doubt that the
+clauses last quoted confined a large portion of the population to
+agricultural work, but as we know that the people were deserting the
+country and flocking to the towns, this must have seemed to the
+framers of the law very desirable.</p>
+
+<p>This method of fixing wages was in force until 1814, and its repeal
+then was entirely contrary to the opinion of the artizan class; but it
+may be doubted if the magistrates extensively <a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>used the powers given
+them by the Act, and wages seem to have been settled generally by
+competition. Several instances remain, however, of wages drawn up
+under this Act. Almost immediately after it was passed, in June 1564,
+the Rutland magistrates met under the Act, and stated that the prices
+of linen, woollen, leather, corn, and other victuals were great, so
+they drew up the following list of wages<a name="FNanchor_246_247" id="FNanchor_246_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_247" class="fnanchor">[246]</a>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>
+A bailiff in husbandry, having charge of two plough lands,
+at least should have by the year 40<i>s.</i>, and 8<i>s.</i>
+for his livery.<br />
+<br />
+A chief servant in husbandry, which can eire (plough), sow,
+mow, thresh, make a rick, thatch and hedge, and can kill
+and dress a hog, sheep, and calf, by the year 40<i>s.</i>, and 6<i>s.</i>
+for his livery.<br />
+<br />
+A common servant in husbandry, which can mow, sow, thresh,
+and load a cart, and cannot expertly make a rick, hedge, and
+thatch, and cannot kill and dress a hog, sheep, or calf, by
+the year 33<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>, and 5<i>s.</i> for his livery.<br />
+<br />
+A mean servant in husbandry, which can drive the plough, pitch
+The cart, and thresh, and cannot expertly sow, mow, thresh,
+and load a cart, nor make a rick, nor thatch, by the year 24<i>s.</i>,
+and 5<i>s.</i> for his livery.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>The chief shepherd is only to receive 20<i>s.</i> and 5<i>s.</i> for his livery; but
+this must be an error, as in the statutes 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3, and 23
+Hen. VI, c. 12, he was placed next the bailiff as we should expect.</p>
+
+<p>These wages were evidently 'with diet', and show a considerable
+advance on those fixed by 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3.<a name="FNanchor_247_248" id="FNanchor_247_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_248" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> By the day the
+ordinary labourer was to have 6<i>d.</i> in winter, 7<i>d.</i> in summer, and 8<i>d.</i> to
+10<i>d.</i> in harvest time, 'finding himself.' A mower with meat earned 5<i>d.</i>,
+without meat 10<i>d.</i> a day; a man reaper with meat 4<i>d.</i>, without 8<i>d.</i>; a
+woman reaper 3<i>d.</i>, and 6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p>As the price of corn and meat was three times what it had been in the
+fifteenth century, and the labourers' wages, taking into consideration
+his harvest pay, not quite double, the Rutland magistrates hardly
+observed the spirit of the Act. Rutland, <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>moreover, judging by the
+assessments of the time, was a county where agriculture was very
+flourishing; and thirty years after we find in Yorkshire that the
+winter wages of the labourer were 4<i>d.</i> and the summer 5<i>d.</i> a day: that
+is, he had little more wages than in the fifteenth century, with
+provisions risen threefold. At Chester at the same date his day's
+wages were to be 4<i>d.</i> all the year round.<a name="FNanchor_248_249" id="FNanchor_248_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_249" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> In 1610 the Rutland
+magistrates at Oakham<a name="FNanchor_249_250" id="FNanchor_249_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_250" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> decreed that an ordinary labourer was to
+have 6<i>d.</i> a day in winter and 7<i>d.</i> in summer, the same wages as in 1564,
+yet wheat in that year averaged 32<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i> a quarter. A bailiff by the
+year was now advanced to 52<i>s.</i>, a manservant of the best sort, equal no
+doubt to the chief servant in husbandry, to 50<i>s.</i>, a 'common servant'
+to 40<i>s.</i>, and a 'mean servant' to 29<i>s.</i>, but all without livery. At
+Chelmsford, in 1651, there was a very different rate fixed, the
+ordinary labourer getting from 1<i>s.</i> to 1<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> a day; but this seems to
+have been exceptional, as at Warwick in 1684 he was only to have 8<i>d.</i>,
+and as late as 1725 in Lancashire 9<i>d.</i> to 10<i>d.</i> a day.<a name="FNanchor_250_251" id="FNanchor_250_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_251" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> In 1682, by
+the Bury St. Edmunds assessment, a common labourer got 10<i>d.</i> a day in
+winter and 1<i>s.</i> in summer, and a reaper in harvest 1<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> By the year
+a bailiff was paid <i>&pound;</i>6, a carter <i>&pound;</i>5, and a common servant <i>&pound;</i>3 10<i>s.</i>, of
+course with food.<a name="FNanchor_251_252" id="FNanchor_251_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_252" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> These figures clearly prove that the wages
+fixed by the magistrates were often terribly inadequate, though it
+must be said in their defence that the great rise in prices probably
+struck them as abnormal and not likely to last. It should be
+remembered, too, that besides his wages the labourer and his family
+had often bye industries such as weaving to fall back upon, and in
+most parts of England still a piece of common land to help him.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_116" id="Footnotes_116"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_239" id="Footnote_238_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_239"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> <i>Description of Britain</i>, iii. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_240" id="Footnote_239_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_240"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> <i>Transactions of the Royal Historical Society</i> (New
+Series), xvii. 235.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_241" id="Footnote_240_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_241"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> Moryson, <i>Itinerary</i> (ed. 1617), iii. 179.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_242" id="Footnote_241_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_242"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> <i>Archaeologia</i> xiii. 371.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_243" id="Footnote_242_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_243"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> In 1650 it was much cultivated about London.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_244" id="Footnote_243_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_244"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> <i>Collections on Husbandry and Trade</i>, ii. 468.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_245" id="Footnote_244_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_245"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> <i>Six Centuries of Work and Wages</i>, p. 398.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_246" id="Footnote_245_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_246"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, ii. 38. The
+Statute of Labourers of 1351 made the same effort, see p. 43.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_247" id="Footnote_246_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_247"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>,
+iv. 120; and <i>Work and Wages</i>, p. 389.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_248" id="Footnote_247_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_248"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> See above.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_249" id="Footnote_248_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_249"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>Work and Wages</i>, pp. 390-1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_250" id="Footnote_249_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_250"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> <i>Archaeologia</i>, xi. 200.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_251" id="Footnote_250_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_251"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>Six Centuries of Work and Wages</i>, p.
+396.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_252" id="Footnote_251_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_252"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> Cullum, <i>Hawsted</i>, p. 215. It is strange to find food
+reckoned so highly; if the common labourer at Hawsted received his
+food, he was only paid 5<i>d.</i> a day in winter, and 6<i>d.</i> in summer; if one
+man's food was reckoned at half his wages, how far did the other half
+go in feeding and clothing his family?</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>1600-1700</h3>
+
+<h3>CLOVER AND TURNIPS.&mdash;GREAT RISE IN PRICES. MORE ENCLOSURE.&mdash;A FARMING
+CALENDAR</h3>
+
+
+<p>The seventeenth century was one of considerable progress in English
+agriculture. The decay of common-field farming was enabling individual
+enterprise to have its way. The population was rapidly growing; by
+1688 the returns of the hearth tax prove that the northern counties
+were nearly as thickly populated as the southern, and prices during
+the first half were continually rising, though after that they
+remained almost stationary, since the effect of the influx of precious
+metals from the New World was exhausted. In the first half of the
+century John Smyth ascribes the advance of rents to the Castilian
+voyages opening the New World, whereby such floods of treasure have
+flowed into Europe that the rates of Christendom are raised near
+twentyfold'.</p>
+
+<p>But the greatest agricultural event of the century was the
+introduction of clover and the encouragement of turnips as grown in
+Holland, by Sir Richard Weston, about 1645. No doubt the turnip was
+already well known in England. Tusser and Fitzherbert both mention it,
+apparently as a garden root only; but Gerard in his <i>Herbal</i>, 1597,
+says it grew in fields 'and divers vineyards or hoppe gardens in most
+places of England', which certainly points to an effort having been
+made generally to use it as a field crop whenever an enclosed space
+gave it some protection from the depredations of the common herds.
+However, its cultivation must have declined, as long after this it was
+regarded as a novelty as a field crop in most parts of England.<a name="FNanchor_252_253" id="FNanchor_252_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_253" class="fnanchor">[252]</a>
+In Holland it had been used in <a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>the field universally, and this use
+with that of 'great', as it was called, or broad clover, Weston
+pressed on the English farmer. But their progress was wofully slow. At
+Hawsted in Suffolk clover and turnips were first sown about 1700, and
+the eastern portion of England was far ahead of the north and west; as
+late as 1772 Arthur Young wrote that 'sainfoin, cabbages, potatoes,
+and carrots are not common crops in England; I do not imagine above
+half or at most two-thirds of the nation cultivate clover.'<a name="FNanchor_253_254" id="FNanchor_253_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_254" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> Yet
+their introduction must have been of the greatest benefit to the
+farmer and the public; his stock of hay was increased, he could
+utilize his fallows, and keep a much larger head of stock through the
+winter, who would give him a greater quantity of manure. Every one
+where turnips were grown could now have fresh meat during the winter.
+The slow progress of these great blessings is perhaps the strongest
+testimony in our history of the innate conservatism of the farmer. The
+green crop was for long considered to be suited only to the garden,
+and as our forefathers were prejudiced against the spade it was
+difficult to get such crops cultivated even there; but it should also
+be remembered that no crop was possible in the common fields which did
+not come to maturity before Lammas, unless some special agreement was
+made as to it.<a name="FNanchor_254_255" id="FNanchor_254_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_255" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> Clover, Sir Richard Weston said, thrives best when
+sown on the worst and barrenest ground, which was to be pared and
+burnt, and unslaked lime added to the ashes. Then it was to be well
+ploughed and harrowed, and about 10 lb. of seed sown per acre in the
+end of March or in April. 'It will stand five years, and then when
+ploughed up will yield three or four years running rich crops <a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>of
+wheat, and then a crop of oats, after which you may sow clover again.'</p>
+
+<p>In the seventeenth century the practice of liming and marling, which
+had been largely discontinued since the fourteenth century, was
+revived (Westcote, in his <i>View of Devon</i> in 1630, calls liming, &amp;c.,
+a new invention), and there was also a great improvement in
+implements. Patents were taken out for draining machines in 1628, for
+new manures in 1633-6, ploughs 1623-7 and 1634, mechanical sowing
+1634-9. Only six were taken out, however, between 1640 and 1760 that
+concerned agriculture.<a name="FNanchor_255_256" id="FNanchor_255_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_256" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> The Civil War checked the improvement, for
+though the great mass of the people had nothing to do with either
+party, the country was of necessity in a very unsettled state, and
+both sides plundered indiscriminately. Yet in some parts, as in
+Devonshire, so many of the able men served in the two armies, that few
+but old men, women, and children were left to manage the farms, and
+even they were afraid to grow more than enough to supply themselves
+since both armies seized the crops.<a name="FNanchor_256_257" id="FNanchor_256_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_257" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> These bad effects lasted for
+some time afterwards; Chapple, a Devonshire land agent of the
+eighteenth century, says he had talked with people who remembered the
+state of husbandry in the last ten or twelve years of the reign of
+Charles II, when in many parts of Devonshire an acre or two of wheat
+was esteemed a rarity.</p>
+
+<p>That the rate of progress in the century was not more rapid is
+attributed by Blyth to several causes<a name="FNanchor_257_258" id="FNanchor_257_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_258" class="fnanchor">[257]</a>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>1. Want of leases, by which tenants were deprived of security.<br />
+
+  2. Discouragement to flood (irrigate) land, from the risk of
+     law suits with neighbours.<br />
+
+  3. Intermixture of different properties in common fields.<br />
+
+  4. Unlimited pasturage on commons, by which they were overstocked.<br />
+
+  <a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>5. The want of a law compelling all men to kill moles.<br />
+
+  6. The excessive number of water-mills, to the great destruction
+     of much gallant land.</p></div>
+
+<p>The average price of wheat during the seventeenth century was 41<i>s.</i> a
+quarter, of barley 22<i>s.</i>, and oats 14<i>s.</i> 8<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> Oxen averaged about <i>&pound;</i>5
+apiece, cows much less, about <i>&pound;</i>3, and there was not much change in
+their value during the century. Sheep were about 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, and a
+cart-horse in the first half of the century from <i>&pound;</i>5 to <i>&pound;</i>10, in the
+second half from <i>&pound;</i>8 to <i>&pound;</i>15. Beef rose from 2<i>d.</i> a lb. in the early part
+of the century to 3<i>d.</i> at the close of it. Wool remained stationary at
+from 9<i>d.</i> to 1<i>s.</i> per lb.</p>
+
+<p><a name="FNanchor_258_259" id="FNanchor_258_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_259" class="fnanchor">[258]</a>A proclamation of 1633 fixed the
+following prices for London poulterers and victuallers:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Best turkey-cock </td><td align='right'>4</td><td align='left'> 4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Duck</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>  8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Best hen</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='left'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3 eggs</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 lb. best fresh butter in winter </td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 lb. best fresh butter in summer </td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>5</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 lb. best salt butter</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>4<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Best fat goose  </td><td align='right'> 2</td><td align='left'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;" &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; crammed capon </td><td align='right'> 2</td><td align='left'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;" &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; pullet  </td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='left'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;" &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; chicken</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>6</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>According to the <i>Manydown Manor Rolls</i> the Wootton churchwardens in
+1600 paid from 8<i>s.</i> to 11<i>s.</i> for calves, 4<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> for a fat lamb, 8<i>s.</i> for
+a sheep, 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> for a barren ewe, 6<i>d.</i> for a couple of chickens, 1<i>s.</i>
+6<i>d.</i> for 500 faggots.<a name="FNanchor_259_260" id="FNanchor_259_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_260" class="fnanchor">[259]</a></p>
+
+<p>After the restoration in 1660 another period of prosperity set
+in,<a name="FNanchor_260_261" id="FNanchor_260_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_261" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> and altogether the century was a prosperous one for farmers
+and manufacturers. The newly established Royal Society materially
+helped agriculture. 'Since his majesty's <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>most happy restoration the
+whole land hath been fermented and stirred up by the profitable hints
+it hath received from the Royal Society, by which means parks have
+been disparked, commons enclosed, woods turned into arable, and
+pasture lands improved by clover, St. foine, turnips, cole-seed, and
+many other good husbandries, so that the food of cattle is increased
+as fast, if not faster, than the consumption, and by these means the
+rent of the kingdom is far greater than ever it was.'<a name="FNanchor_261_262" id="FNanchor_261_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_262" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> The century
+was distinguished also for the curious number of cycles of good and
+bad seasons; 1646-50 were years of prolonged dearth, wheat reaching an
+enormous price, and 1661-2, were famine years, while the end of the
+century was long famous for its barren years.</p>
+
+<p>With the prices of produce rents rose enormously. Very early in the
+century<a name="FNanchor_262_263" id="FNanchor_262_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_263" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> rents of arable land had increased ninefold, since the
+fifteenth century, and by 1688 Davenant and King estimated the average
+rent of arable land in England at 5<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> per acre and of permanent
+grass at 8<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> Perhaps this is too high an estimate, as on the
+Belvoir estate of 17,837 acres in 1692 the rental all round was 3<i>s.</i>
+9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i> an acre for land above the average in quality, though it must
+be remembered that the Earls and Dukes of Rutland were indulgent
+landlords.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>History of Hawsted</i> affords a valuable index of the increase of
+rents at this period.<a name="FNanchor_263_264" id="FNanchor_263_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_264" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> In 1500 the average rent was 1<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> an
+acre; in 1572, 39 acres of arable, meadow, and pasture were let for
+2<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> an acre, the landlord, it is interesting to notice, reserving
+the right of hawking, netting rabbits, hunting, and fowling; and about
+the same date other lands <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>on the estate were let at 1<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> and 1<i>s.</i>
+6<i>d.</i> an acre, so that there had not generally been much advance since
+1500, which is what we should expect, as the great rise took place at
+the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
+centuries. In 1589, therefore, it is not surprising to find that 40
+acres of meadow and pasture let at 5<i>s.</i> an acre, and in 1611 some
+buildings and 155 acres of park at 11<i>s.</i> an acre. In 1616, 366 acres of
+arable and pasture and 39 acres of meadow were valued at 12<i>s.</i> an acre
+for letting, and the Hall Farm of 175 acres (8<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;acres meadow) at
+10<i>s.</i>; and Great Pipers Farm of 138 acres (8 meadow) at 7<i>s.</i>, while
+meadow and pasture near the mansion was valued at 21<i>s.</i> an acre.</p>
+
+<p>In 1658 the rent of the Hall Farm had advanced from 10<i>s.</i> an acre to
+about 13<i>s.</i>, though in 1682 it went down to 11<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_264_265" id="FNanchor_264_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_265" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> According to
+the survey of the Manor of Manydown in Hampshire in 1650, meadow land
+was worth 20<i>s.</i> an acre, pasture 8<i>s.</i> to 10<i>s.</i>, arable from 2<i>s.</i> to 10<i>s.</i>,
+the latter showing a great variation in quality.<a name="FNanchor_265_266" id="FNanchor_265_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_266" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> In 1723 Bryers
+Wood Farm at Hawsted, which had been let in 1620 for <i>&pound;</i>15, was let at
+<i>&pound;</i>29 5<i>s.</i> These rents are considerably higher than the estimate of
+Davenant and King; but it must be remembered that they were for land
+in the parts of England, where farming was at its best, and they, in
+accounting for the whole country, had to take into consideration a
+vast amount of land in the north and west which was worth very little.
+In the Rawlinson Collection<a name="FNanchor_266_267" id="FNanchor_266_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_267" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> in the Bodleian Library is a rental
+of Lord Kingston's estate in north Nottinghamshire in 1689, the rents
+averaging 10<i>s.</i> an acre; but this was an exceptionally good estate,
+much of the property being meadow and pasture. The farmhouses also
+were above the average, while in two of the parishes the tenants had
+rights of common, and in two others the tenancies were tithe free.
+There was very little arable land on the estate, <a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>three small holdings
+letting for 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> an acre; and some of the pasture land was let at
+14<i>s.</i>, 15<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, and even 18<i>s.</i> an acre. The largest farm, Saundby Hall,
+of 607 acres, nearly all meadow and pasture, was 9<i>s.</i> 10<i>d.</i> an acre. The
+cottages were fortunate in having pieces of land attached to them. In
+Saundby, Richard Ffydall rented a cottage and 2 acres of arable land
+for <i>&pound;</i>1 13<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>; Widow Johnson a cottage and yard for 13<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>;
+William Daubney a cottage with 6<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;acres of arable and 5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;acres
+of pasture for <i>&pound;</i>7 18<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> A farm in Scrooby, consisting of a
+messuage, cottage, and 113 acres of arable, meadow, and pasture, only
+let at <i>&pound;</i>23.</p>
+
+<p>As to the freehold value of land, in 1621, according to D'Ewes, it was
+worth from sixteen to twenty years' purchase; yet, in 1688, Sir Josiah
+Child said that lands now sell at twenty years' purchase, which fifty
+or sixty years before sold at eight or ten; and he also states, 'the
+same farms or lands to be now sold would yield treble and in some
+cases six times the money they were sold for fifty years ago'.<a name="FNanchor_267_268" id="FNanchor_267_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_268" class="fnanchor">[267]</a>
+Davenant puts land at twelve years' purchase in 1600, at eighteen
+years in 1688.<a name="FNanchor_268_269" id="FNanchor_268_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_269" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> In 1729 the price of land was said to be
+twenty-seven years' purchased.<a name="FNanchor_269_270" id="FNanchor_269_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_270" class="fnanchor">[269]</a></p>
+
+<p>The legislation against laying down tillage to grass was continued
+until the end of the sixteenth century. The statute 39 Eliz., c. 1,
+repealed 4 Hen. VII, c. 19, and all other Acts against pulling down
+houses, and provided that a house of husbandry should be a house that
+hath or hath had 20 acres of arable land. All such houses which had
+been destroyed during the last seven years were to be rebuilt, and if
+destroyed more than seven years only one-half was to be rebuilt; but
+to each of them at least 40 acres of land were to be attached.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>The next statute, 39 Eliz., c. 2, sets forth once more the advantages
+of tillage, viz. the increase and multiplying of people for service in
+the wars, and in time of peace the employment of a greater number of
+people, the keeping of people from poverty, the dispersal of the
+wealth of the kingdom in many hands, and 'the standing of this realm
+upon itself without depending upon foreign countries'<a name="FNanchor_270_271" id="FNanchor_270_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_271" class="fnanchor">[270]</a>; and
+therefore enacts that lands converted from tillage to pasture shall be
+restored to tillage within three years, and lands then in tillage
+should be so continued; but this was only to extend to twenty-three
+counties, and omitted most of those in the south-west. At the
+beginning of the seventeenth century a reaction set in; the price of
+corn had risen immensely and continued to do so, the price of wool
+remained stationary, and tillage was as profitable as grass. In 1620
+Coke speaks of the man who only kept a shepherd and a dog as one who
+never prospered. In 1624 several of the tillage laws were
+repealed.<a name="FNanchor_271_272" id="FNanchor_271_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_272" class="fnanchor">[271]</a></p>
+
+<p>As an example of the unenclosed fields, at the end of the sixteenth
+century, we may take the common fields at Daventry, which were three
+in number, containing respectively 368, 383, and 524 acres, divided
+into furlongs, a term which had now a very wide signification, each of
+which was subdivided into lands nearly always half an acre in extent,
+several of these lands when adjoining being often held now by the same
+owner. One furlong may be taken as an example. It was 37 acres 1 rood
+in extent, and contained ninety-six lands, owned by seventeen people.
+The meadows were divided still more minutely, some of the smaller
+portions being only a quarter of an acre each. The largest meadow
+contained 50 acres, divided among fifty-three people. In the manor,
+besides the arable and meadow, there were 300 acres of <a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>common
+pasture, a park, and a small wood. There were forty-one freeholders
+and many leasehold tenants, the average freehold being 34 acres, the
+average leasehold only half an acre, small holdings being the usual
+feature of the unenclosed township.</p>
+
+<p>In the seventeenth century the price of wool ceased to operate as a
+cause of enclosure, but in many parts the change to pasture continued,
+owing to the rise in price of cattle and of wages. The same reason,
+too, for laying down land to grass that had been so powerful in the
+preceding centuries still existed, the common arable fields needed
+rest from continual cropping and poor manuring, while good crops of
+corn could be grown from the virgin soil of the newly enclosed waste.
+The preamble of the Durham decrees clearly states this: 'the land is
+wasted and worn with continual ploweing, and thereby made bare,
+barren, and very unfruitful.'<a name="FNanchor_272_273" id="FNanchor_272_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_273" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> We may, therefore, take Coke's
+words as inapplicable to many districts. In the seventeenth century
+there were several methods of enclosing. Sometimes the lord of the
+manor enclosed and left the land of the tenants still in common; or a
+tenant enclosed piece by piece; or enclosures were made by Act of
+Parliament, the earliest of which for common fields was passed in the
+time of James I, a method at this period very seldom used; or there
+was an agreement between lord and tenants often authorized by the
+Courts of Chancery or Exchequer.</p>
+
+<p>Besides enclosure, another process was going on, the consolidation of
+farms by the amalgamation of small holdings into larger ones.
+Farmhouses, as we see them to-day, began to appear on the holdings
+thus consolidated, instead of being grouped together in villages. A
+writer in 1604 says, 'we may see many of their houses built alone like
+raven's nests, no birds building neere them' so unwonted was the sight
+of isolated dwellings in most places at the time.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>However, in 1630 Charles I went back to the policy of his forefathers
+and issued letters to certain of the Midland counties ordering all
+enclosures of the last two years to be removed, and Commissions were
+issued to inquire into the matter in 1632, 1635, and 1636,<a name="FNanchor_273_274" id="FNanchor_273_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_274" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> the
+chief evil feared from enclosures being depopulation, and enclosers
+were prosecuted in the Court of Star Chamber.</p>
+
+<p>The assertion that enclosures ceased during the seventeenth century
+has been proved inaccurate by modern research, and there is no doubt
+that they went on continuously. In 1607, in the Midlands, the
+enclosing of land produced serious armed resistance, probably because
+the Midland counties were then the great corn-growing district of
+England, and the change to pasture and the consolidation of farms
+displaced a larger population there than elsewhere. Between 1628 and
+1630 enclosures in Leicestershire, for instance, were very numerous,
+no less than 10,000 acres being enclosed in that time, most of which
+was converted to pasture. The attempt of the Government to check the
+movement, initiated by Charles I, seems to have had considerable
+effect, but died away with the Civil War, and though other attempts
+were made under the Commonwealth they came to nothing, and from this
+time enclosures went on unchecked by the Government,<a name="FNanchor_274_275" id="FNanchor_274_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_275" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> and were
+soon to have its active support. Yet there was a vast amount still in
+common field: the whole of the cultivated land of England in 1685 was
+stated by King and Davenant to amount to not much more than half the
+total area, and of this cultivated portion three-fifths was still
+farmed on the old common-field system. Northamptonshire,
+Leicestershire, Rutland, Huntingdonshire, and Bedfordshire were
+comparatively unenclosed.<a name="FNanchor_275_276" id="FNanchor_275_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_276" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> From the books and maps of the day 'it
+is clear that many routes <a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>which now pass through an endless succession
+of orchards, corn-fields, hay-fields, and bean-fields then ran through
+nothing but heath, swamp, and warren. In the drawings of an English
+landscape made in that age for the Grand Duke Cosmo scarce a hedgerow
+is to be seen.... At Enfield, hardly out of sight of the smoke of the
+capital, was a region of five-and-twenty miles in circumference which
+contained only three houses and scarcely any enclosed fields.'<a name="FNanchor_276_277" id="FNanchor_276_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_277" class="fnanchor">[276]</a>
+The enclosure of these areas was to be mainly the work of the latter
+half of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth
+centuries.</p>
+
+<p>The amount of enclosure in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the first
+half of the seventeenth centuries was, according to the latest
+research, much, and perhaps very naturally, exaggerated by
+contemporaries. Between 1455-1607 the enclosures in twenty-four
+counties are said to have amounted to some 500,000 acres, or 2.76 of
+their total area,<a name="FNanchor_277_278" id="FNanchor_277_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_278" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> but the evidence for this is by no means
+conclusive. However, there seems no reason to doubt that the enclosure
+of this period was but a faint beginning of that great outburst of it
+that marked the agrarian revolution of the middle of the eighteenth
+century, and that it was mainly confined to the Midland counties, Mr.
+Johnson, in his recent Ford Lectures, has stated that the enclosure of
+the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not accompanied by very
+much direct eviction of freeholders or bona fide copyholders of
+inheritance; yet the small holder suffered in many ways, e.g. by the
+lord disproving the hereditary character of the copyhold, or by
+changing copyholds of inheritance into copyholds for lives or leases
+for lives or years. <a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>He and his successors could then refuse to renew
+at the termination of lives or years except on payment of a
+practically prohibitory fine. In short, though there was not much
+violation of legal right there was much injustice, and enclosure,
+though its effects were exaggerated at this period, certainly tended
+to displace the small landholder. It does not appear, however, that
+the moderate-sized proprietors were seriously affected. Many of the
+larger freeholders and copyholders on manors enclosed on their own
+account, and perhaps increased at the expense of the very large and
+the very small. Indeed, the decrease of small landowners was chiefly
+due to political and social causes. The old self-sufficing,
+agricultural economy of England, which we have seen beginning to break
+up in the fourteenth century, was becoming thoroughly disintegrated.
+The capitalist class was increasing; the successful merchant and
+lawyer were acquiring land and becoming squires; there was an intense
+land hunger. Simon Degge, wilting of Staffordshire in 1669, says that
+in the previous sixty years half the lands had changed owners, not so
+much as of old they were wont to do, by marriage, but by purchase; and
+he notices how many lawyers and tradesmen have supplanted the
+gentry.<a name="FNanchor_278_279" id="FNanchor_278_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_279" class="fnanchor">[278]</a></p>
+
+<p>In fact, there was a much freer disposal of lands from the end of the
+fifteenth century, when the famous Taltarum's case enabled entailed
+estates to be barred, until the Restoration, than there has been
+before or since. For these two hundred years the courts of law and
+parliament resisted every effort to re-establish the system of
+entails; the owners of land constantly multiplied, and this tendency
+must have counteracted the displacement of the small holder by
+enclosure. Sir Thomas Smith, writing towards the end of the sixteenth
+century, says that it was the yeomen who bought the lands of
+'unthrifty gentlemen;' and Moryson tells us that 'the buyers
+(excepting lawyers) are for the most part citizens <a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>and vulgar
+men'.<a name="FNanchor_279_280" id="FNanchor_279_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_280" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> It became one of the boasts of England that she had a large
+number of yeomen farming their own land. During the Civil War,
+however, it became important to landowners to protect their properties
+in the interest of children and descendants from forfeiture for
+treason. The judges lent their aid, and the system of strict family
+settlements was devised, under which the great bulk of the estates in
+England are now held. This system favoured the accumulation of lands
+in a few hands and the aggregation of great estates, and was largely
+responsible for the disappearance of the small freeholder.</p>
+
+<p>In reviewing the progress of agriculture in the seventeenth century,
+the drainage of the fen country of Lincolnshire and the adjoining
+counties must not be forgotten. It had been for centuries the scene of
+drainage operations on a more or less extended scale, few of which,
+however, met with success; but in the seventeenth century the growing
+value of land caused a serious revival of these efforts. Attempts made
+under Elizabeth and James I had only succeeded in rescuing a certain
+amount of land for pasture,<a name="FNanchor_280_281" id="FNanchor_280_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_281" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> but in the reign of Charles I the
+scheme of Cornelius Vermuyden was more successful. His system,
+however, was defective, and in the reign of Charles II the Bedford
+Level was in a lamentable state and in danger of reverting to its
+primitive condition. Many of the works too were destroyed by the
+'stiltwalkers', and in 1793 Maxwell states that out of 44,000 acres of
+fen land in Huntingdonshire only 8,000 or 10,000 were productive<a name="FNanchor_281_282" id="FNanchor_281_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_282" class="fnanchor">[281]</a>;
+and in 1794 Stone tells us that the commons round the Isle of
+Axholme were chiefly covered with water.<a name="FNanchor_282_283" id="FNanchor_282_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_283" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> Still to Vermuyden and
+his contemporaries must be assigned the credit of the first
+comprehensive scheme for rescuing these fertile lands from the waters
+that covered them.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>At the commencement of this important century an old calendar of
+1606<a name="FNanchor_283_284" id="FNanchor_283_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_284" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> clearly sets forth the farming work of the year:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>January and February are the best months for ploughing for peas,
+beans, and oats, and to have peas soon in the year following sow them
+in the wane of the moon at S. Andrewstide before Christmas; which may
+be compared to Tusser's advice for February,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">'Go plow in the stubble, for now is the season<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For sowing of fitches of beans and of peason.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>'Clean grounds of all such rubbish as briars, brambles, blackthorns,
+and shrubbs' (then more often choking the ground than now), which are
+to be fagoted as good fuel for baking and brewing.</p>
+
+<p>'Do not plough in rainy weather, for it impoverisheth the earth.'</p>
+
+<p>March and April. Take up colts from grass to be broken. Sow beans,
+peas, and oats. In these months are all grounds where cattle went in
+the last winter to be furthed (apparently managed) and cleared and the
+mole-hills scattered, that the fresh spring of grass may grow better.
+All hedges and ditches to be made betwixt 'severals', evidently
+enclosures as distinguished from common fields. From March 25 to May 1
+summer pastures are to be spared, that they may have time to get head
+before summer cattle be put in. In the meantime such cattle are to be
+bestowed in meadows till May Day, and after that date such meadows are
+to be cleansed and spared until the crops of hay be taken off. From
+now till midsummer sell fat cattle and sheep, and with the money buy
+lean cattle and sheep. Sow barley.</p>
+
+<p>May and June. Sort all cattle for their summer pasture on May Day,
+viz. draught oxen by themselves, milch cows by themselves, weaning
+calves, yearlings, two-year-olds, three- <a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>and four-year-olds, every
+sort by themselves, which being divided in pasture fitting for them
+will make larger and fairer cattle. Separate the horses in the same
+way. Wash sheep and shear four or five days after, which done the wool
+is to be well wound and weighed, and safely laid up in some place
+where there is not too much air or it will lose weight, nor where it
+is damp or it will increase too much in weight. Cleanse winter corn
+from thistles and weeds.</p>
+
+<p>July and August. First of all comes hay-making. In August wean lambs,
+and put them in good pasture, and in winter put them in fresh pasture
+until spring, and then put them with the 'holding' sheep.</p>
+
+<p>In these months is corn to be 'shornne or mowen downe' (the writer, it
+is to be noticed, has no preference for either method); and after the
+corn is carried put draught horses and oxen into the averish (corn
+stubble), to ease other pastures; and after them put hogs in. Gather
+crabs in woods and hedgerows for making verjuice.</p>
+
+<p>September and October. Have all plows and harrows neat and fit for
+sowing of wheat, rye, mesling (wheat and rye mixed), and vetches.<a name="FNanchor_284_285" id="FNanchor_284_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_285" class="fnanchor">[284]</a></p>
+
+<p>Pick hops. Buy store cattle, both steers and heifers, of three or four
+years old, which being well wintered at grass, or on straw at the barn
+doors, will be the sooner fed the summer following, and they will
+sooner feed after straw than grass.</p>
+
+<p>From October to May are calves to be reared, because then they be more
+hardly bred and become the stronger cattle. Feed brawns, bacons,
+lards, and porkets on mast if there is any, if not on corn. 'In these
+months cleanse poundes or pools, <a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>this season being the driest;' an
+extraordinary assertion, unless the climate has changed, seeing that
+according to the monthly averages from 1841-1906, taken at the Royal
+Observatory, Greenwich, October is the wettest month in the year.<a name="FNanchor_285_286" id="FNanchor_285_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_286" class="fnanchor">[285]</a></p>
+
+<p>November and December. Sort all kinds of sheep until Lady Day, viz.
+wethers by themselves, and weaning lambs by themselves; and do not put
+rams to the ewes before S. Lukestide, October 18, for those lambs fall
+about March 25, and if they fall before then the scarcity of grass and
+the cold will so nip and chill them that they will die or be
+weaklings. It is good at this time to take draught cattle and horses
+from grass into the house before any great storms begin. Thrash corn
+now after it hath had a good sweat in the mow, and so dried again, and
+give the straw to the draught oxen and cattle at the standaxe or at
+the barn doors for sparing of hay, advice which Tusser also gives:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">'Serve rie straw out first, then wheat straw and peas,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Then ote straw and barley, then hay if ye please.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_132" id="Footnotes_132"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_253" id="Footnote_252_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_253"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1896, pp. 77 sq., and Gerard,
+<i>Herbal</i> (ed. 1633), p. 232.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_254" id="Footnote_253_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_254"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> About 1684, John Worlidge wrote to Houghton that sheep
+fatted on clover were not such delicate meat as the heath croppers,
+and that sheep fatten very well on turnips. Houghton, <i>Collection for
+Improvement of Husbandry</i>, iv. 142. This is said to be the first
+notice of turnips being given to sheep.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_255" id="Footnote_254_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_255"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1896, p. 77. One of the proofs of
+the rarity of vegetables among the poorer classes of England,
+especially in the Middle Ages, is the fact that rents paid in kind
+never included them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_256" id="Footnote_255_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_256"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1892, p. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_257" id="Footnote_256_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_257"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> Chapple, <i>Review of Risdon's Survey of Devon</i> (1785),
+p. 17 n. <i>Victoria County History: Devonshire, Agriculture</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_258" id="Footnote_257_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_258"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> Blyth was a great advocate of enclosure. 'Live the
+commoners do indeed', he says, 'very many in a mean, low condition,
+with hunger and ease. Better do these in Bridewell. What they get they
+spend. And can they make even at the year's rent?'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_259" id="Footnote_258_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_259"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> Rymer, <i>Foedera</i> (Orig. ed.), xix. 512.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_260" id="Footnote_259_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_260"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> <i>Manydown Manor Rolls</i>, Hampshire Record Society, p.
+172.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_261" id="Footnote_260_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_261"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>Work and Wages</i>, p. 459.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_262" id="Footnote_261_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_262"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> Houghton, <i>Collections, &amp;c.</i>, ii. 448.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_263" id="Footnote_262_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_263"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>, v.
+p. vii. Cf. p. 139 infra.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_264" id="Footnote_263_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_264"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> Cullum, <i>Hawsted</i>, pp. 196 et seq. In the Hawsted
+leases, at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth
+centuries, it is noteworthy that there were, at a time of repeated
+complaints against laying down land to pasture, clauses against
+breaking up pasture land.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_265" id="Footnote_264_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_265"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> In 1677 there were complaints of a fall in rents.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_266" id="Footnote_265_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_266"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> <i>Manydown Manor Rolls</i>, Hampshire Record Society, pp.
+178 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_267" id="Footnote_266_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_267"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> Rawl. A. 170, No. 101.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_268" id="Footnote_267_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_268"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> McPherson, <i>Annals of Commerce</i>, ii. 483.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_269" id="Footnote_268_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_269"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> Ibid. ii. 630.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_270" id="Footnote_269_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_270"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> Ibid. iii. 147. The rental of the lands in England in
+1600 was estimated by Davenant at <i>&pound;</i>6,000,000, in 1688 at <i>&pound;</i>14,000,000;
+and in 1726 by Phillips at <i>&pound;</i>20,000,000. Ibid. iii. 133. In 1850, Caird
+estimated it at <i>&pound;</i>37,412,000.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_271" id="Footnote_270_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_271"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> With what horror would those legislators have
+contemplated England's position to-day, when a temporary loss of the
+command of the sea would probably ruin the country.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_272" id="Footnote_271_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_272"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> 21 Jac. 1, c. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_273" id="Footnote_272_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_273"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> <i>Transactions of the Royal Historical Society</i> (New
+Series), xix. 116.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_274" id="Footnote_273_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_274"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> <i>Transactions of the Royal Historical Society</i> (New
+Series), xix. 127.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_275" id="Footnote_274_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_275"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> Ibid. 130.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_276" id="Footnote_275_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_276"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> See article in <i>Transactions of the Royal Historical
+Society</i> (New Series), xix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_277" id="Footnote_276_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_277"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> Macaulay, <i>History of England</i>, ch. iii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_278" id="Footnote_277_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_278"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> <i>Quarterly Journal of Economics</i>, xvii. 587.
+Considering that the legislature of the sixteenth century was against
+enclosure and depopulation, it is hard to understand 31 Eliz., c. 7,
+which forbade cottages to be erected unless 4 acres of land were
+attached thereto, in order to avoid the great inconvenience caused by
+the 'buyldinge of great nombers and multitude of cottages, which are
+daylie more and more increased in many partes of this realme'. How was
+it that cottages had increased so much in rural districts, which are
+of course alluded to, in spite of enclosure?</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_279" id="Footnote_278_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_279"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> Harwood, <i>Erdeswick</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_280" id="Footnote_279_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_280"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 44.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_281" id="Footnote_280_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_281"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 187.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_282" id="Footnote_281_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_282"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> <i>General View of Hunts.</i>, p. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_283" id="Footnote_282_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_283"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> <i>General View of Lincoln</i>, p. 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_284" id="Footnote_283_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_284"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> <i>Farming Calendar</i>, from an original MS., printed in
+<i>Archaeologia</i>, xiii. 373 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_285" id="Footnote_284_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_285"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> Cf. Tusser:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'October for wheat-sowing calleth as fast';<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>and</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'When wheat upon eddish (stubble), ye mind to bestowe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let that be the first of the wheat ye do sowe';<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p>
+and
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Who soweth in raine, he shall reap it with tears'.</span></div>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_286" id="Footnote_285_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_286"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> The writer of the diary probably meant this work should be
+done in September.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GREAT AGRICULTURAL WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.&mdash;FRUIT
+GROWING. A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ORCHARD</h3>
+
+
+<p>The seventeenth century is distinguished by a number of agricultural
+writers whose works, as they afford the best account of the farming of
+the time, we may be pardoned for freely quoting. The best known of
+them were, Sir John Norden, Gervase Markham, Sir Richard Weston,
+Blythe, Hartlib, Sir Hugh Plat, John Evelyn, John Worlidge, and
+Houghton.</p>
+
+<p>Sir John Norden printed his <i>Surveyor's Dialogue</i> in 1608, which is in
+the form of a conversation between a farmer and a surveyor, the former
+at the outset telling the latter that men of his profession were then
+very unpopular because 'you pry into men's titles and estates, and
+oftentimes you are the cause that men lose their land, and customs are
+altered, broken, and sometimes perverted by your means. And above all,
+you look into the values of men's lands, wherefore the lords of manors
+do reckon their tenants to a higher rent, and therefore not only I but
+many poore tenants have good cause to speak against the
+profession'.<a name="FNanchor_286_287" id="FNanchor_286_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_287" class="fnanchor">[286]</a></p>
+
+<p>The surveyor attributes the increase in prices to farmers outbidding
+one another for farms, for the rents of farms and prices grow
+together; a statement which seems to have been quite true and disposes
+of the assertion that the landlords raised the rents unfairly, for
+they were quite entitled to what rent they could get in the open
+market, the farmers being presumably wise enough not to offer rents
+which would preclude a profit. He further blames the farmer of his day
+for being discontented with his lot: in former times 'farmers <a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>and
+their wives were content with mean dyet and base attire and held their
+children to some austere government, without haunting alehouses,
+taverns, dice, and cards; now the husbandman will be equal to the
+yeoman, the yeoman to the gentleman, the gentleman to the squire, and
+there is at this day thirty times as much vainely spent in a family of
+like multitude and quality as was in former ages'; a complaint that
+has been common in all ages. Contrary to what is the practice to-day,
+and apparently to common sense, the surveyor recommends that open
+drains be made as narrow above as at the bottom, at the most not more
+than a foot and a half broad.<a name="FNanchor_287_288" id="FNanchor_287_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_288" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> Hops, he says, were then grown in
+Suffolk, Essex, and Surrey, 'in your loose and spongie grounds,
+trenched.' 'Carret' roots were raised in Suffolk and Essex, and
+beginning to increase in all parts of the realm<a name="FNanchor_288_289" id="FNanchor_288_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_289" class="fnanchor">[288]</a>; but if he
+alludes to their cultivation in the open field the statement must be
+taken with considerable qualification, as they were not so grown
+generally until the end of the eighteenth century or the beginning of
+the next.</p>
+
+<p>Kent was then, as now, the great fruit county of England; 'above all
+others I think the Kentishmen be most apt and industrious in planting
+orchards with pippins and cherries, especially near the Thames about
+Feversham and Sittingbourne.' But Devon and Hereford were also famous;
+Westcote about 1630 says the Devonshire men had of late much enlarged
+their orchards, and 'are very curious in planting and grafting all
+kinds of fruit'<a name="FNanchor_289_290" id="FNanchor_289_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_290" class="fnanchor">[289]</a>; and John Beale in 1656 tells us Hereford 'is
+reputed the orchard of England'<a name="FNanchor_290_291" id="FNanchor_290_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_291" class="fnanchor">[290]</a>; while Hartlib says there were
+many orchards in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.<a name="FNanchor_291_292" id="FNanchor_291_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_292" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> He calls
+'Tandeane' near Taunton the Paradise of England, where the husbandry
+was excellent, the land fruitful by nature and improved by the art and
+industry of the farmers; 'they <a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>take extraordinary pains in soyling,
+ploughing, and dressing their lands, and after the plow there goeth
+some three or four with mattocks to break the clods and to draw up the
+earth out of the furrows that the lands may lye round, and that the
+water annoy not the seed (the water evidently often lying long in the
+furrows between the great high ridges), and to that end they most
+carefully cut gutters and trenches in all places. And for the better
+enriching of their ploughing lands they cut up, cast, and carry in the
+unplowed headlands and places of no use. Their hearts, hands, eyes,
+and all their powers concurre in one to force the earth to yield her
+utmost fruit; and the crops of wheat that rewarded this industry were
+sometimes 8 and 10 quarters to an acre.</p>
+
+<p>A short pamphlet called the <i>Fruiterer's Secrets</i>, published in London
+in 1604, imparts some interesting and curious information about fruit
+growing.<a name="FNanchor_292_293" id="FNanchor_292_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_293" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> There were then four sorts of cherries in England,
+Flemish,<a name="FNanchor_293_294" id="FNanchor_293_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_294" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> English, Gascoyne, and black, and the preserving of them
+from birds, always a burden on the grower, the author says can be done
+by a gun or a sling; the worst enemies being jays and bullfinches, who
+ate stones and all. Stone fruit should be gathered in dry weather, and
+after the dew is off, for if gathered wet it loses colour and becomes
+mildewed. If nettles newly gathered are laid at the bottom of the
+basket and on the top of the fruit, they will hasten the ripening of
+fruit picked unripe, and make it keep its colour.</p>
+
+<p>Those English farmers who still shake their apples from the trees to
+fall and be bruised on the ground had better listen to the careful
+directions for placing the ladder on the trees where it will do no
+damage, as to the use of the gathering hook so that the branches can
+be brought within easy reach of the picker on his ladder, the wearing
+of a gathering apron, and the emptying of it gently into the baskets.
+Green fern has the same effect on pears packed for carriage as nettles
+on stone <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>fruit; while apples should be packed in wheat, or better
+still in rye straw. For long journeys the American system of packing
+in barrels is anticipated, the apples being carefully put in by hand,
+and the barrels lined at both ends with straw, but not at the sides to
+avoid heating, while holes should be bored at either end to prevent
+heat. Pippins, John Apples, Pearmains, and other 'keepers' need not be
+turned until the week before Christmas, and again at the end of March,
+when they must be turned oftener; but never touch fruit during a frost
+or a thaw, or in rainy weather, or it will turn black.</p>
+
+<p>Hartlib, a few years after, reckoned no less than 500 sorts of apples
+in England, though doubtless many of these were identical, since the
+same apple often has two or three names in one parish. The best for
+the table were the Jennetings, Harvey Apple, Golden Pippin, Summer and
+Winter Pearmains, John Apple, &amp;c.; for cider the Red Streak (the great
+favourite), Jennet Moyle, Eliot, Stocking Apple, &amp;c. He was told that
+in Herefordshire a tenant bought the farm he rented with the fruit
+crop of one year; <i>&pound;</i>10 to <i>&pound;</i>15 having been given per acre for cherries
+and more for apples and pears. Pears for the table were the Windsor,
+'Burgamet,' 'Boon Christians'! Greenfield, and others; and for perry,
+which John Beale, a well-known writer of the day considered 'a weak
+drink, fit for our hindes and generally refused by our gentry as
+breeding wind in the stomack', the Horse Pear, Bosbury, Choak,
+&amp;c.<a name="FNanchor_294_295" id="FNanchor_294_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_295" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> There were many kinds of plums, among them the Mistle Plum,
+Damazene, Violet, and Premorden.</p>
+
+<p>Four kinds of grafting were practised: in the cleft, and in the bark,
+the two most usual ways; shoulder or whip grafting, and grafting by
+approach,<a name="FNanchor_295_296" id="FNanchor_295_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_296" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> the last 'where the stock you intend to graft on and the
+tree from which you take your graft stand so near together that they
+may be joined, then <a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>take the sprig you intend to graft and pare away
+about three inches in length of the rind and wood near unto the very
+pith, and cut also the stock on which you intend to graft the same
+after the same manner that they may evenly join each other, and so
+bind them and cover them with clay or wax.' Inoculation was also
+practised, 'when the sap is at the fullest in the summer, the buds you
+intend to inoculate being not too young but sufficiently grown.' For
+transplanting the middle of October is recommended, and the wise
+advice added, 'plant not too deep,' and in clay plant as near the
+surface as possible, for the roots will seek their way downward but
+rarely upward; and in transplanting 'you may prune the branches as
+well as the roots of apples and pears, but not of plums.' The best
+distance apart in an orchard for apples and pears was considered to be
+from 20 to 30 feet, the further apart the more they benefit from the
+sun and air, a piece of advice which many a subsequent planter has
+neglected. For cherries and plums 15 to 20 feet was thought right.
+Worlidge's directions for pruning are minute and careful, and should
+be well hammered into many slovenly farmers to-day.</p>
+
+<p>Cider-making was performed much as it is in old-fashioned farms
+to-day, by mashing the apples in a trough by means of a millstone set
+edgeways, and then pressing the juice out through hair mats, the
+juice, says Hartlib, 'having been let stand a day or two and the black
+scum that ariseth in that time taken off they tunne it, and in the
+barrels it continueth to work some days longer, just as beer useth to
+do.<a name="FNanchor_296_297" id="FNanchor_296_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_297" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> Another method was to put the fruit in a clean vessel or
+trough, and bruise or crush it with beetles, then put the crushed
+fruit in a bag of hair-cloth and press it.<a name="FNanchor_297_298" id="FNanchor_297_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_298" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> After the cider was in
+the barrels there was placed in them a linen bag containing cloves,
+mace, cinnamon, ginger, and lemon peel which was said to make the
+cider taste as pleasantly as Rhenish wine.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>Worlidge gives us what is perhaps the first mention of a poultry farm,
+and strangely enough it seems to have paid. 'I have been credibly
+informed that a good farm hath been wholly stocked with poultry,
+spending the whole crop upon them and keeping severall to attend them,
+and that it hath redounded to a very considerable improvement'.<a name="FNanchor_298_299" id="FNanchor_298_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_299" class="fnanchor">[298]</a>
+Incubators of a very rude sort were used, three or four dozen eggs
+being placed in a 'lamp furnace made of a few boards', and hatched by
+the heat of a lamp or candle.</p>
+
+<p>It must strike the reader that the accusation levelled against the
+English farmer, of having made little progress in his art from the
+Middle Ages to the commencement of the reign of George III is hardly
+warranted. Their knowledge and skill in their business were evidently
+such as to make considerable progress inevitable, and then as now they
+were in some cases assisted by their landlords, as in Herefordshire,
+where Lord Scudamore, after the assassination of his friend the Duke
+of Buckingham, devoted his energies to the culture of fruit, and with
+other public-spirited gentlemen turned that county into 'one entire
+orchard', besides improving the pastures and woods<a name="FNanchor_299_300" id="FNanchor_299_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_300" class="fnanchor">[299]</a>; though
+Hartlib laments that gentlemen try so few experiments for the
+advancement of agriculture, and that both landowners and farmers
+instead of communicating their knowledge to each other kept it
+jealously to themselves.<a name="FNanchor_300_301" id="FNanchor_300_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_301" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> The chief hindrance to landlord and
+tenant was that the heavy hand of ancient custom lay upon them, with
+its antiquated communistic system of farming, which still in the
+greater part of the land of England utterly prevented good husbandry
+and stifled individual effort. It was one of these Herefordshire
+gentlemen. Rowland Vaughan, who in 1610 wrote what is probably the
+first account of irrigation in England, though the art was mentioned
+by Fitzherbert and must have been known in Devon and Hampshire long
+before his time; indeed, it is <a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>another instance of the then isolation
+of country districts that he speaks as if he had made a new discovery.
+He tells us that 'having sojourned two years in his father's house,
+wearied in doing nothing and fearing his fortunes had been overthrown,
+he cast about what was best to be done to retrieve his reputation'.
+And one day he saw from a mole-hill on the side of a brook on his
+property a little stream of water issuing down the working of the
+mole, which made the ground 'pleasing green', and from this he was led
+on to what he calls 'the drowning of his lands'. This was so
+successful that he improved the value of his estate from <i>&pound;</i>40 to <i>&pound;</i>300 a
+year, and his neighbours, who of course had first scoffed at him, came
+to learn from him. Not many years after 'drowning' was said to have
+become one of the most universal and advantageous improvements in
+England.<a name="FNanchor_301_302" id="FNanchor_301_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_302" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> Vaughan says that he had counted as many as 300 persons
+gleaning in one field after harvest, and that in the mountains near
+eggs were 20 a penny, and a good bullock 26<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i>, but this was a
+backward region.<a name="FNanchor_302_303" id="FNanchor_302_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_303" class="fnanchor">[302]</a></p>
+
+<p>Between 1617 and 1621 the price of wheat fell from 43<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> to 21<i>s.</i> a
+quarter, and immediately affected the payment of rent.<a name="FNanchor_303_304" id="FNanchor_303_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_304" class="fnanchor">[303]</a> Mr. John
+Chamberlain, in February, 1620, wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton, 'We are
+here in a strange state to complain of plenty, but so it is that corn
+beareth so low a price that farmers are very backward to pay their
+rents and in many places plead disability: for remedy whereof the
+Council have written letters into every shire to provide a granary
+with a stock to buy corn and keep it for a dear year.' Sir Symonds
+D'Ewes notes in his diary that 'at this time (1621) the rates of all
+sorts of corn were so extremely low as it made the very prices of land
+fall from twenty years' purchase to sixteen or seventeen. For the best
+wheat was sold for 2<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> and 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> the bushel, the ordinary at 2<i>s.</i>
+Barley and rye at 1<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> and 1<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> the <a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>bushel, and the worser of
+those grains at a meaner rate, the poorer sort that would have been
+glad but a few years before of coarse rye bread, did now usually
+traverse the markets to find out the finer wheats as if nothing else
+would please their palates'. Instead of being glad that they were for
+once having a small share of the good things of this world, he
+rejoices that their unthankfulness and daintiness was soon punished by
+high prices and dearness of all sorts of grain.<a name="FNanchor_304_305" id="FNanchor_304_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_305" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> The year 1630 was
+the commencement of a series of dear seasons, when for nine
+consecutive years the price of wheat did not fall below 40<i>s.</i> a quarter
+and actually touched 86<i>s.</i> The restraints laid on corn-dealers had,
+since the principles of commerce were being better understood, been
+modified in 1624, but the high prices revived the old hatred against
+them, and we find Sir John Wingfield writing from Rutland that he has
+'taken order that ingrossers of corne shall be carefullie seen unto
+and that there is no Badger (corn-dealer) licensed to carry corne out
+of this countrye nor any starch made of any kind of graine'. He adds
+that he had 'refrayned the maulsters from excessive making of mault,
+and had suppressed 20 alehouses'.<a name="FNanchor_305_306" id="FNanchor_305_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_306" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> However, the senseless policy
+of preventing trade in corn received a severe blow from the statute 15
+Car. II, c. 7, which enacted that when corn was under 48<i>s.</i> persons
+were to be allowed to buy and store corn and sell the same again
+without penalty, provided they did not sell it in the same market
+within three months of buying it, a statute which Adam Smith said
+contributed more to the progress of agriculture than any previous law
+in the statute book.</p>
+
+<p>Gervase Markham, who was born about 1568 and died in 1637, gives us a
+description of the day's work of the English farmer. He is to rise at
+four in the morning, feed his cattle and clean his stable. While they
+are feeding he is to get his harness ready, which will take him two
+hours. Then he is to <a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>have his breakfast, for which half an hour is
+allowed. Getting the harness on his horses or cattle, he is to start
+by seven to his work and keep at it till between two and three in the
+afternoon. Then he shall bring his team home, clean them and give them
+their food, dine himself, and at four go back to his cattle and give
+them more fodder, and getting into his barn make ready their food for
+next day, not forgetting to see them again before going to his own
+supper at six. After supper he is to mend shoes by the fireside for
+himself and his family, or beat and knock hemp and flax, or pitch and
+stamp apples or crabs for cider or verjuice, or else grind malt, pick
+candle-rushes, or 'do some husbandry office within doors till it
+befall eight o'clock'. Then he shall take his lantern, visit his
+cattle once more, and go with all his household to rest. The farm
+roller of this time, according to Markham, was made of a round piece
+of wood 30 inches in circumference, 6 feet long, having at each end a
+strong pin of iron to which shafts were made fast.<a name="FNanchor_306_307" id="FNanchor_306_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_307" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> He mentions
+wooden and iron harrows, but this refers only to the tines, the wooden
+ones being made of ash. From an illustration of a harrow which he
+gives, it appears it was much like Fitzherbert's and many used to-day:
+a wooden frame, with the teeth set perhaps more closely than ours; the
+single harrow 4 feet square drawn by one horse, the double harrow 7
+feet square by two oxen at least. Wheat he says, when the land is dug
+15 inches deep, and the seed dibbled in, will produce twelve times as
+much as when ploughed; but he admits the 'intricacy and trouble' of
+this method.<a name="FNanchor_307_308" id="FNanchor_307_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_308" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> As to the question of mowing or reaping corn, he is
+of opinion that though 'it is a custom in many countries of this
+kingdom not to sheare the wheat but to mow it, in my conceit it is not
+so good, for it both maketh the wheate foule and full of weede'.
+Barley, however, should be mown close to the ground, though many reap
+it; oats too were to be mown. His directions for planting an
+orchard<a name="FNanchor_308_309" id="FNanchor_308_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_309" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> are interesting, both as showing the kinds <a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>of fruit then
+grown, the number of different sorts planted together, and the growth
+of the olive in England.<a name="FNanchor_309_310" id="FNanchor_309_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_310" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> The orchard, he says, should be a
+square, divided into four quarters by alleys, and in the first quarter
+should be apples of all sorts, in the second pears and wardens of all
+sorts, in the third quinces and chestnuts, in the fourth medlars and
+services. A wall is the best fence, and on the north wall, 'against
+which the sunne reflects, you shall plant the abricot, verdochio,
+peache, and damaske plumbe; against the east side the white muskadine
+grape, the pescod plumbe, and the Emperiale plumbe; against the west,
+the grafted cherries and the olive tree; and against the south side
+the almond and the figge tree.' As if this extraordinary mixture were
+not enough, 'round about the skirts of the alleys' were to be planted
+plums, damsons, cherries, filberts and nuts of all sorts, and the
+'horse clog' and 'bulleye', the two latter being inferior wild plums.
+Plums were to be 5 feet apart, apples and other large fruit 12 feet.</p>
+
+<p>Young trees should be watered morning and evening in dry summers, and
+old ones should have the earth dug away from the upper part of the
+roots from November to March, then the earth, mixed with dung or soap
+ashes, replaced. Moss was carefully to be scraped off the trees with
+the back of an old knife, and, to prevent it, the trees manured with
+swine's dung. Minute distinctions are given as to pruning and washing
+the trees with strong brine of water and salt, either with a garden
+pump placed in a tub or with 'squirtes which have many hoales', the
+forerunner of modern spraying.</p>
+
+<p>Cider was then mostly made in the west, as in Devonshire and Cornwall,
+and perry in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire; but he leaves out
+Herefordshire, where it was certainly made at this time.<a name="FNanchor_310_311" id="FNanchor_310_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_311" class="fnanchor">[310]</a></p>
+
+<p>A curious help to fattening beasts, says Markham, is a lean horse or
+two kept with them, for the beasts delight to feed <a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>with them.
+Fattening cattle were to have first bite at the pastures, then draught
+cattle, and then sheep; after Midsummer, when there is an
+extraordinary sweetness in the grass, suffer the cattle to eat the
+grass closer till Lammas (August 1). Though some do not hold with him,
+he thinks reading and writing not unprofitable to a husbandman, but
+not much material 'to his bailiff'; for there is more trust in an
+honest score chalked on a trencher than 'in a commen writen scrowle'.
+Landowners derived a good income from their woods and coppices. An
+acre of underwood of twenty-one years' growth, was at this time worth
+from <i>&pound;</i>20 to <i>&pound;</i>30; of twelve years' growth, <i>&pound;</i>5 to <i>&pound;</i>6; but on many of the
+best lands it was only cut every thirty years.<a name="FNanchor_311_312" id="FNanchor_311_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_312" class="fnanchor">[311]</a></p>
+
+<p>In 1742-3 oak timber was worth from 15<i>d.</i> to 18<i>d.</i> per cubic foot and
+ash about 10<i>d.</i> During the Napoleonic war oak sold for 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a foot.</p>
+
+<p>In Blyth's <i>Improver Improved</i> we have one of the first accounts of
+covered drains. The draining trench was to be made deep enough to go
+the bottom of the 'cold spewing moist water' that feeds the flags and
+the rushes; as for the width 'use thine own liberty' but be sure make
+it as straight as possible. The bottom was to be filled in with
+faggots or stones to a depth of 15 inches, a method in some parts
+retained till comparatively modern times, with the top turf laid upon
+them grass downward, and the drain filled in with the earth dug out of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>A country gentleman at this date could keep up a good establishment on
+an income which to-day would compel him to live economically in a
+cottage. From the accounts of Mr. Master, a landowner near
+Chiselhurst, it appears that a man with an income of <i>&pound;</i>300 or <i>&pound;</i>400 a
+year could live in some luxury, keep a stud of horses, and a
+considerable number of servants.<a name="FNanchor_312_313" id="FNanchor_312_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_313" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> Some of them had no scruples
+about adding to <a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>their incomes by turning corn-dealers, even selling
+such small quantities as pecks of peas, bushels of rye, and half pecks
+of oatmeal. From the accounts of one of them, Henry Best,<a name="FNanchor_313_314" id="FNanchor_313_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_314" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> of
+Elmswell, we learn many valuable details concerning farming in
+Yorkshire about 1641. It was the custom to put the ram to the ewes
+about October 18, but Best did so about Michaelmas, and generally used
+one ram to 30 or 40 ewes, and he considered it necessary that the ewes
+should be two-shear. 'Good handsome ewes', he says, could have been
+bought at Kilham fair for 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> each, a price far below the average
+of the time. As for wages, mowers of grass had 10<i>d.</i> a day, and found
+their own food and their scythes, which cost them about 2<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> each.
+Haymakers got 4<i>d.</i> a day, and had to 'meat themselves' and find their
+own forks and rakes. Shearers or reapers were paid from 8<i>d.</i> to 10<i>d.</i>,
+and found their own sickles; binders and stackers, 8<i>d.</i>; mowers of
+'haver', or oats, 10<i>d.</i>, a good mower cutting 4 acres a day. In 1641 he
+sold oats for 14<i>s.</i> a quarter, best barley for 22<i>s.</i>, rye 27<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>,
+wheat 30<i>s.</i><a name="FNanchor_314_315" id="FNanchor_314_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_315" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> The roads were dreadful, and produce nearly all sent
+to market on pack-horses. 'Wee seldome send fewer than 8 horse loads
+to the market at a time, and with them two men, for one man cannot
+guide the poakes (sacks) of above four horses. When wee sende oats to
+the market wee sack them up in 3 bushel poakes and lay 6 bushels on a
+horse; when wee sende wheate, rye, or masseldene (rye and wheat) and
+barley to market wee put it into mette poakes (2 bushel sacks),
+sometimes into half quarter sacks, and these we lay on horses that are
+short coupled and well backed.' When the servants got to market they
+were charged a halfpenny a horse for stabling and hay, but if they
+dined at the inn they paid nothing for their horses, and their dinners
+cost them 4<i>d.</i> a head. Butter was sold by the lb., or the 'cake' of 2
+lb., and in the beginning of Lent was 5<i>d.</i> a lb., by April 20, 3<i>d.</i>, in
+the middle of May, 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> When William Pinder <a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>took 50 acres of land
+'of my Lord Haye' he paid a fine of <i>&pound;</i>60 and a rent of <i>&pound;</i>40; but this
+must have been an extremely choice piece of land, for arable land
+rented apparently at less than 3<i>s.</i> an acre.<a name="FNanchor_315_316" id="FNanchor_315_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_316" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> The rent of a cottage
+was usually 10<i>s.</i> a year, 'though they have not so much as a yard or
+any backe side belonging to them.' There is more evidence, if such
+were needed, of the beneficial effect of enclosure, which was said to
+treble the value of pasture. Good meadow land fetched a great price:
+'The medow Sykes is about 5 acres of grounde, and was letten in the
+year 1628 at <i>&pound;</i>6 per annum, and in 1635 at <i>&pound;</i>6 13<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p>The requirements of a foreman on a farm were that he could sow, mow,
+stack peas, go well with 4 horses, and be accustomed to marketing; and
+for this when hired by the year he received 5 marks, and perhaps half
+a crown as earnest money. The next man got 50<i>s.</i>, the next 46<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>,
+the fourth 35<i>s.</i> 'Christopher Pearson had the first year he dwelt here
+<i>&pound;</i>3 5<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i> wages per annum and 5<i>s.</i> to a God's penny (earnest money);
+next year he had <i>&pound;</i>4 wages, and he was both a good seedsman,' before
+the invention of drills a very valuable qualification, 'and did sow
+all our seed both the years. When you are about to hire a servant you
+are to call them aside and talk privately with them concerning their
+wage, and if the servants stand in the churchyard they usually call
+them aside and walk to the back side of the church and there treat of
+their wage. I heard a servant asked what he could do, who made this
+answer:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">"I can sowe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I can mowe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And I can stacke;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And I can doe<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">My master too<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When my master turns his backe".'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>If we are to judge by the food provided for the thatchers, who <a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>were
+little better than ordinary labourers, the Yorkshire farm-hand fared
+well on plenty of simple food, his three meals a day consisting of
+butter, milk, cheese, and either eggs, pies, or bacon, sometimes
+porridge instead of milk.</p>
+
+<p>Probably, however, few country gentlemen were such industrious farmers
+as Best; many of them passed their days mostly in hunting and fowling
+and their evenings in drinking, though we know too that there were
+exceptions who did not care for this rude existence. Deer hunting, and
+we must add deer poaching, was the great sport of the wealthy, but the
+smaller gentry had to be content with simpler forms of the chase. For
+fox hunting each squire had his own little pack, and hunted only over
+his own estate and those of his friends. He had also the otter, the
+badger, and the hare to amuse him. Fowling was conducted, as in the
+Middle Ages, by hawk or net, for the shot gun had not yet come into
+use, and was forbidden by an old law.<a name="FNanchor_316_317" id="FNanchor_316_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_317" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> The partridge and pheasant,
+as now, were the chief game birds. After the Restoration the country
+gentlemen seem to have been infected by the dissipation of the Court,
+and farming was left to the tenant farmer and yeoman: 'our gentry',
+says Pepys, 'have grown ignorant of everything in good husbandry.'</p>
+
+<p>The middle of the seventeenth century was the Golden Age of the
+yeoman who owned and farmed his land; even at the end of the Stuart
+period, when their decline had already begun, Gregory King estimated
+their numbers at 160,000 families, or about one-seventh of the
+population. The class included all those between the man who owned
+freehold land worth 40<i>s.</i> a year and the wealthier yeoman who was
+hardly distinguishable from the small gentleman. Owning their own
+land they were a sturdy and independent class, and they 'took a jolly
+pride in voting as in fighting on the opposite side of the
+neighbouring <a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>squire'. 'The yeomanry', wrote Fuller, 'is an estate of
+people almost peculiar to England;' he 'wears russet clothes but
+makes golden payment, having tin in his buttons and silver in his
+pocket He seldom goes abroad, and his credit stretches farther than
+his travel.' The tenant farmers were nearly as numerous, King
+estimating them at 150,000 families; economically they were about on
+a level with the yeoman, their social standing, however, was
+considerably inferior.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest improvement of the seventeenth century, the introduction
+from Holland of turnips and clover, was over-estimated by its author,
+Sir Richard Weston; for he tells his sons that by sowing flax,
+turnips, and clover they might in five years improve 500 acres of poor
+land so as to bring in <i>&pound;</i>7,000 a year.<a name="FNanchor_317_318" id="FNanchor_317_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_318" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> To bring about this
+desirable consummation, he provides his sons with accounts as to the
+cost, one of which shows the cost of growing an acre of flax and the
+profit thereon, though this gentleman's estimates are clearly
+optimistic:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='center'>DR.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Devonshiring, i.e. paring and burning</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lime</td>
+  <td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Ploughing and harrowing</td>
+  <td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3 bushels of seed</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Weeding</td>
+  <td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Pulling and binding</td>
+  <td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Grassing the seed from the flax</td>
+  <td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Watering, drying, swinging, and beating</td>
+  <td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>9</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>========</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>CR.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>900 lb. of flax</td>
+  <td align='right'>40</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='left'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Balance profit</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i>30</td><td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>========</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Turnips were to come after flax, and were to be given to the cows as
+they did in Flanders; that is, wash them clean, put them in a trough
+where they were to be stamped together <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>with a spitter or small spade;
+and the turnips were to be followed by clover. All these, says Weston,
+were already grown in England, but 'there is as much difference
+between what groweth here and there as is between the same thing which
+groweth in a garden and that which groweth wild in the fields'.
+Worlidge soon after recommended that clover be sown on barley or oats
+about the end of March or in April, and harrowed in, or by itself; and
+says, with optimism equal to Weston's, one acre of clover will feed
+you as many cows as 6 acres of ordinary grass and make the milk
+richer.<a name="FNanchor_318_319" id="FNanchor_318_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_319" class="fnanchor">[318]</a></p>
+
+<p>It has been noticed that the price of wool altered little during the
+century, and from the private accounts of Sir Abel Barker<a name="FNanchor_319_320" id="FNanchor_319_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_320" class="fnanchor">[319]</a> of
+Hambleton, in the County of Rutland, we learn that in 1642 he sold his
+wool to his 'loving friend Mr. William Gladstone' for <i>&pound;</i>1 a tod, though
+by 1648 it had gone up to 29<i>s.</i>, a good price for those days. During
+the Civil War some of Barker's horses were carried off for the service
+of the State, and he values them at <i>&pound;</i>8 a piece, a fair price then.
+Some years later, for mowing 44 acres of grass he sets down in his
+account <i>&pound;</i>2 7<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i>, for making the same <i>&pound;</i>2 3<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i>, and stacking it
+3<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>Simon Hartlib, a Dutchman by birth and a friend of John Milton,
+published his <i>Legacy</i> in 1651, containing both rash statements and
+useful information. We certainly cannot believe him when he states
+that pasture employs more hands than tillage. His estimate of a good
+crop of wheat was from 12 to 16 bushels per acre, and he speaks
+strongly of the great fluctuations in prices, for he had known barley
+sell at Northampton at 6<i>d.</i> a bushel, and within 12 months at 5<i>s.</i>, and
+wheat in London in one year varied from 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to 15<i>s.</i> a bushel. The
+enormous number of dovecotes was still a great nuisance, and the
+pigeons were reckoned to eat 6,000,000 quarters of grain <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>annually.
+Hartlib recommends his countrymen to sow 'a seed commonly called Saint
+Foine, which in England is as much as to say Holy Hay,' as they do in
+France: especially on barren lands, advice which some of them
+followed, and in Wilts., soon after, sainfoin is said to have so
+improved poor land that from a noble (6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>) per acre, the rent had
+increased to 30<i>s.</i><a name="FNanchor_320_321" id="FNanchor_320_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_321" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> They were also to use 'another sort of fodder
+which they call La Lucern at Paris for dry and barren grounds'. So
+wasteful were they of labour in some parts that in Kent were to be
+seen 12 horses and oxen drawing one plough.<a name="FNanchor_321_322" id="FNanchor_321_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_322" class="fnanchor">[321]</a></p>
+
+<p>The use of the spade was long looked askance at by English husbandmen;
+old men in Surrey had told Hartlib that they knew the first gardeners
+that came into those parts to plant cabbages and 'colleflowers', and
+to sow turnips, carrots, and parsnips, and that they gave <i>&pound;</i>8 an acre
+for their land. The latter statement must be an exaggeration, as it is
+equivalent to a rent of about <i>&pound;</i>40 in our money; but we may give some
+credence to him when he says that the owner was anxious lest the spade
+should spoil his ground, 'so ignorant were we of gardening in those
+days.' Though it was not the case in Elizabeth's time, by now the
+licorice, saffron, cherries, apples, pears, hops, and cabbages of
+England were the best in the world; but many things were deficient,
+for instance, many onions came from Flanders and Spain, madder from
+Zealand, and roses from France.<a name="FNanchor_322_323" id="FNanchor_322_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_323" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> 'It is a great deficiency in
+England that we have not more orchards planted. It is true that in
+Kent, and about London, and in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and
+Worcestershire<a name="FNanchor_323_324" id="FNanchor_323_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_324" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> there are many gallant orchards, but in other
+country places they are very rare and thin, I know in Kent some
+advance their ground from 5<i>s.</i> per acre to <i>&pound;</i>5 by this means', and 30
+acres of cherries near Sittingbourne had realized <i>&pound;</i>1,000 in one year.
+His recipe for making old fruit <a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>trees bear well savours of a time
+when old women were still burnt as witches. 'First split his root,
+then apply a compost of pigeon's dung, lees of wine, or stale wine,
+and a little brimstone'. The tithes of wine in Gloucestershire were
+'in divers parishes considerably great', and wine was then made in
+Kent and Surrey, notably by Sir Peter Ricard, who made 6 or 8
+hogsheads yearly.<a name="FNanchor_324_325" id="FNanchor_324_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_325" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> There is no doubt that the vine has been grown
+in the open in England from very early times until comparatively
+recent ones. The Britons were taught to plant it by the Romans in A.D.
+280.<a name="FNanchor_325_326" id="FNanchor_325_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_326" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> In Domesday there are 38 examples of vineyards, chiefly in
+the south central counties. Neckham, who wrote in the twelfth century,
+says the vineyard was an important adjunct to the mediaeval
+mansion.<a name="FNanchor_326_327" id="FNanchor_326_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_327" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> William of Malmesbury praised the vines and wine of
+Gloucestershire; and says that the vine was either allowed to trail on
+the ground, or trained to small stakes fixed to each plant. Indeed,
+the mention of them in mediaeval chronicles is frequent.</p>
+
+<p>Two bushels of green grapes in 1332 fetched 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_327_328" id="FNanchor_327_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_328" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> Richard II
+planted vines in great plenty, according to Stow, within the upper
+park of Windsor, and sold some part to his people. The wine made in
+England was sweetened with honey, and probably flavoured and coloured
+with blackberries.<a name="FNanchor_328_329" id="FNanchor_328_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_329" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> At the dissolution of the monasteries there
+was a vineyard at Barking Nunnery. 'We might have a reasonable good
+wine growing in many places of this realme', says Barnaby Googe, about
+1577, 'as doubtless we had immediately after the Conquest, tyll,
+partly by slothfulnesse, partly by civil discord long continued, it
+was left, and so with time lost.... There is besides Nottingham an
+ancient house called Chylwel in which remaineth yet as an ancient
+monument in a great wyndowe of glasse, the whole order of planting,
+proyning, stamping, and pressing of vines. Upon many cliffes and hills
+are <a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>yet to be seen the rootes and old remaines of vines.' Plot, in his
+<i>Natural History of Staffordshire</i>,<a name="FNanchor_329_330" id="FNanchor_329_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_330" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> says 'the vine has been
+improved by Sir Henry Lyttelton at Over (Upper) Arley, which is
+situate low and warm, so that he has made wine there undistinguishable
+from the best French by the most judicious palates, but this I suppose
+was done only in some over hot summer, and Dr. Bathurst made very good
+claret at Oxon in 1685, a very mean year for the purpose.' In 1720 the
+famous vineyard at Bath of 6 acres, planted with the 'white muscadene'
+and the 'black Chester grape,' produced 66 hogsheads of wine worth <i>&pound;</i>10
+a hogshead, but in unfavourable years grew very little.'<a name="FNanchor_330_331" id="FNanchor_330_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_331" class="fnanchor">[330]</a> Mr.
+Peter Collinson, writing from Middlesex in 1747, says, 'the vineyards
+turn to good profit, much wine being made this year in England;' and
+again in 1748, 'my vineyards are very ripe; a considerable quantity of
+wine will this year be made in England.'<a name="FNanchor_331_332" id="FNanchor_331_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_332" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> However, the attempt
+made to grow vines on the undercliff at Ventnor at the end of the
+eighteenth century by Sir Richard Worsley ended in dismal failure, and
+it is probable that the English climate in its normal years seldom
+produced good grapes out of doors whatever it may have done in
+exceptionally hot ones, unless we assume that it has changed
+considerably, for which there is little ground.</p>
+
+<p>Hartlib was no friend of commons; they made the poor idle and trained
+them for the gallows or beggary, and there were fewest poor where
+there were fewest commons,<a name="FNanchor_332_333" id="FNanchor_332_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_333" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> as in Kent&mdash;a statement re-echoed by
+many observant writers; he also recommends enclosures, because they
+gave warmth and consequent fertility to the soil. He tells us that an
+effort had been <a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>made by James I to encourage the growth of mulberry
+trees and the breeding of silkworms, the lords-lieutenant of the
+different counties being urged to see to it, but it had little
+effect.<a name="FNanchor_333_334" id="FNanchor_333_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_334" class="fnanchor">[333]</a></p>
+
+<p>The number of different sorts of wheat was by this time considerable.
+Hartlib gives the white, red, bearded ('which is not subject to
+mildews as others'); some sorts with two rows, others with four and
+six; some with one ear on a stalk, others with two; the red stalk
+wheat of Bucks; winter wheat and summer wheat. There were also twenty
+varieties of peas that he knew, and the white, black, naked. Scotch,
+and Poland oats. Markham adds the whole straw wheat, the great brown
+pollard, the white pollard, the organ, the flaxen, and the chilter
+wheat.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sad lack of enterprise in the breeding of stock now and
+for many generations before; indeed, it may be doubted if this
+important branch of farming, except perhaps in the case of sheep, was
+much attended to until the time of Bakewell and the Collings. In
+Elizabeth's time a Frenchman had twitted England with having only
+3,000 or 4,000 horses worth anything, which was one of the reasons
+that induced the Spaniards to invade us.<a name="FNanchor_334_335" id="FNanchor_334_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_335" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> 'We are negligent, too,
+in our kine, that we advance not the best species.'</p>
+
+<p>The size of cattle at this date, however, seems to have been greater
+than is often stated. The Report of the Select Committee on the
+Cultivation of Waste Lands in 1795, states that the average weight,
+dressed, of cattle at Smithfield in 1710 was only 370 lb.,<a name="FNanchor_335_336" id="FNanchor_335_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_336" class="fnanchor">[335]</a> yet
+the Household Book of Prince Henry at the commencement of the
+seventeenth century says that an ox should weigh 600 lb. the four
+quarters, and cost about <i>&pound;</i>9 10<i>s.</i>, a sheep about 45 lb., so that the
+latter were apparently relatively smaller than the oxen. In 1603 oxen
+were sold at <a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>Tostock in Suffolk weighing 1,000 lb. apiece, dead
+weight.<a name="FNanchor_336_337" id="FNanchor_336_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_337" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> According to the records of Winchester College, the oxen
+sold there in the middle of the century averaged, dressed, about 575
+lb.; in 1677, 35 oxen sold there averaged 730 lb. 'Some kine,' it was
+said at the end of the century, 'have grown to be very bulky and a
+great many are sold for <i>&pound;</i>10 or <i>&pound;</i>12 apiece; there was lately sold near
+Bury a beast for <i>&pound;</i>30, and 'twas fatted with cabbage leaves. An ox near
+Ripon weighed, dressed, 13<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub>&nbsp;cwt.'<a name="FNanchor_337_338" id="FNanchor_337_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_338" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> They were, of course,
+chiefly valued as beasts of draught, and no doubt the one Evelyn saw
+in 1649, 'bred in Kent, 17 foot in length, and much higher than I
+could reach,' was a powerful animal for this purpose. The young ones
+were taught to draw by yoking two of them, together with two old ones
+before and two behind, with a man on each side the young ones, 'to
+keep them in order and speak them fair,' for if much beaten they
+seldom did well: for the first two or three days they were worked only
+three or four hours a day, but soon they worked as long as the older
+ones, that is from 6 to 11, then a bait of hay and rest till 1, with
+work again till 5, at least in Lancashire. They were kept in the yoke
+till nine or ten years old, then turned on to the best grass in May,
+and sold to the butcher.<a name="FNanchor_338_339" id="FNanchor_338_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_339" class="fnanchor">[338]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_155" id="Footnotes_155"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_287" id="Footnote_286_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_287"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> <i>Surveyor's Dialogue</i> (ed. 1608), p. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_288" id="Footnote_287_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_288"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> <i>Surveyor's Dialogue</i>, p. 188.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_289" id="Footnote_288_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_289"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> Ibid. p. 207.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_290" id="Footnote_289_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_290"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> <i>Victoria County History: Devon, Agriculture</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_291" id="Footnote_290_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_291"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> <i>Herefordshire Orchards a Pattern for All England</i> (ed.
+1724).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_292" id="Footnote_291_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_292"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> See infra, p. 136.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_293" id="Footnote_292_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_293"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> These extracts are from the original edition in the
+Bodleian Library.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_294" id="Footnote_293_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_294"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> 'The Flanders cherry excels', says Worlidge, <i>Syst.
+Agr.</i>, p. 97.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_295" id="Footnote_294_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_295"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> Bradley, in 1726, gives a long list of pears all with
+French names, hardly any of which are now known in England.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_296" id="Footnote_295_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_296"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> Worlidge, <i>Systema Agriculturae</i>, p. 107.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_297" id="Footnote_296_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_297"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> <i>Annotation upon the Legacie of Husbandry</i>, 1651, p.
+105.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_298" id="Footnote_297_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_298"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> Markham, i. 174 (ed. 1635).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298_299" id="Footnote_298_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_299"><span class="label">[298]</span></a> <i>Systema Agriculturae</i>, p. 152.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299_300" id="Footnote_299_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_300"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> Evelyn, <i>Pomona</i> (ed. 1664), p. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300_301" id="Footnote_300_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_301"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> <i>Compleat Husbandman</i> (ed. 1659), p. 75.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301_302" id="Footnote_301_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_302"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> <i>Most Approved and Long Experienced Waterworks</i>.
+London, 1610.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302_303" id="Footnote_302_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_303"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> See Worlidge, <i>Systema Agriculturae</i> (ed. 1669), p.
+155.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303_304" id="Footnote_303_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_304"><span class="label">[303]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, i. 23.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304_305" id="Footnote_304_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_305"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> <i>Life of Sir S. D'Ewes</i>, i. 180.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305_306" id="Footnote_305_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_306"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> <i>Calendar of State Papers, Domestic</i>, 1629-31, p. 414.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306_307" id="Footnote_306_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_307"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> <i>Whole Art of Husbandry</i> (ed. 1635), i. 50.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307_308" id="Footnote_307_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_308"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> Ibid. i. 100.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308_309" id="Footnote_308_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_309"><span class="label">[308]</span></a> Ibid. i. 121.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309_310" id="Footnote_309_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_310"><span class="label">[309]</span></a> An astonishing statement; cf. Denton, <i>England in the
+Fifteenth Century</i>, p. 56, Neckham, <i>De Natura Rerum</i>, cap. clxvi. and
+above, p. 93.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310_311" id="Footnote_310_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_311"><span class="label">[310]</span></a> <i>Whole Art of Husbandry</i> (ed. 1635), i. 173.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311_312" id="Footnote_311_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_312"><span class="label">[311]</span></a> <i>Whole Art of Husbandry</i> (ed. 1635), ii. 144. and MS.
+accounts of Mr. Chevallier of Aspall Hall, Suffolk.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312_313" id="Footnote_312_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_313"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>, v.
+28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313_314" id="Footnote_313_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_314"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> <i>Farming and Account Books of Henry Best of Elmswell</i>,
+1641, Surtees Society, xxxiii. 157.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314_315" id="Footnote_314_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_315"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> Ibid. p. 99.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315_316" id="Footnote_315_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_316"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> <i>Farming and Account Books of Henry Best of Elmswell</i>,
+1641. Surtees Society, xxxiii. 124. Many districts in the north of
+England were still much behind the rest of the country.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316_317" id="Footnote_316_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_317"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> Trevelyan, <i>England under the Stuarts</i>, 8 sq. Though,
+as we have seen, p. 157, the writer of the <i>Fruiterer's Secrets</i>
+recommends the gun for scaring birds in 1604.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317_318" id="Footnote_317_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_318"><span class="label">[317]</span></a> <i>The Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders</i> (ed. 1652), p.
+18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318_319" id="Footnote_318_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_319"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> <i>Systema Agriculturae</i>, p. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319_320" id="Footnote_319_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_320"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> MS. accounts of Sir Abel Barker, in the possession of
+G.W.P. Conant, Esq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320_321" id="Footnote_320_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_321"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> Worlidge, <i>Systema Agriculturae</i>, p. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321_322" id="Footnote_321_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_322"><span class="label">[321]</span></a> <i>Compleat Husbandman</i> (1659), p. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322_323" id="Footnote_322_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_323"><span class="label">[322]</span></a> Ibid. p. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323_324" id="Footnote_323_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_324"><span class="label">[323]</span></a> Cf. supra, p. 136.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324_325" id="Footnote_324_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_325"><span class="label">[324]</span></a> <i>Compleat Husbandman</i> (1659), p. 23.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325_326" id="Footnote_325_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_326"><span class="label">[325]</span></a> <i>Archaeologia</i>, i. 324; iii. 53.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326_327" id="Footnote_326_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_327"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> <i>De Natura Rerum</i>, Rolls Ser., lxi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327_328" id="Footnote_327_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_328"><span class="label">[327]</span></a> Denton, <i>England in the Fifteenth Century</i>, 57 n.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328_329" id="Footnote_328_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_329"><span class="label">[328]</span></a> Ibid.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329_330" id="Footnote_329_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_330"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> Ed. 1686, p. 380.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330_331" id="Footnote_330_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_331"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> R. Bradley, <i>A General Treatise of Husbandry</i> (ed.
+1726), ii. 52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331_332" id="Footnote_331_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_332"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i> i. 44. Brandy was made in
+the eighteenth century from grapes grown in the Beaulieu vineyards in
+Hampshire, and a bottle of it long kept at the abbey.&mdash;<i>Hampshire
+Notes and Queries</i>, vi. 62. There are two vineyards to-day, of 2<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub>
+and 4 acres respectively, on the estates of the Marquis of Bute in
+Glamorganshire; but a vintage is only obtained once in four or five
+years from them, and they are not profitable.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332_333" id="Footnote_332_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_333"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> <i>Compleat Husbandman</i>, 1659, p, 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333_334" id="Footnote_333_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_334"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> <i>Compleat Husbandman</i>, 1659, p. 57.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334_335" id="Footnote_334_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_335"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> Ibid. p. 73.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335_336" id="Footnote_335_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_336"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> In this apparently repeating Davenant's statement. See
+McCulloch, <i>Commercial Dictionary</i>, 1852, p. 271.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336_337" id="Footnote_336_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_337"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>, v.
+332.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337_338" id="Footnote_337_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_338"><span class="label">[337]</span></a> Houghton, <i>Collections for Improvement of Husbandry</i>,
+i. 294.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338_339" id="Footnote_338_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_339"><span class="label">[338]</span></a> Ibid., <i>Collections for Husbandry and Trade</i> (ed.
+1728), iv. 336.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE EVILS OF COMMON FIELDS.&mdash;HOPS.&mdash;IMPLEMENTS.&mdash;MANURES.&mdash;GREGORY
+KING&mdash;CORN LAWS</h3>
+
+
+<p>From what has been said in the preceding pages, it will be gathered
+that a vast amount of compassion has been wasted on the enclosure of
+commons, for it is abundantly evident from contemporary writers that
+there were a large number of people dragging out a miserable existence
+on them, by living on the produce of a cow or two, or some sheep and a
+few poultry, with what game they could sometimes catch, and refusing
+regular work. Dymock, Hartlib's contemporary, questions 'whether
+commons do not rather make poore by causing idlenesse than maintaine
+them;' and he also asks how it is that there are fewest poor where
+there are fewest commons.</p>
+
+<p>In the common fields, too, there was continual strife and contention
+caused by the infinite number of trespasses that they were subject
+to.<a name="FNanchor_339_340" id="FNanchor_339_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_340" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> The absence of hedges, too, in these great open fields was
+bad for the crops, for there was nothing to mitigate drying and
+scorching winds, while in the open waste and meadows the live stock
+must have sadly needed shelter and shade, 'losing more flesh in one
+hot day than they gained in three cool days.' Worlidge, a Hampshire
+man, joins in the chorus of praise of enclosures, for they brought
+employment to the poor, and maintained treble 'the number of
+inhabitants' that the open fields did; and he gives further proof of
+the enclosure of land in the seventeenth century, when he mentions
+'the great quantities of land that have within our memories lain open,
+and in common of little value, yet when enclosed have proved excellent
+good land.' <a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>Why then was this most obvious improvement not more
+generally effected? Because there was a great impediment to it in the
+numerous interests and diversity of titles and claims to almost every
+common field and piece of waste land in England, whereby one or more
+envious or ignorant persons could thwart the will of the
+majority.<a name="FNanchor_340_341" id="FNanchor_340_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_341" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> Another hindrance, he says, was that many roads passed
+over the commons and wastes, which a statute was needed to stop.</p>
+
+<p>In the seventeenth century hop growing was not nearly so common in
+England as in the preceding, when Harrison had said, in his
+<i>Description of Britain</i>, 'there are few farmers or occupiers in the
+country which have not gardens and hops growing of their own, and
+those far better than do come from Flanders.' There seems, indeed, to
+have been a prejudice against the hop; Worlidge<a name="FNanchor_341_342" id="FNanchor_341_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_342" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> says it was
+esteemed an unwholesome herb for the use it was usually put to, 'which
+may also be supplied with several other wholesome and better herbs.'
+John Evelyn was very much against them, probably because he was such
+an advocate of cider: 'It is little more than an age,' he says, 'since
+hopps transmuted our wholesome ale into beer, which doubtless much
+altered our constitutions. That one ingredient, by some not unworthily
+suspected, preserving drink indeed, and so by custom made agreeable,
+yet repaying the pleasure with tormenting diseases, and a shorter
+life, may deservedly abate our fondness for it, especially if with
+this be considered likewise the casualties in planting it, as seldom
+succeeding more than once in three years.'<a name="FNanchor_342_343" id="FNanchor_342_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_343" class="fnanchor">[342]</a> The City of London
+petitioned against hops as spoiling the taste of drink.</p>
+
+<p>Yet its cultivation is said to have advanced the price of land to <i>&pound;</i>40,
+<i>&pound;</i>50, and sometimes <i>&pound;</i>100 an acre, the latter an almost incredible price
+if we consider the value of money then. There were not enough planted
+to serve the kingdom, <a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>and Flemish hops had to be imported, though not
+nearly so good as English. A great deal of dishonesty, moreover, was
+shown by the foreign importers, so that in 1603 a statute (1 Jac. I,
+c. 18) was passed against the 'false packinge of forreine hops,' by
+which it appears that the sacks were filled up with leaves, stalks,
+powder, sand, straw, wood, and even soil, for increasing the weight,
+by which English growers it is said lost <i>&pound;</i>20,000 a year. Such hops
+were to be forfeited, and brewers using them were to forfeit their
+value. The chief cause of their decrease was that few farmers would
+take the trouble and care required to grow them, in spite of the often
+excellent prices, which at Winchester at this date averaged from 50<i>s.</i>
+to 80<i>s.</i> a cwt., sometimes, however, reaching over 200<i>s.</i>, as in 1665
+and 1687, though then as now they were subject to great fluctuations,
+and in 1691 were only 31<i>s.</i> Many, too, were discouraged by the fact
+'they are the most of any plant that grows subject to the various
+mutations of the air, mildews sometimes totally destroying them,' no
+doubt an allusion to the aphis blight. Hop yards were often protected
+at this early date by hedges of tall trees, usually ash or poplar, the
+elm being disapproved of as contracting mildews. Markham<a name="FNanchor_343_344" id="FNanchor_343_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_344" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> says
+that Hertfordshire then contained as good hops as he had seen
+anywhere, and there the custom was 250 hills to every rood, 'and every
+hill will bear 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;lb., worth on an average 4 nobles a cwt. (a noble
+= 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>);' hills were to be 6 ft. apart at least, poles 16 to 18 ft.
+long and 9 or 10 inches in circumference at the butt, of ash, oak,
+beech, alder, maple or willow.</p>
+
+<p>Some planted the hills in 'plain squares chequerwise, which is the
+best way if you intend to plough with horses between the hills. Others
+plant them in form of a quincunx, which is better for the hop, and
+will do very well where your ground is but small that you may overcome
+it with either the breast plough or spade.' The manure recommended by
+Worlidge <a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>was good mould, or dung and earth mixed. The hills were like
+mole-hills 3 feet high, and sometimes were large enough to have as
+many as 20 poles, so that some hop yards must have looked very
+different then from what they do now, even when poles are retained;
+but from two to five poles per hill was the more usual number.
+Cultivation was much the same as in Reynold Scott's time, and picking
+was still done on a 'floor' prepared by levelling the hills, watering,
+treading, and sweeping the ground, round which the pickers sat and
+picked into baskets, but the hop crib was also used.</p>
+
+<p>It was considered better not to let the hops get too ripe, as the
+growers were aware of the value of a fresh, green-looking sample; and
+Worlidge advises the careful exclusion of leaves and stalks, though
+Markham does not agree with him. Kilns were of two sorts: the English
+kiln made of wood, lath, and clay; the French of brick, lime, and
+sand, not so liable to burn as the former and therefore better.<a name="FNanchor_344_345" id="FNanchor_344_345"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_345" class="fnanchor">[344]</a>
+One method of drying was finely to bed the kiln with wheat straw laid
+on the hair-cloth, the hops being spread 8 inches thick over this,
+'and then you shall keepe a fire a little more fervent than for the
+drying of a kiln full of malt,' the fire not to be of wood, for that
+made the hops smoky and tasted the beer, but of straw! Worlidge,
+strangely, recommended the bed of the kiln to be covered with tin, as
+much better than hair-cloth, for then any sort of fuel would do as
+well as charcoal, since the smoke did not pass through the hops.</p>
+
+<p>Besides Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Leicestershire,
+and Rutlandshire; Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire were recommended by
+Markham for hop growing, the great hop counties of to-day being passed
+over by him.</p>
+
+<p>The growth of hemp and flax had by this time considerably decayed,
+owing to the want of encouragement to trade in these commodities, the
+lack of experience in growing them, and the tithes which in some years
+amounted to more than <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>the profits.<a name="FNanchor_345_346" id="FNanchor_345_346"></a><a href="#Footnote_345_346" class="fnanchor">[345]</a> An acre of good flax was worth
+from <i>&pound;</i>7 to <i>&pound;</i>12; but if 'wrought up fit to sell in the market' from <i>&pound;</i>15
+to <i>&pound;</i>20.</p>
+
+<p>Woad was considered a 'very rich commodity', but according to Blyth it
+robbed the land if long continued upon it, although if moderately used
+it prepared land for corn, drawing a 'different juice from what the
+corn requires'. It more than doubled the rent of land, and had been
+sold at from <i>&pound;</i>6 to <i>&pound;</i>20 a ton, the produce of an acre. John Lawrence,
+who wrote in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, says woad
+was in his time cultivated by companies of people, men, women, and
+children, who hired the land, built huts, and grew and prepared the
+crop for the dyer's use, then moved on to another place.<a name="FNanchor_346_347" id="FNanchor_346_347"></a><a href="#Footnote_346_347" class="fnanchor">[346]</a></p>
+
+<p>There were proofs that man's inventive genius was at work among farm
+implements. Worlidge mentions<a name="FNanchor_347_348" id="FNanchor_347_348"></a><a href="#Footnote_347_348" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> an engine for setting corn,
+invented by Gabriel Plat, made of two boards bored with wide holes 4
+in. apart, set in a frame, with a funnel to each hole. It was fitted
+with iron pins 5 in. long to 'play up and down', and dibble holes into
+which the corn was to go from the funnels. This machine was so
+intricate and clumsy that Worlidge found no use for it. However, he
+recommends another instrument which certainly seems to anticipate
+Tull's drill, though Tull is said to have stated when Bradley showed
+him a cut of it that it was only a proposal and it never got farther
+than the cut.<a name="FNanchor_348_349" id="FNanchor_348_349"></a><a href="#Footnote_348_349" class="fnanchor">[348]</a> It consisted of a frame of small square pieces of
+timber 2 inches thick; the breadth of the frame 2 feet, the height 18
+inches, length 4 feet, placed on <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>four good-sized wheels. In the middle
+of the frame a coulter was fixed to make a furrow for the corn, which
+fell through a wooden pipe behind, that dropped the corn out of a
+hopper containing about a bushel, the fall of the corn from the hopper
+being regulated by a wooden wheel in its neck. The same frame might
+contain two coulters, pipes, and hoppers, and the instrument could be
+worked with one horse and one man. It was considered a great advance
+on sowing broadcast, and by the use of it 'you may also cover your
+grain with any rich compost you shall prepare for that purpose, either
+with pigeon dung, dry or granulated, or any other saline or lixirial
+(alkaline, or of potash) substance, which may drop after the corn from
+another hopper behind the one that drops the corn, or from a separate
+drill'. The corn thus sown in rows was found easier to weed and hoe,
+so that it is clear that this advantage was well understood before
+Tull's time.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great diversity of ploughs at this date, almost every
+county having some variation.<a name="FNanchor_349_350" id="FNanchor_349_350"></a><a href="#Footnote_349_350" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> The principal sorts were the
+double-wheel plough, useful upon hard land, usually drawn with horses
+or oxen two abreast, the wheels 18 in. to 20 in. high. The one-wheel
+plough, which could be used on almost any sort of land; it was very
+'light and nimble', so that it could be drawn by one horse and held by
+one man, and thus ploughed an acre a day.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a 'plain plough without either wheel or foot', very
+easy to work and fit for any lands; a double plough worked by four
+horses and two men, of two kinds, one ploughing a double furrow, the
+other a double depth.</p>
+
+<p>There were also ploughs with a harrow attached, others constructed to
+plough, sow, and harrow, but not of much value; and a turfing plough
+for burning sod. Carts and waggons were of many sorts, according to
+the locality, the greater wheels of the waggon being usually 18 feet
+in circumference the lesser 9 feet. A useful implement was the
+trenching plough <a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>used on grass land to cut out the sides of trenches
+or drains, with a long handle and beam and with a coulter or knife
+fixed in it and sometimes a wheel or wheels. The following is a list
+of other implements then considered necessary for a farm.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'><i>For the field.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Harrows</td><td align='left'>Mole spear</td><td align='left'>Beetles</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Forks</td><td align='left'>Mole traps</td><td align='left'>Roller</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sickles</td><td align='left'>Weedhooks</td><td align='left'>Cradle scythe</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Reaphooks</td><td align='left'>Pitchforks</td><td align='left'>Seedlip
+  <a name="FNanchor_350_351" id="FNanchor_350_351"></a><a href="#Footnote_350_351" class="fnanchor">[350]</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sledds</td><td align='left'>Rakes</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'><br /><i>For the barn and stable.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Flails</td><td align='left'>Pannels (pillions)</td><td align='left'>Pails</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Winnowing fan</td><td align='left'>Pack-saddles</td><td align='left'>Mane combs</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sieves</td><td align='left'>Cart lines</td><td align='left'>Goads</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Sacks</td><td align='left'>Ladders</td><td align='left'>Yokes</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Bins</td><td align='left'>Corn measures</td><td align='left'>Wanteyes<a name="FNanchor_351_352" id="FNanchor_351_352"></a><a href="#Footnote_351_352" class="fnanchor">[351]</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Curry combs</td><td align='left'>Brooms</td><td align='left'>Suffingles (surcingles?)</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Whips</td><td align='left'>Skeps (baskets)</td><td align='left'>Screens for corn.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Harness</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'><br /><i>For the meadows and pastures.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Scythes</td><td align='left'>Pitchforks</td><td align='left'>Cutting spade for hayrick</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rakes</td><td align='left'>Fetters and clogs</td><td align='left'>Horse-locks.</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'>Besides many tools.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>A considerable variety of manures were in use, chalk, lime, marl,
+fuller's earth, clay, sand, sea-weed, river-weed, oyster shells, fish,
+dung, ashes, soot, salt, rags, hair, malt dust, bones, horns, and the
+bark of trees. Of the oyster shells Worlidge says, 'I am credibly
+informed that an ingenious gentleman living near the seaside laid on
+his lands great quantities, which made his neighbours laugh at him (as
+usually they do at anything besides their own clownish road or custom
+of ignorance),' and after a year or two's exposure to the weather
+<a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>'they exceedingly enriched his land for many years after.' The bones
+then used were marrow-bones and fish bones, or 'whatever hath any
+oiliness or fatness in it', but the bones of horses and other animals
+were also used, burnt before being applied to the land, crushing not
+being thought of till many years after.</p>
+
+<p>In 1688 Gregory King,<a name="FNanchor_352_353" id="FNanchor_352_353"></a><a href="#Footnote_352_353" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> who was much more accurate than most
+statisticians of his time, gave the following estimate of the land of
+England and Wales:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='center'>Acres.</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Per acre.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Arable</td>
+  <td align='right'>9,000,000</td><td align='right'>worth to rent</td><td align='left'> 5<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Pasture and meadow</td>
+  <td align='right'>12,000,000</td><td align='right'> " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>8<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Woods and coppices</td>
+  <td align='right'>3,000,000</td><td align='right'> " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>5<i>s.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Forests and parks</td>
+  <td align='right'>3,000,000</td><td align='right'> " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>3<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Barren land</td>
+  <td align='right'>10,000,000</td><td align='right'> " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1<i>s. </i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Houses, gardens, churches, &amp;c.</td>
+  <td align='right'>1,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Water and roads</td>
+  <td align='right'>1,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Total:</td><td align='right'>39,000,000</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>He valued the live stock of England and Wales at <i>&pound;</i>18<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub>&nbsp;millions, and
+estimated the produce of the arable land in England at:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='center'><i>Million<br />bushels.</i></td><td align='center'><i>Value<br />per bushel.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wheat</td><td align='right'>14&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='center'>3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rye</td><td align='right'>10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='center'>2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Barley</td><td align='right'>27&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='center'> 2<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Oats</td><td align='right'>16&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='center'> 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Peas</td><td align='right'>7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='center'>2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Beans</td><td align='right'>4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='center'>2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Vetches</td><td align='right'>1&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='center'>2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The same statistician drew up a scheme of the income and <a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>expenditure
+of the 'several families' in England in 1688, the population being
+5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;millions<a name="FNanchor_353_354" id="FNanchor_353_354"></a><a href="#Footnote_353_354" class="fnanchor">[353]</a>:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>No. of&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />families<br />in class.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Class.</i></td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='center'><i>Income.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>160</td><td align='left'>Temporal lords</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i>3,200</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>800</td><td align='left'>Baronets</td>
+  <td align='right'>880</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>600</td><td align='left'>Knights</td>
+  <td align='right'>650</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>3,000</td><td align='left'>Esquires</td>
+ <td align='right'>450</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>11,000</td><td align='left'>Gentlemen </td>
+  <td align='right'>280</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>2,000</td><td align='left'>Eminent merchants</td>
+  <td align='right'>400</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>8,000</td><td align='left'>Lesser merchants</td>
+  <td align='right'>198</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>10,000</td><td align='left'>Lawyers</td>
+  <td align='right'>154</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>2,000</td><td align='left'>Eminent clergy</td>
+  <td align='right'>72</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>8,000</td><td align='left'>Lesser clergy</td>
+  <td align='right'>50</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td rowspan="2">Yeoman</td>
+  <td align='right'>/&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;40,000</td><td align='left'>Freeholders of the better sort</td>
+  <td align='right'>91</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>\&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;120,000</td><td align='left'>Freeholders of the lesser sort</td>
+  <td align='right'>55</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>120,000</td><td align='left'>(Tenant) farmers</td>
+  <td align='right'>42</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>50,000</td><td align='left'>Shopkeepers and tradesmen</td>
+  <td align='right'>45</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>60,000</td><td align='left'>Artisans</td>
+  <td align='right'>38</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>364,000</td><td align='left'>Labouring people and outservants</td>
+  <td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>400,000</td><td align='left'>Cottagers and paupers</td>
+  <td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>He calculated that the freeholder of the better sort saved on an
+average <i>&pound;</i>8 15<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i> a year per family of 7; and the lesser sort <i>&pound;</i>2
+15<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i> a year with a family of 5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>. The tenant farmer with a
+family of 5, only saved 25<i>s.</i> a year, while labouring families who, he
+said, averaged 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;(certainly an under estimate), lost annually 7<i>s.</i>,
+and cottagers and paupers with families of 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub>&nbsp;(also an under
+estimate) lost 16<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> a year. It will thus be seen that the tenant
+farmers, labourers, and cottagers, the bulk of those who worked on the
+land, were very badly off; the tenant farmer saved considerably less
+than the artisan. It will also be noticed that the rural population of
+England was about three-quarters of the whole.<a name="FNanchor_354_355" id="FNanchor_354_355"></a><a href="#Footnote_354_355" class="fnanchor">[354]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>The winter of 1683-4 was marked by one of the severest frosts that
+have ever visited England. Ice on the Thames is said to have been
+eleven inches thick; by Jan. 9 there were streets of booths on it; and
+by the 24th, the frost continuing more and more severe, all sorts of
+shops and trades flourished on the river, 'even to a printing press,
+where the people and ladies took a fancy to have their names printed
+and the day and year set down when printed on the Thames.' Coaches
+plied, there was bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and
+interludes, tippling 'and other lewd places'&mdash;a regular carnival on
+the water.<a name="FNanchor_355_356" id="FNanchor_355_356"></a><a href="#Footnote_355_356" class="fnanchor">[355]</a> Altogether the frost which began at Christmas lasted
+ninety-one days and did much damage on land, many of the trees were
+split as if struck by lightning, and men and cattle perished in some
+parts. Poultry and other birds and many plants and vegetables also
+perished. Wheat, however, was little affected, as the average price
+was under 40<i>s.</i> a quarter. In 1692 a series of very bad seasons
+commenced, lasting, with a break in 1694, until 1698, always known as
+the 'ill' or 'barren' seasons, and the cause was the usual one in
+England, excessive cold and wet. In 1693 wheat was over 60<i>s.</i> a
+quarter, and in Kent turnips were made into bread for the poor.<a name="FNanchor_356_357" id="FNanchor_356_357"></a><a href="#Footnote_356_357" class="fnanchor">[356]</a>
+The difference in the price of farm produce in various localities was
+striking, and an eloquent testimony to the wretched means of
+communication. At Newark, for instance, in 1692-3 wheat was from 36<i>s.</i>
+to 40<i>s.</i> a quarter, while at Brentford it touched 76<i>s.</i>; next year in
+the same two places it was 32<i>s.</i> and 86<i>s.</i> respectively. In 1695-6 hay
+at Newark was 13<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> a ton, at Northampton it was from 35<i>s.</i> to 40<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>In 1662 was passed the famous statute of parochial settlement, 14 Car.
+II, c. 12, which forged cruel fetters for the poor, and is said to
+have caused the iron of slavery to enter into the soul of the English
+labourer.<a name="FNanchor_357_358" id="FNanchor_357_358"></a><a href="#Footnote_357_358" class="fnanchor">[357]</a> The Act states, <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>that the reason for passing it was the
+continual increase of the poor throughout the kingdom, which had
+become exceeding burdensome owing to the defects in the law. Poor
+people, moreover, wandered from one parish to another in order 'to
+settle where there is the best Stocke, the largest commons or wastes
+to build cotages, and the most woods for them to burn and
+destroy.'<a name="FNanchor_358_359" id="FNanchor_358_359"></a><a href="#Footnote_358_359" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> It was therefore determined to stop these wanderings,
+and most effectually was it done. Two justices were empowered to
+remove any person who settled in any tenement under the yearly value
+of <i>&pound;</i>10 within forty days to the place where he was last legally
+settled, unless he gave sufficient security for the discharge of the
+parish in case he became a pauper.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that certain relaxations were subsequently made. The Act of
+1691, 3 W. &amp; M., c. 2, allowed derivative settlements on payment of
+taxes for one year, serving an annual office, hiring for a year, and
+apprenticeship; while the Act of 1696, 8 &amp; 9 Wm. III, c. 30, allowed
+the grant of a certificate of settlement, under which safeguard the
+holder could migrate to a district where his labour was required, the
+new parish being assured he would not become chargeable to it, and
+therefore not troubling to remove him till there was actual need: but
+the statute acted as an effectual check on migration and prevented the
+labourer carrying his work where it was wanted.<a name="FNanchor_359_360" id="FNanchor_359_360"></a><a href="#Footnote_359_360" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> It became the
+object of parishes to have as few cottages and therefore as few poor
+as possible. In 'close' parishes, i.e. where all the land belonged to
+one owner, as distinguished from 'open' ones where it belonged to
+several, all the cottages were often pulled down so that labourers
+coming to work in it had to travel long distances in all weathers. We
+shall see further relaxation in the law in 1795, but it was not until
+modern times that this abominable system was destroyed. The
+agricultural <a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>labourer's difficulty in building a house was aggravated
+by the statute 31 Eliz., c. 7, before noticed, which in order to
+restrain the building of cottages enacted that none, except in towns
+and certain other places, were to be built unless 4 acres of land were
+attached to them, under a penalty of <i>&pound;</i>10, and 40<i>s.</i> a month for
+continuing to maintain it. This Act was not repealed until the reign
+of George III. However, it seems to have been frequently winked at. In
+Shropshire, for instance, the fine often was only nominal; in the
+seventeenth century orders authorizing the building of cottages on the
+waste were freely given by the Court of Quarter Sessions, and orders
+were also made by the Court for the erection of cottages
+elsewhere.<a name="FNanchor_360_361" id="FNanchor_360_361"></a><a href="#Footnote_360_361" class="fnanchor">[360]</a></p>
+
+<p>At the restoration of Charles II the corn laws had practically been
+unaltered since 1571,<a name="FNanchor_361_362" id="FNanchor_361_362"></a><a href="#Footnote_361_362" class="fnanchor">[361]</a> when it had been enacted that corn might be
+exported from certain ports in certain ships at all times when
+proclamation was not made to the contrary, on a payment of 12<i>d.</i> a
+quarter on wheat and 8<i>d.</i> a quarter on other grain. Now both export and
+import were subjected to heavy duties, but these caused such high
+prices in corn that they were reduced in 1663; yet high duties were
+again imposed in 1673, which continued until the revolution. Then,
+owing to good crops and low prices, which brought distress on the
+landed interest, a new policy was introduced: export duties were
+abolished and the other extreme resorted to, viz. a bounty on export
+of 5<i>s.</i> in the quarter as long as the home price did not exceed 48<i>s.</i> At
+the same time import duties remained high, and this system lasted till
+1773. Never had the corn-growers of England been so thoroughly
+protected, yet, owing to causes over which the legislators had no
+control, namely bountiful seasons, <a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>the prices of wheat for the next
+seventy years was from 15 to 20 per cent. cheaper than in the previous
+forty. Modern economists have described this system as one of the
+worst instances of a class using their legislative power to subsidize
+themselves at the expense of the community. As a matter of fact it was
+the firm conviction of the statesmen and economists of the time, that
+husbandry, being the main industry and prop of England, and the
+foundation on which the whole political power of the country was
+based, should receive every encouragement. At all events, in many ways
+the policy was successful.<a name="FNanchor_362_363" id="FNanchor_362_363"></a><a href="#Footnote_362_363" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> It encouraged investment in land, and
+materially assisted the agricultural improvement for which the
+eighteenth century was noted, the export too employed English
+shipping, and thus aided industry. Arthur Young said it was the
+singular felicity of this country to have devised a plan which
+accomplished the strange paradox of at once lowering the price of corn
+and encouraging agriculture, for by the system in vogue till 1773 if
+corn was scarce it was imported, while if there was a glut at home
+export was assisted so that great fluctuations in price were
+prevented.<a name="FNanchor_363_364" id="FNanchor_363_364"></a><a href="#Footnote_363_364" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> It seemed of the utmost importance to men of that time
+that England should be self-supporting and independent of possible
+adversaries for the necessaries of life; the wisdom of the policy was
+never questioned, and was accepted by statesmen of every party.<a name="FNanchor_364_365" id="FNanchor_364_365"></a><a href="#Footnote_364_365" class="fnanchor">[364]</a>
+To blame the landowners for adopting what seemed the wisest course to
+every sensible person is merely an instance of partisan spite.</p>
+
+<p>At the Peace of Paris in 1763 the question as to whether England or
+France was to be the great colonizing country of the world was finally
+settled, and a great development of English trade ensued. It was
+accompanied by a great increase of population, exports of corn were
+largely reduced, <a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>and the balance began to incline the other way, so
+that the next Act of importance was that of 1773 which permitted the
+import of foreign wheat at a nominal duty of 6<i>d.</i> a quarter when it was
+over 48<i>s.</i>, but prohibited export and the bounty on export when wheat
+was at or above 44<i>s.</i> This was the nearest approach to free trade
+before 1846.</p>
+
+<p>The time, however, was not yet ripe for this, and the nominal duty on
+imports was too small for landlords and farmers, so that in 1791 the
+price when the same nominal duty was to come into force was raised to
+54<i>s.</i>, while between 50<i>s.</i> and 54<i>s.</i> a duty of 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> was imposed, and
+under 50<i>s.</i> a duty of 24<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i>; and export was allowed without bounty
+when wheat was under 46<i>s.</i> Export of corn, however, by this time had
+become a matter of little moment, England having definitely ceased to
+be an exporting country after 1789.</p>
+
+<p>Not only were English landowners after the Restoration anxious to
+protect their corn, but they also took alarm at the imports of Irish
+cattle which they said lowered English rents, so that in 1665 and 1680
+(18 Car. II, c. 2, and 32 Car. II, c. 2) laws were framed absolutely
+prohibiting the import of Irish cattle, sheep, and swine, as well as
+of beef, pork, bacon, and mutton, and even butter and cheese. The
+statute 12 Car. II, c. 4, also virtually excluded Irish wool from
+England by duties amounting to prohibition. It was not until 1759 that
+free imports of cattle from Ireland were allowed for five years,<a name="FNanchor_365_366" id="FNanchor_365_366"></a><a href="#Footnote_365_366" class="fnanchor">[365]</a>
+a period prolonged by 5 Geo. III, c. 10, and a statute of 1772.</p>
+
+<p>In 1699 wool was allowed to be shipped from six specified ports in
+Ireland to eight specified ports in England,<a name="FNanchor_366_367" id="FNanchor_366_367"></a><a href="#Footnote_366_367" class="fnanchor">[366]</a> and by 16 Geo. II,
+c. 11, wool might be sent from Ireland to any port in England under
+certain restrictions.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_169" id="Footnotes_169"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339_340" id="Footnote_339_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_340"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> Worlidge, <i>Systema Agriculturae</i> (ed. 1669), p. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340_341" id="Footnote_340_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_341"><span class="label">[340]</span></a> Ibid. p. 124.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341_342" id="Footnote_341_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_342"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> Ibid. p. 124.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342_343" id="Footnote_342_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_343"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> <i>Pomona</i> (ed. 1664), p. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_343_344" id="Footnote_343_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_344"><span class="label">[343]</span></a> Ed. 1635, Book i, p. 175.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_344_345" id="Footnote_344_345"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_345"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> Markham, <i>op. cit.</i> i. 188.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_345_346" id="Footnote_345_346"></a><a href="#FNanchor_345_346"><span class="label">[345]</span></a> Worlidge, <i>Systema Agriculturae</i>, p. 38. Plot, however,
+in his <i>Natural History of Staffordshire</i>, 1686, says hemp and flax
+were sown in small quantities all over the county, p. 109.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_346_347" id="Footnote_346_347"></a><a href="#FNanchor_346_347"><span class="label">[346]</span></a> <i>New System of Agriculture</i> (ed. 1726), p. 113. Woad is
+still grown 'in some districts in England' (Morton, <i>Cyclopaedia of
+Agriculture</i>, ii. 1159), but in the Agricultural Returns of 1907
+apparently occupies too small an acreage to entitle it to a separate
+mention.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_347_348" id="Footnote_347_348"></a><a href="#FNanchor_347_348"><span class="label">[347]</span></a> Worlidge, <i>Systema Agriculturae</i>, p. 43.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_348_349" id="Footnote_348_349"></a><a href="#FNanchor_348_349"><span class="label">[348]</span></a> Tull, in his <i>Horseshoeing Husbandry</i> (p. 147), speaks
+of the drill as if already in use.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_349_350" id="Footnote_349_350"></a><a href="#FNanchor_349_350"><span class="label">[349]</span></a> Worlidge, <i>Systema Agriculturae</i>, p. 205.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_350_351" id="Footnote_350_351"></a><a href="#FNanchor_350_351"><span class="label">[350]</span></a> The seedlip was a long-shaped basket suspended from the
+sower's shoulder and was usually made of wood.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_351_352" id="Footnote_351_352"></a><a href="#FNanchor_351_352"><span class="label">[351]</span></a> Horse-girths for securing pack-saddles.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_352_353" id="Footnote_352_353"></a><a href="#FNanchor_352_353"><span class="label">[352]</span></a> Houghton, about the same time, said England contained
+28 to 29 million acres, of which 12 millions lay waste (<i>Collections</i>,
+iv. II). In 1907 the Board of Agriculture returned the total area of
+England and Wales, excluding water, at 37,130,344 acres.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_353_354" id="Footnote_353_354"></a><a href="#FNanchor_353_354"><span class="label">[353]</span></a> Eden, <i>State of the Poor</i>, i. 228.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_354_355" id="Footnote_354_355"></a><a href="#FNanchor_354_355"><span class="label">[354]</span></a> If we allow that most of the two last classes
+enumerated were country folk. For the decline of the yeoman class, see
+chap. xviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_355_356" id="Footnote_355_356"></a><a href="#FNanchor_355_356"><span class="label">[355]</span></a> Evelyn's <i>Diary</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_356_357" id="Footnote_356_357"></a><a href="#FNanchor_356_357"><span class="label">[356]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, i. 23.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_357_358" id="Footnote_357_358"></a><a href="#FNanchor_357_358"><span class="label">[357]</span></a> Fowle, <i>Poor Law</i>, p. 63.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_358_359" id="Footnote_358_359"></a><a href="#FNanchor_358_359"><span class="label">[358]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 66, says, 'the abuses complained
+of in the preamble (of the Act) did actually exist.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_359_360" id="Footnote_359_360"></a><a href="#FNanchor_359_360"><span class="label">[359]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. 67, 134, says the statute of
+1662 did not entail so much evil by hindering migration as is
+generally supposed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_360_361" id="Footnote_360_361"></a><a href="#FNanchor_360_361"><span class="label">[360]</span></a> <i>Shropshire County Records</i>: Abstracts of the orders
+made by the Court of Quarter Sessions, 1638-1782, pp. xxiv, xxv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_361_362" id="Footnote_361_362"></a><a href="#FNanchor_361_362"><span class="label">[361]</span></a> See above, p. 70. 13 Eliz., c. 13. McCulloch,
+<i>Commercial Dictionary</i> (1852), p. 412.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_362_363" id="Footnote_362_363"></a><a href="#FNanchor_362_363"><span class="label">[362]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>English Industry and Commerce</i>, ii. 371.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_363_364" id="Footnote_363_364"></a><a href="#FNanchor_363_364"><span class="label">[363]</span></a> <i>Political Arithmetic</i>, pp. 27-34, 193, 276.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_364_365" id="Footnote_364_365"></a><a href="#FNanchor_364_365"><span class="label">[364]</span></a> Lecky, <i>England in the Eighteenth Century</i>, vi. 192.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_365_366" id="Footnote_365_366"></a><a href="#FNanchor_365_366"><span class="label">[365]</span></a> McPherson, <i>Annals of Commerce</i>, iii. 311.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_366_367" id="Footnote_366_367"></a><a href="#FNanchor_366_367"><span class="label">[366]</span></a> Ibid. ii. 706; iii. 221, 293.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>1700-1765</h3>
+
+<h3>GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.&mdash;CROPS.&mdash;CATTLE.&mdash;
+DAIRYING.&mdash;POULTRY.&mdash;TULL AND THE NEW HUSBANDRY.&mdash;BAD TIMES.
+&mdash;FRUIT-GROWING</h3>
+
+
+<p>The history of agriculture in the eighteenth century is remarkable for
+several features of great importance. It first saw the application of
+capital in large quantities to farming, the improvements of the time
+being largely initiated by rich landowners whom Young praises rightly
+as public-spirited men who deserved well of their country, though
+Thorold Rogers attributes a meaner motive for the improvement of their
+estates, namely, their desire not to be outshone by the wealthy
+merchants.<a name="FNanchor_367_368" id="FNanchor_367_368"></a><a href="#Footnote_367_368" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> They were often ably assisted by tenant farmers, many
+of whom were now men with considerable capital, for whom the smaller
+farms were amalgamated into large ones. After the agricultural
+revolution of the latter half of the century, the tendency to
+consolidate small holdings into large farms grew apace and was looked
+on as a decided mark of progress. This agricultural revolution was
+largely a result of the industrial revolution that then took place in
+England. Owing to mechanical inventions and the consequent growth of
+the factory system, the great manufacturing towns arose, whence came a
+great demand for food, and, to supply this demand, farms, instead of
+being small self-sufficing holdings just growing enough for the
+farmer and his family and servants, grew larger, and became
+manufactories of corn and meat. The century was also remarkable for
+another great change. England, hitherto an exporting <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>country, became
+an importing one. The progress of the century was furthered by a band
+of men whose names are, or ought to be, household words with English
+farmers: Jethro Tull, Lord Townshend, Arthur Young, Bakewell, Coke of
+Holkham, and the Collings. Further the century witnessed a great
+number of enclosures, especially when it was drawing to its close.
+According to the Report of the Committee on Waste Lands in 1797, the
+number of Enclosure Acts was: under Anne, 2 Acts, enclosing 1,439
+acres; under Geo. I, 16 Acts, enclosing 17,960 acres; under Geo. II,
+226 Acts, enclosing 318,778 acres; from 1760 to 1797, 1,532 Acts,
+enclosing 2,804,197 acres.</p>
+
+<p>The period from 1700 to 1765 has been called the golden age of the
+agricultural classes, as the fifteenth century has been called the
+golden age of the labourer, but the farmer and landlord were often
+hard pressed; rates were low, wages were fair, and the demand for the
+produce of the farm constant owing to the growth of the population,
+yet prices for wheat, stock, and wool were often unremunerative to the
+farmer, and we are told in 1734, 'necessity has compelled our farmers
+to more carefulness and frugality in laying out their money than they
+were accustomed to in better times.'<a name="FNanchor_368_369" id="FNanchor_368_369"></a><a href="#Footnote_368_369" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> The labourer's wages varied
+according to locality. The assessment of wages by the magistrates in
+Lancashire for 1725 remains, and according to that the ordinary
+labourer earned 10<i>d.</i> a day in the summer and 9<i>d.</i> in the winter months,
+with extras in harvest, and this may be taken as the average pay at
+that date. Threshing and winnowing wheat by piece-work cost 2<i>s.</i> a
+quarter, oats 1<i>s.</i> a quarter. Making a ditch 4 feet wide at the top, 18
+inches wide at the bottom, and 3 feet deep, double set with quicks,
+cost 1<i>s.</i> a rood (8 yards), 10<i>d.</i> if without the quick.<a name="FNanchor_369_370" id="FNanchor_369_370"></a><a href="#Footnote_369_370" class="fnanchor">[369]</a> The
+magistrates remarked <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>in their proclamation on the plenty of the times
+and were afraid that for the northern part of the county, which was
+then very backward, the wages were too liberal. Wheat was,
+unfortunately, that year 46<i>s.</i> 1<i>d.</i> a quarter, but a few years before
+and after that date it was cheap&mdash;20<i>s.</i>, 24<i>s.</i>, 28<i>s.</i> a quarter&mdash;and
+fresh meat was only 3<i>d.</i> a lb., so that their wages went a long
+way.<a name="FNanchor_370_371" id="FNanchor_370_371"></a><a href="#Footnote_370_371" class="fnanchor">[370]</a> A considerable portion of the wages was paid in kind, not
+only in drink but in food, though this custom became less frequent as
+the century went on.<a name="FNanchor_371_372" id="FNanchor_371_372"></a><a href="#Footnote_371_372" class="fnanchor">[371]</a></p>
+
+<p>As for his food, Eden tells us<a name="FNanchor_372_373" id="FNanchor_372_373"></a><a href="#Footnote_372_373" class="fnanchor">[372]</a> that the diet of Bedford workhouse
+in 1730 was much better than that of the most industrious labourer in
+his own home, and this was the diet: bread and cheese or broth for
+breakfast, boiled beef hot or cold, sometimes with suet pudding for
+dinner, and bread and cheese or broth for supper. This must have been
+sufficiently monotonous, and we may be sure the labourer at home very
+seldom had boiled beef for dinner; but in the north he was much
+cleverer than his southern brother in cooking cereal foods such as
+oatmeal porridge, crowdie (also of oatmeal), frumenty or barley milk,
+barley broth, &amp;c.<a name="FNanchor_373_374" id="FNanchor_373_374"></a><a href="#Footnote_373_374" class="fnanchor">[373]</a></p>
+
+<p>The village of the first half of the eighteenth century contained a
+much better graded society than the village of to-day. It had few
+gaps, so that there was a ladder from the lowest to the highest ranks,
+owing to the existence of many small holders of various degree, soon
+to be diminished by enclosure and consolidation.<a name="FNanchor_374_375" id="FNanchor_374_375"></a><a href="#Footnote_374_375" class="fnanchor">[374]</a></p>
+
+<p>There was a great increase in the number of live stock owing to the
+spread, gradual though it was, of roots and clover, which increased
+the winter food; 'of late years,' it was said in 1739, 'there have
+been improvements made in the breed of sheep by changing of rams, and
+sowing of turnips, <a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>grass seeds, &amp;c.'<a name="FNanchor_375_376" id="FNanchor_375_376"></a><a href="#Footnote_375_376" class="fnanchor">[375]</a> Crops, too, were improving;
+and enclosed lands about 1726 were said to produce over 20 bushels of
+wheat to the acre.<a name="FNanchor_376_377" id="FNanchor_376_377"></a><a href="#Footnote_376_377" class="fnanchor">[376]</a></p>
+
+<p>Though the number of Enclosure Acts at the beginning of the century
+was nothing like the number at the end, the process was steadily going
+on, often by non-parliamentary enclosure, and was approved by nearly
+every one. Some, however, were opposed to it. John Cowper, who wrote
+an essay on 'Enclosing Commons' in 1732, said, a common was often the
+chief support of forty or fifty poor families, and even though their
+rights were bought out they were under the necessity of leaving their
+old homes, for their occupation was gone; but he says nothing of the
+well-known increased demand for labour on the enclosed lands. The
+force of his arguments may be gauged from his answer to Lawrence's
+statement that enclosure is the greatest benefit to good husbandry,
+and a remedy for idleness. On the contrary, says he, who among the
+country people live lazier lives than the grazier and the dairyman?
+All the dairyman has to do is to call his cows together to be milked!</p>
+
+<p>Worlidge in 1669 had lamented that turnips were so little grown by
+English farmers in the field, and that it was a plant 'usually
+nourished in gardens',<a name="FNanchor_377_378" id="FNanchor_377_378"></a><a href="#Footnote_377_378" class="fnanchor">[377]</a> and in a letter to Houghton in 1684, he is
+the first to mention the feeding of turnips to sheep.<a name="FNanchor_378_379" id="FNanchor_378_379"></a><a href="#Footnote_378_379" class="fnanchor">[378]</a> However, in
+1726 it was said that nothing of late years had turned to greater
+profit to the farmer, who now found it one of his chief treasures; and
+there were then three sorts: the round which was most common, the
+yellow, and the long.<a name="FNanchor_379_380" id="FNanchor_379_380"></a><a href="#Footnote_379_380" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> For winter use they were to be sown from
+the <a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>beginning of June to the middle of August, on fallow which had
+been brought to a good tilth, the seed harrowed in with a bush harrow,
+and if necessary rolled. When the plants had two or three leaves each
+they were to be hoed out, leaving them five or six inches apart,
+though some slovenly farmers did not trouble to do this; but there is
+no mention of hoeing between the rows. The fly was already recognized
+as a pest, and soot and common salt were used to fight it. Folding
+sheep in winter on turnips was then little practised, though Lawrence
+strongly recommends it. According to Defoe,<a name="FNanchor_380_381" id="FNanchor_380_381"></a><a href="#Footnote_380_381" class="fnanchor">[380]</a> Suffolk was
+remarkable for being the first county where the feeding and fattening
+of sheep and other cattle with turnips was first practised in England,
+to the great improvement of the land, 'whence', he says, 'the practice
+is spread over most of the east and south, to the great enriching of
+farmers and increase of fat cattle.' There were great disputes as to
+collecting the tithe, always a sore subject, on turnips; and the
+custom seems to have been that if they were eaten off by store sheep
+they went tithe free, if sheep were fattened on them the tithe was
+paid.<a name="FNanchor_381_382" id="FNanchor_381_382"></a><a href="#Footnote_381_382" class="fnanchor">[381]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>Clover, the other great novelty of the seventeenth century, was now
+generally sown with barley, oats, or rye grass, about 15 lb. per acre.
+This amount, sown on 2 acres of barley, would next year produce 2
+loads worth about <i>&pound;</i>5. The next crop stood for seed, which was cut in
+August, the hay being worth <i>&pound;</i>9, and the seed out of it, 300 lb., was
+sold much of it for 16<i>d.</i> a lb., the sum realized in that year from the
+2 acres being <i>&pound;</i>30, without counting the aftermath. At this time most
+of the seed was still imported from Flanders.<a name="FNanchor_382_383" id="FNanchor_382_383"></a><a href="#Footnote_382_383" class="fnanchor">[382]</a> Much of the common
+and waste land of England, not previously worth 6<i>d.</i> an acre, had been
+by 1732 vastly improved through sowing artificial grasses on it, so
+that various people had gained considerable estates.<a name="FNanchor_383_384" id="FNanchor_383_384"></a><a href="#Footnote_383_384" class="fnanchor">[383]</a></p>
+
+<p>Carrots were also now grown as a field crop in places, especially near
+London, two sorts being known, the yellow and red, used chiefly by
+farmers for feeding their hogs.<a name="FNanchor_384_385" id="FNanchor_384_385"></a><a href="#Footnote_384_385" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> Of wheat the names were many, but
+there were apparently only seven distinct sorts, the Double-eared,
+Eggshell, Red or Kentish, Great-bearded, Pollard, Grey, and Flaxen or
+Lammas.<a name="FNanchor_385_386" id="FNanchor_385_386"></a><a href="#Footnote_385_386" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> The growth of saffron had declined, though the English
+variety was the best in the world, according to Lawrence, and except
+in Cambridgeshire and about Saffron Walden it was little known.</p>
+
+<p>Though it was still some time before the days of Bakewell, increased
+attention was given to cattle-breeding; it was urged that a
+well-shaped bull be put to cows, one that had 'a broad and curled
+forehead, long horns, fleshy neck, and a belly long and large.'<a name="FNanchor_386_387" id="FNanchor_386_387"></a><a href="#Footnote_386_387" class="fnanchor">[386]</a>
+Such in 1726 was the ideal type of the long-horns of the Midland and
+the north, but it was noticed that of late years and especially in the
+north the Dutch breed was much sought after, which had short horns and
+long necks, the breed with which the Collings were to work such
+wonders. The then great price of <i>&pound;</i>20 had been given for a cow of this
+breed. Bradley, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, and a well-known
+writer on agriculture, divided the cattle of England into three sorts
+according to their colour: the black, white, and red.<a name="FNanchor_387_388" id="FNanchor_387_388"></a><a href="#Footnote_387_388" class="fnanchor">[387]</a> The black,
+commonly the smallest, was the strongest for labour, chiefly found in
+mountainous countries; also bred chiefly in Cheshire, Yorkshire,
+Lancashire, and Derbyshire, sixty years before this, and in those days
+Cheshire cheese came from these cattle, apparently very much like the
+modern Welsh breed.<a name="FNanchor_388_389" id="FNanchor_388_389"></a><a href="#Footnote_388_389" class="fnanchor">[388]</a> The white were much larger, and <a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>very common
+in Lincolnshire at the end of the seventeenth century. They gave more
+milk than the black sort but went dry sooner. They were also found in
+Suffolk and Surrey.</p>
+
+<p>The red cattle were the largest in England, their milk rich and
+nourishing, so much so that it was given specially to consumptives.
+They were first bred in Somerset, where in Bradley's time particular
+attention was paid to their breeding, and were evidently the ancestors
+of the modern Devons. About London these cows were often fed on
+turnips, given them tops and all, which made their milk bitter. They
+were also found in Lincolnshire and some other counties, where 'they
+were fed on the marshes', and Defoe saw, in the Weald of Kent, 'large
+Kentish bullocks, generally all red with their horns crooked inward.'
+Bradley gives the following balance sheet for a dairy of nine cows:<a name="FNanchor_389_390" id="FNanchor_389_390"></a><a href="#Footnote_389_390" class="fnanchor">[389]</a></p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>DR.</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>6 months' grass keep at 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> per week per head</td>
+  <td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6 months' winter keep (straw, hay, turnips, and grains) at 2<i>s.</i> per week per head</td>
+  <td align='right'>23</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>40</td><td align='right'>19</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=========</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>CR.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>13,140 gallons of milk</td><td align='right'>136</td><td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>40</td><td align='right'>19</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Balance (profit)</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i>95</td><td align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=========</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>A correspondent, however, pointed out to Bradley that this yield and
+profit was far above the average, which was about <i>&pound;</i>5 a cow, on whom
+Bradley retorted that it could be made, though it was exceptional.</p>
+
+<p>In the eighteenth century the great trade of driving Scottish cattle
+to London began, Walter Scott's grandfather being the pioneer. The
+route followed diverged from the Great North Road in Yorkshire in
+order to avoid turnpikes, and the cattle, grazing leisurely on the
+strips of grass by the roadside, generally arrived at Smithfield in
+good condition.<a name="FNanchor_390_391" id="FNanchor_390_391"></a><a href="#Footnote_390_391" class="fnanchor">[390]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>Defoe tells us that most of the Scottish cattle which came yearly
+into England were brought to the village of S. Faiths, north of
+Norwich, 'where the Norfolk graziers go and buy them. These Scots
+runts, coming out of the cold and barren highlands, feed so eagerly on
+the rich pasture in these marshes that they grow very fat. There are
+above 40,000 of these Scots cattle fed in this county every year. The
+gentlemen of Galloway go to England with their droves of cattle and
+take the money themselves.'<a name="FNanchor_391_392" id="FNanchor_391_392"></a><a href="#Footnote_391_392" class="fnanchor">[391]</a> It was no uncommon thing for a
+Galloway nobleman to send 4,000 black cattle and 4,000 sheep to
+England in a year, and altogether from 50,000 to 60,000 cattle were
+said to come to England from Galloway yearly. Gentlemen on the Border
+before the Union got a very pretty living by tolls from these cattle;
+and the Earl of Carlisle made a good income in this way.</p>
+
+<p>Cattle were sometimes of a great size. In 1697, in the park of Sir
+John Fagg near Steyning, Defoe saw four bullocks of Sir John's own
+breeding for which was refused in Defoe's hearing <i>&pound;</i>26 apiece. They
+were driven to Smithfield and realized <i>&pound;</i>25 each, having probably sunk
+on the way, but dressed they weighed 80 stone a quarter!<a name="FNanchor_392_393" id="FNanchor_392_393"></a><a href="#Footnote_392_393" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> These
+weights must have been very exceptional, but go to prove that cattle
+then could be grown to much greater size than is generally credited. A
+good price for a bullock in the first half of the eighteenth century
+was from <i>&pound;</i>7 to <i>&pound;</i>10.</p>
+
+<p>The best poultry at the same date (1736) were said to be 'the
+white-feathered sort', especially those that had short and white legs,
+which were esteemed for the whiteness of their flesh; but those that
+had long yellow legs and yellow beaks were considered good for
+nothing.<a name="FNanchor_393_394" id="FNanchor_393_394"></a><a href="#Footnote_393_394" class="fnanchor">[393]</a> Care was to be used in the choice of a cock, for those
+of the game kind were to be avoided as unprofitable. Bradley gives a
+balance sheet for <a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>12 hens and 2 cocks who had a free run in a farmyard
+and an orchard:<a name="FNanchor_394_395" id="FNanchor_394_395"></a><a href="#Footnote_394_395" class="fnanchor">[394]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>DR.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>CR.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>39 bushels of barley</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Eggs (number unfortunately not given)</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Balance, profit</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;20 early chickens at 1<i>s.</i></td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;72 late chickens at 6<i>d.</i></td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>4</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>4</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>=======</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>=======</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>He also recommends that in stocking a farm of <i>&pound;</i>200 a year the
+following poultry should be purchased:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>24 chickens at 4<i>d.</i></td><td colspan="2" align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>20 geese</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>20 turkeys</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>24 ducks</td><td colspan="2"  align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6 pair of pigeons</td><td colspan="2"  align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The best way to fatten chickens, according to Bradley, was to put them
+in coops and feed them with barley meal, being careful to put a small
+quantity of brickdust in their water to give them an appetite.<a name="FNanchor_395_396" id="FNanchor_395_396"></a><a href="#Footnote_395_396" class="fnanchor">[395]</a></p>
+
+<p>On this farm were 20 acres of cow pasture besides common, and this
+with some turnips kept 9 cows, which gave about three gallons of milk
+a day at least, the milk being worth 1<i>d.</i> a quart. His pigs were of the
+'Black Bantham' breed, which were better than the large sort common in
+England, for the flesh was much more delicate.</p>
+
+<p>Suffolk was famous for supplying London with turkeys.<a name="FNanchor_396_397" id="FNanchor_396_397"></a><a href="#Footnote_396_397" class="fnanchor">[396]</a> Three
+hundred droves of turkeys, each numbering from 300 to 1000, had in one
+season passed over Stratford Bridge on the road from Ipswich to
+London. Geese also travelled on foot to London in prodigious numbers
+from Norfolk, Suffolk, and the Fen country, often 1,000 to 3,000 in a
+drove, starting in August when harvest was nearly over, so that the
+geese <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>might feed on the stubble by the way; 'and thus they hold on to
+the end of October, when the roads begin to be too stiff and deep for
+their broad feet and short legs to march on.' There was, however, a
+more rapid method of getting poultry to the great market, by means of
+carts of four stages or stories, one above another, to carry the birds
+in, drawn by two horses, which by means of relays travelled night and
+day, and covered as much as 100 miles in two days and one night, the
+driver sitting on the topmost stage.</p>
+
+<p>Hop growing in 1729, according to Richard Bradley, paid well; he says,
+'ground never esteemed before worth a shilling an acre per annum, is
+rendered worth forty, fifty, or sometimes more pounds a year by
+planting hops judiciously. An acre of hops shall bring to the owner
+clear profit about <i>&pound;</i>30 yearly; but I have known hop grounds that have
+cleared above <i>&pound;</i>50 yearly per acre.' At this date 12,000 acres in
+England were planted with hops.</p>
+
+<p>The great market for hops was Stourbridge Fair, once the greatest mart
+in England and still preserving much of its former importance: 'there
+is scarce any price fixed for hops in England till they know how they
+sell in Stourbridge Fair.'<a name="FNanchor_397_398" id="FNanchor_397_398"></a><a href="#Footnote_397_398" class="fnanchor">[397]</a> Thither they came from Chelmsford,
+Canterbury, Maidstone, and Farnham, where the bulk of the hops in
+England were then grown, though some were to be found at Wilton near
+Salisbury, in Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. Round Canterbury
+Defoe says there were 6,000 acres of hops, all planted within living
+memory<a name="FNanchor_398_399" id="FNanchor_398_399"></a><a href="#Footnote_398_399" class="fnanchor">[398]</a>; but the Maidstone district was called 'the mother of hop
+grounds', and with the country round Feversham was famous for apples
+and cherries.</p>
+
+<p>The finest wool still, it seems, came from near Leominster, where the
+sheep in Markham's time were described as small-boned and black-faced,
+with a light fleece, and apparently they still had the same appearance
+at the beginning of the <a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>eighteenth century<a name="FNanchor_399_400" id="FNanchor_399_400"></a><a href="#Footnote_399_400" class="fnanchor">[399]</a>; and large-boned
+sheep with coarser wool were to be found in the counties of Warwick,
+Leicester, Buckingham, Northampton, and Nottingham; in the north of
+England too were big-boned sheep with inferior wool, the largest with
+coarse wool being found in the marshes of Lincolnshire.</p>
+
+<p>About this time wool had fallen much in price: 'Has nobody told you,'
+writes a west country farmer to his absentee landlord in 1737, 'that
+wool has fallen to near half its price, and that we cannot find
+purchasers for a great part of it at any price whatsoever. When most
+of our estates (farms) were taken wool was generally 7<i>d.</i>, 8<i>d.</i>, or more
+by the pound; the same is now 4<i>d.</i> and still falling.'<a name="FNanchor_400_401" id="FNanchor_400_401"></a><a href="#Footnote_400_401" class="fnanchor">[400]</a> But the
+latter price was exceptionally low; Smith<a name="FNanchor_401_402" id="FNanchor_401_402"></a><a href="#Footnote_401_402" class="fnanchor">[401]</a> gives the following
+average prices per tod of 28 lb.:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>1706</td><td align='left'>17<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1717-8</td><td align='left'>23<i>s.</i> to 27<i>s.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1737-42&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>11<i>s.</i> to 14<i>s.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1743</td><td align='left'>20<i>s.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1743-53</td><td align='left'>24<i>s.</i></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>After 1753 it fell again, largely owing to the great plague among
+cattle, which brought about a 'prodigious increase of sheep'<a name="FNanchor_402_403" id="FNanchor_402_403"></a><a href="#Footnote_402_403" class="fnanchor">[402]</a>;
+and about 1770 Young<a name="FNanchor_403_404" id="FNanchor_403_404"></a><a href="#Footnote_403_404" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> favoured corn rather than wool, for there
+was always a market for the former, but the foreign demand for cloth
+was diminishing, especially in the case of France, besides prohibition
+of export kept down the price.<a name="FNanchor_404_405" id="FNanchor_404_405"></a><a href="#Footnote_404_405" class="fnanchor">[404]</a> Yet although wool was being
+deserted for corn it had in Young's time 'been so long supposed the
+staple and <a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>foundation of all our wealth, that it is somewhat dangerous
+to hazard an opinion not consonant to its encouragement'.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the century, however, there was a rapid increase in the
+price, partly due to increased demand by spinners and weavers who,
+owing to machinery, were working more economically; and partly to the
+enclosure of commons, and the ploughing up of land for corn.<a name="FNanchor_405_406" id="FNanchor_405_406"></a><a href="#Footnote_405_406" class="fnanchor">[405]</a></p>
+
+<p>Cheshire had long been famous for cheese. Barnaby Googe, in the last
+quarter of the sixteenth century, says, 'in England the best cheese is
+the Cheshyre and the Shropshyre, then the Banbury cheese, next the
+Suffolk and the Essex, and the very worst the Kentish cheese.' Camden,
+who died in 1623, tells us that 'the grasse and fodder (in Cheshire)
+is of that goodness and vertue that cheeses be made here in great
+number, and of a most pleasing and delicate taste such as all England
+again affordeth not the like, no though the best dairywomen otherwise
+and skillfullest in cheese making be had from hence;' and a little
+later it was said no other county in the realm could compare with
+Cheshire, not even that wonderful agricultural country Holland from
+which England learnt so much.<a name="FNanchor_406_407" id="FNanchor_406_407"></a><a href="#Footnote_406_407" class="fnanchor">[406]</a> In Lawrence's time Cheddar cheese
+was also famous, and there it had long been a custom for several
+neighbours to join their milk together to make cheeses, which were of
+a large size, weighing from 30 lb. to 100 lb. Good cheese came also
+from Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. The Cheshire men sent great
+quantities by sea to London, a long and tedious voyage, or else by
+land to Burton-on-Trent, and down that river to Hull and then by sea
+to London. The Gloucestershire men took it to Lechlade and sent it
+down the Thames; from Warwickshire it went by land all the way, or to
+Oxford and thence down the Thames to London. Stilton, too, had lately
+become famous, and was considered the best of all, selling for the
+then great price of 1<i>s.</i> a lb. on the farm, <a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>and 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> at the Bell
+Inn, Stilton, where it seems to have first been sold in large
+quantities, though Leicestershire perhaps claims the honour of first
+making it.<a name="FNanchor_407_408" id="FNanchor_407_408"></a><a href="#Footnote_407_408" class="fnanchor">[407]</a></p>
+
+<p>The eastern side of Suffolk was, in Defoe's time, famous for the best
+butter and perhaps the worst cheese in England, the butter being
+'barrelled and sometimes pickled up in small casks'.<a name="FNanchor_408_409" id="FNanchor_408_409"></a><a href="#Footnote_408_409" class="fnanchor">[408]</a></p>
+
+<p>Rabbits were occasionally kept in large numbers for profit; at Auborne
+Chase in Wilts, there was a warren of 700 acres surrounded by a
+wall&mdash;a most effective way of preventing escape, but somewhat
+expensive. In winter time they were fed on hay, and hazel branches
+from which they ate the bark. They were never allowed to get below
+8,000 head, and from these, after deducting losses by poachers,
+weazles, polecats, foxes, &amp;c., 24,000 were sold annually. These
+rabbits, owing to the quality of the grass, were famous for the
+sweetness of their flesh. The proprietor, Mr. Gilbert, began to kill
+them at Bartholomewtide, Aug. 24, and from then to Michaelmas obtained
+9<i>s.</i> a dozen for them delivered free in London; but those from
+Michaelmas to Christmas realized 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a dozen.</p>
+
+<p>The difference in price at the two periods is accounted for by the
+fact that their skins were much better in the latter, and the rabbits
+kept longer when killed; they must also have been larger. A skin
+before Michaelmas was only worth 1<i>d.</i>, but soon after nearly 6<i>d.</i>; and
+in Hertfordshire was a warren where rabbit skins with silvery hair
+fetched 1<i>s.</i> each.<a name="FNanchor_409_410" id="FNanchor_409_410"></a><a href="#Footnote_409_410" class="fnanchor">[409]</a></p>
+
+<p>We have now reached the period when the result of Jethro Tull's
+labours was given to the world, his <i>Horse-hoeing Husbandry</i> appearing
+in 1733. It is no exaggeration to say that agriculture owes more to
+Tull than to any other man; <a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>the principles formulated in his famous
+book revolutionized British agriculture, though we shall see that it
+took a long time to do it. He has indeed been described as 'the
+greatest individual improver agriculture ever knew'. He first realized
+that deep and perfect pulverization is the great secret of vegetable
+nutrition, and was thus led on to perfect the system of drilling seed
+wide enough apart to admit of tillage in the intervals, and abandoning
+the wide ridges in vogue, laid the land into narrow ridges 5 feet or 6
+feet wide. He was born at Basildon in Berkshire, heir to a good
+estate, and was called to the bar in 1699, but on his marriage in the
+same year settled on the paternal farm of Howberry in Oxfordshire. In
+his preface to his book he throws a flash of light on country life at
+a time when the roads were nearly as bad as in the Middle Ages, so
+that they effectually isolated different parts of England, when he
+speaks of 'a long confinement within the limits of a lonely farm, in a
+country where I am a stranger, having debarred me from all
+conversation'.<a name="FNanchor_410_411" id="FNanchor_410_411"></a><a href="#Footnote_410_411" class="fnanchor">[410]</a></p>
+
+<p>He took to agriculture more by necessity than by choice, for he knew
+too much 'the inconveniency and slavery attending the exorbitant power
+of husbandry servants', and he further gives this extraordinary
+character of the farm labourer of his day: ''Tis the most formidable
+objection against our agriculture that the defection of labourers is
+such that few gentlemen can keep their land in their own hands, but
+let them for a little to tenants who can bear to be insulted,
+assaulted, kicked, cuffed, and Bridewelled, with more patience than
+gentlemen are endowed with.'<a name="FNanchor_411_412" id="FNanchor_411_412"></a><a href="#Footnote_411_412" class="fnanchor">[411]</a> Tull wrote just before it became the
+fashion for gentlemen to go into farming, and laments that the lands
+of the country were all, or mostly, in the hands of rack-renters,
+whose supposed interest it was that they should never be improved for
+fear of fines and increased rents. Gentlemen then knew so little of
+farming that they were <a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>unable to manage their estates. No doubt his
+scathing remarks helped to initiate the well-known change in this
+respect, and soon, over all England, gentlemen of education and
+position were engaged in removing this reproach from their class. The
+same complaint as to their ignorance of matters connected with their
+land crops up again during the great French war, but they then had a
+good excuse, as they were busy fighting the French.</p>
+
+<p>Tull invented his drill about 1701 at Howberry. The first occasion for
+making it, he says, was that it 'was very difficult to find a man that
+could sow clover tolerably; they had a habit to throw it once with the
+hand to two large strides and go twice in each cast; thus, with 9 or
+10 lb. of seed to an acre, two-thirds of the ground was unplanted. To
+remedy this I made a hopper, to be drawn by a boy, that planted an
+acre sufficiently with 6 lb. of seed; but when I added to this hopper
+an exceeding light plough that made 6 channels eight inches asunder,
+into which 2 lb. to an acre being drilled the ground was as well
+planted. This drill was easily drawn by a man, and sometimes by a
+boy.'</p>
+
+<p>His invention was largely prompted by his desire to do without the
+insolent farm servant whom he has described above, and the year after
+it was invented he certainly had his wish, for they struck in a body
+and were dismissed: 'it were more easy to teach the beasts of the
+field than to drive the ploughman out of his way.'</p>
+
+<p>His ideas were largely derived from the mechanism of the organ which,
+being fond of music, he had mastered in his youth&mdash;a rotary mechanism,
+which is the foundation of all agricultural sowing implements. His
+first invention may be described as a drill plough to sow wheat and
+turnip seed in drills three rows at a time, a harrow to cover the seed
+being attached. Afterwards he invented a turnip drill, so arranged as
+regards dropping the seed and its subsequent covering with soil that
+half the seed should come up earlier than the rest, to <a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>enable a
+portion at least to escape the dreaded fly. He was a great believer in
+doing everything himself, and worked so hard at his drill that he had
+to go abroad for his health. He was somewhat carried away by his
+invention, and asserts that the expense of a drilled crop of wheat was
+one-ninth of that sown in the old way, giving the following figures to
+prove his assertion:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='center'><i>The Old Way</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Seed, 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;bushels, at 3<i>s.</i>
+  </td><td colspan="2" align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Three ploughings, harrrowing, and sowing</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Weeding</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rent of preceding fallow</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>10</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Manure</td>
+ <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'> 10</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Reaping</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>4</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;<a name="FNanchor_412_413" id="FNanchor_412_413"></a><a href="#Footnote_412_413" class="fnanchor">[412]</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=========</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><i>The New Way</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Seed, 3 pecks</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tillage</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Drilling</td><td colspan="3" align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Weeding</td><td colspan="3" align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Uncovering (removing clods fallen on the wheat)</td><td colspan="3" align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Brine and lime</td><td colspan="3" align='right'>1</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Reaping</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=====</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p>It should be noted that he has omitted to charge rent for the year in
+which the crop was grown in both cases.</p>
+
+<p>He considered fallowing and manure unnecessary, and grew without
+manure 13 successive wheat crops on the same piece of ground, getting
+better crops than his neighbours who pursued the ordinary course of
+farming. His three great principles, indeed, were drilling, reduction
+of seed, and absence of weeds, and he saw that dung was a great
+carrier of the latter but lacked a due appreciation of its chemical
+action. Of <a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>course, like all <i>improvers</i>, he was met with unlimited
+opposition, and on the publication of his book he was assailed with
+abuse, which, being a sensitive man, caused him extreme annoyance. His
+health was bad, his troubles with his labourers unending, his son a
+spendthrift, and he died at his now famous home, Prosperous Farm, near
+Hungerford, in 1741, having said not long before his death, 'Some,
+allowed as good judges, have upon a full view and examination of my
+practice declared their opinion that it would one day become the
+general husbandry of England.'<a name="FNanchor_413_414" id="FNanchor_413_414"></a><a href="#Footnote_413_414" class="fnanchor">[413]</a> Scotland was the first to perceive
+the merits of the system, and it gradually worked southwards into
+England, but for many years had to fight against ignorance and
+prejudice, even so intelligent a man as Arthur Young being opposed to
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Farm leases had by this time assumed their modern form, and
+cultivation clauses were numerous. In one of 1732, at Hawsted, the
+tenant was to keep the hedges in repair, being allowed bushes and
+stakes for so doing. He was also to bestow on some part of the lands
+one load of good rotten muck over and above what was made on the farm
+for every load of hay, straw, or stover (fodder) which he should carry
+off.<a name="FNanchor_414_415" id="FNanchor_414_415"></a><a href="#Footnote_414_415" class="fnanchor">[414]</a> In another of 1740, he was to leave in the last year of the
+tenancy one-third of the arable land summer tilled, ploughed, and
+fallowed, for which he was to be paid according to the custom of the
+country. In 1753, in the lease of Pinford End Farm, there was a
+penalty of <i>&pound;</i>10 an acre for breaking up pasture; a great increase in
+the amount of the penalty. All compost, dung, soil, and ashes arising
+on the farm were to be bestowed upon it.</p>
+
+<p>Only two crops successively were to be taken on any of the arable
+land, but land sown with clover and rye-grass, if fed off, or with
+turnips which were fed on some part of the farm, were not to count as
+crops.</p>
+
+<p>The ashes mentioned were those from wood, which were now carefully
+looked after, as it had become the custom to <a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>sell them to the
+soap-boilers, who came round to every farm collecting them. This is
+the earliest mention in a Hawsted lease of rye-grass, clover, and
+turnips, though clover and turnips had been first cultivated there
+about 1700, and soon spread.</p>
+
+<p>The winter of 1708-9 was very severe, a great frost lasting from
+October until the spring; wheat was 81<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> a quarter, and high
+prices lasted until 1715.<a name="FNanchor_415_416" id="FNanchor_415_416"></a><a href="#Footnote_415_416" class="fnanchor">[415]</a></p>
+
+<p>From 1715 to 1765 was an era of good seasons and low prices generally;
+in that half-century Tooke says there were only five bad seasons. In
+1732 prices of corn were very low, wheat being about 24<i>s.</i> a quarter,
+so that we are not surprised to find that its cultivation often did
+not pay at all.<a name="FNanchor_416_417" id="FNanchor_416_417"></a><a href="#Footnote_416_417" class="fnanchor">[416]</a></p>
+
+<p>At Little Gadsden in Hertfordshire, in that year a fair season, and on
+enclosed land, the following is the balance sheet for an acre:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='center'>DR.</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='left'>Rent</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='left'>Dressing (manuring)</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='left'>2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;bushels of seed</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='left'>Ploughing first time</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; twice more</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='left'>Harrowing</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='left'>Reaping and carrying</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>6</td><td align='right'> 6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='left'>Threshing</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="7" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>3</td><td align='right'> 4</td><td align='right'> 3</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="7" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>CR.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>15 bushels of wheat (a poor crop, as 20<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;bushels was now about the average)</td>
+   <td valign='bottom' align='right'>2</td><td valign='bottom' align='right'>2</td><td valign='bottom' align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Straw</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>13</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="7" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='center'><i>LOSS</i></td><td colspan="2" align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="7" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>On barley, worth about <i>&pound;</i>1 a quarter, the loss was 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> an <a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>acre; on
+oats, worth 13<i>s.</i> a quarter, however, the profit was 21<i>s.</i>; on beans,
+26<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, these being that year exceptionally good and worth 20<i>s.</i> a
+quarter.<a name="FNanchor_417_418" id="FNanchor_417_418"></a><a href="#Footnote_417_418" class="fnanchor">[417]</a> Ellis objected to the new mode of drilling wheat
+because, he said, the rows are more exposed to the violence of the
+winds, rains, &amp;c., by growing apart, than if close together, when the
+stalks support each other.<a name="FNanchor_418_419" id="FNanchor_418_419"></a><a href="#Footnote_418_419" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> This estimate may be compared to that
+of Tull for the 'old way' of sowing wheat,<a name="FNanchor_419_420" id="FNanchor_419_420"></a><a href="#Footnote_419_420" class="fnanchor">[419]</a> and to the following
+estimate of fifty years later in Surrey, when wheat was a much better
+price:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='center'>DR.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rent, tithe, taxes</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Team, &amp;c.</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2 bushels of seed</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Carting and spreading manure and water furrowing</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Brining</td><td colspan="3" align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Weeding</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'> 6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Reaping and carrying</td><td colspan="2" align='right'> 9</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Threshing and cleaning</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>7</td><td align='right'> 6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Binding straw</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'> 6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>3</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>6</td><td><a name="FNanchor_420_421" id="FNanchor_420_421"></a><a href="#Footnote_420_421" class="fnanchor">[420]</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>CR.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>20 bushels at 5<i>s.</i></td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;loads of straw</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'> 2</td><td align='right'> 6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>6</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'> 6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The profit was thus <i>&pound;</i>2 10<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i> an acre, and for barley it was <i>&pound;</i>3 3<i>s.</i>
+6<i>d.</i>, for oats <i>&pound;</i>1 19<i>s.</i> 10<i>d.</i>, for beans <i>&pound;</i>1 13<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_421_422" id="FNanchor_421_422"></a><a href="#Footnote_421_422" class="fnanchor">[421]</a></p>
+
+<p>This crop of wheat was not very good, as the average in that district
+was from 20 to 25 bushels per acre, and Young before this saw crops of
+30 bushels per acre growing. The <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>over frequent use of fallows, which
+had so long marked agriculture, was in the early half of the
+eighteenth century beginning to be strongly disapproved of. Bradley
+advocated the continuous cultivation of the ground with different
+kinds of crops, 'for I find', he said, 'by experience that if such
+crops are sown as are full of fibrous roots, such roots greatly help
+to open the parts of grounds inclining to too much stiffness.'<a name="FNanchor_422_423" id="FNanchor_422_423"></a><a href="#Footnote_422_423" class="fnanchor">[422]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_189" id="Footnotes_189"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_367_368" id="Footnote_367_368"></a><a href="#FNanchor_367_368"><span class="label">[367]</span></a> <i>Six Centuries of Work and Wages</i>, p. 472.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_368_369" id="Footnote_368_369"></a><a href="#FNanchor_368_369"><span class="label">[368]</span></a> See Baker, <i>Record of Seasons and Prices</i>, p. 185.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_369_370" id="Footnote_369_370"></a><a href="#FNanchor_369_370"><span class="label">[369]</span></a> Eden, <i>State of the Poor</i>, iii p. cvii; Thorold Rogers,
+<i>Work and Wages</i>, p. 396.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_370_371" id="Footnote_370_371"></a><a href="#FNanchor_370_371"><span class="label">[370]</span></a> In Herefordshire at this time it was 1<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> per lb.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_371_372" id="Footnote_371_372"></a><a href="#FNanchor_371_372"><span class="label">[371]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 86.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_372_373" id="Footnote_372_373"></a><a href="#FNanchor_372_373"><span class="label">[372]</span></a> Eden, <i>op. cit.</i> i. 286.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_373_374" id="Footnote_373_374"></a><a href="#FNanchor_373_374"><span class="label">[373]</span></a> Ibid. i. 498.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_374_375" id="Footnote_374_375"></a><a href="#FNanchor_374_375"><span class="label">[374]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 71.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_375_376" id="Footnote_375_376"></a><a href="#FNanchor_375_376"><span class="label">[375]</span></a> Smith, <i>Memoirs of Wool</i>, ii. 93.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_376_377" id="Footnote_376_377"></a><a href="#FNanchor_376_377"><span class="label">[376]</span></a> John Lawrence, <i>New System of Agriculture</i>, p. 45. In
+1712, a normal season, 48 acres of wheat at Southwick in Hants
+produced 16 bushels per acre, 45 acres of barley 12 bushels per acre,
+30 acres of oats 24 bushels per acre; at the same place 240 sheep
+realized 8<i>s.</i> each, cows 65<i>s.</i>, calves <i>&pound;</i>1, horses <i>&pound;</i>6, hay 25<i>s.</i> a ton
+(<i>Hampshire Notes and Queries</i>, iii. 120).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_377_378" id="Footnote_377_378"></a><a href="#FNanchor_377_378"><span class="label">[377]</span></a> Worlidge, <i>Systema Agriculturae</i>, p. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_378_379" id="Footnote_378_379"></a><a href="#FNanchor_378_379"><span class="label">[378]</span></a> <i>Collections</i>, iv. 142.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_379_380" id="Footnote_379_380"></a><a href="#FNanchor_379_380"><span class="label">[379]</span></a> Lawrence, <i>New System of Agriculture</i>, p. 109.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_380_381" id="Footnote_380_381"></a><a href="#FNanchor_380_381"><span class="label">[380]</span></a> <i>Tour</i> (ed. 1724), i. 87.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_381_382" id="Footnote_381_382"></a><a href="#FNanchor_381_382"><span class="label">[381]</span></a> Ellis, <i>Chiltern and Vale Farming</i>, p. 353.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_382_383" id="Footnote_382_383"></a><a href="#FNanchor_382_383"><span class="label">[382]</span></a> Bradley, <i>General Treatise</i>, i. 175.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_383_384" id="Footnote_383_384"></a><a href="#FNanchor_383_384"><span class="label">[383]</span></a> Ellis, <i>Chiltern and Vale Farming</i>, p. 260.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_384_385" id="Footnote_384_385"></a><a href="#FNanchor_384_385"><span class="label">[384]</span></a> J. Lawrence, <i>New System of Agriculture</i>, p. 112.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_385_386" id="Footnote_385_386"></a><a href="#FNanchor_385_386"><span class="label">[385]</span></a> Ibid. p. 92. About 1757 Lucerne, hitherto little grown
+in England, took its place in the rotation of crops.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_386_387" id="Footnote_386_387"></a><a href="#FNanchor_386_387"><span class="label">[386]</span></a> Ibid. p. 130.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_387_388" id="Footnote_387_388"></a><a href="#FNanchor_387_388"><span class="label">[387]</span></a> <i>A General Treatise on Husbandry</i> (1726), i. 72; cf.
+c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_388_389" id="Footnote_388_389"></a><a href="#FNanchor_388_389"><span class="label">[388]</span></a> The black cattle seem to have been spread very
+generally over England, according to previous writers and to Defoe,
+who often mentions them. He saw a 'prodigious quantity' in the meadows
+by the Waveney in Norfolk.&mdash;<i>Tour</i>, i. 97.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_389_390" id="Footnote_389_390"></a><a href="#FNanchor_389_390"><span class="label">[389]</span></a> Bradley, <i>General Treatise</i>, i. 76.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_390_391" id="Footnote_390_391"></a><a href="#FNanchor_390_391"><span class="label">[390]</span></a> Slater, <i>English Peasantry</i>, p. 52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_391_392" id="Footnote_391_392"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391_392"><span class="label">[391]</span></a> <i>Tour</i> (ed. 1724), i. (1) 97, and iii. (2) 73.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_392_393" id="Footnote_392_393"></a><a href="#FNanchor_392_393"><span class="label">[392]</span></a> Ibid. i. 63.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_393_394" id="Footnote_393_394"></a><a href="#FNanchor_393_394"><span class="label">[393]</span></a> J. Lawrence, <i>New System of Agriculture</i>, p. 151.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_394_395" id="Footnote_394_395"></a><a href="#FNanchor_394_395"><span class="label">[394]</span></a> Bradley, <i>General Treatise</i>, i. 110.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_395_396" id="Footnote_395_396"></a><a href="#FNanchor_395_396"><span class="label">[395]</span></a> <i>Country Gentleman and Farmer's Director</i> (1726), p.
+7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_396_397" id="Footnote_396_397"></a><a href="#FNanchor_396_397"><span class="label">[396]</span></a> Defoe, <i>Tour</i>, i. 87.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_397_398" id="Footnote_397_398"></a><a href="#FNanchor_397_398"><span class="label">[397]</span></a> Defoe, <i>Tour</i> (3rd ed.), i. 81.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_398_399" id="Footnote_398_399"></a><a href="#FNanchor_398_399"><span class="label">[398]</span></a> Defoe, <i>Tour</i> (ed. 1724), ii. 1, 134.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_399_400" id="Footnote_399_400"></a><a href="#FNanchor_399_400"><span class="label">[399]</span></a> Bradley, <i>General Treatise</i>, i. 160; see also Smith,
+<i>Memoirs of Wool</i>, ii. 169, where the sheep of Leominster, of
+Cotteswold, and of the Isle of Wight are said to be the best in 1719.
+The great market for sheep was Weyhill Fair, and Stourbridge Fair was
+a great wool market.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_400_401" id="Footnote_400_401"></a><a href="#FNanchor_400_401"><span class="label">[400]</span></a> <i>The West Country Farmer, a Representation of the Decay
+of Trade</i>, 1737.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_401_402" id="Footnote_401_402"></a><a href="#FNanchor_401_402"><span class="label">[401]</span></a> <i>Memoirs of Wool</i>, ii. 243.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_402_403" id="Footnote_402_403"></a><a href="#FNanchor_402_403"><span class="label">[402]</span></a> Ibid. ii. 399.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_403_404" id="Footnote_403_404"></a><a href="#FNanchor_403_404"><span class="label">[403]</span></a> <i>Farmer's Letters</i> (3rd ed.), p. 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_404_405" id="Footnote_404_405"></a><a href="#FNanchor_404_405"><span class="label">[404]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, ii. 384.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_405_406" id="Footnote_405_406"></a><a href="#FNanchor_405_406"><span class="label">[405]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, ii. 458.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_406_407" id="Footnote_406_407"></a><a href="#FNanchor_406_407"><span class="label">[406]</span></a> Ormerod, <i>Cheshire</i>, i. 129. These words were written
+about 1656.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_407_408" id="Footnote_407_408"></a><a href="#FNanchor_407_408"><span class="label">[407]</span></a> See <i>Victoria County History: Rutland, Agriculture</i>.
+Stilton was eaten in the same condition as many prefer it now, 'with
+the mites round it so thick that they bring a spoon for you to eat
+them.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_408_409" id="Footnote_408_409"></a><a href="#FNanchor_408_409"><span class="label">[408]</span></a> Defoe, <i>Tour</i>, i. (1) 78. Cheshire cheese was 2<i>d.</i> to
+2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> per lb., Cheddar 6<i>d.</i> to 8<i>d.</i> in 1724, an extraordinary
+difference.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_409_410" id="Footnote_409_410"></a><a href="#FNanchor_409_410"><span class="label">[409]</span></a> Bradley, i. 172.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_410_411" id="Footnote_410_411"></a><a href="#FNanchor_410_411"><span class="label">[410]</span></a> Preface to <i>Horse-hoeing Husbandry</i>, (ed. 1733).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_411_412" id="Footnote_411_412"></a><a href="#FNanchor_411_412"><span class="label">[411]</span></a> <i>Horse-hoeing Husbandry</i>, p. vi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_412_413" id="Footnote_412_413"></a><a href="#FNanchor_412_413"><span class="label">[412]</span></a> <i>The West Country Farmer</i>, above quoted, says wheat
+growing (in 1737) paid little. Before a bushel can be sold it costs <i>&pound;</i>4
+an acre, and the crop probably fetches half the money.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_413_414" id="Footnote_413_414"></a><a href="#FNanchor_413_414"><span class="label">[413]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journ.</i> (3rd Ser.), ii. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_414_415" id="Footnote_414_415"></a><a href="#FNanchor_414_415"><span class="label">[414]</span></a> Cullum, <i>Hawsted</i>, p. 216.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_415_416" id="Footnote_415_416"></a><a href="#FNanchor_415_416"><span class="label">[415]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, i. 35.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_416_417" id="Footnote_416_417"></a><a href="#FNanchor_416_417"><span class="label">[416]</span></a> Wheat averaged:
+</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+ <td align='right'>1718-22</td><td align='center'>about</td><td align='right'>27<i>s.</i></td>
+ <td align='right'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1730</td><td align='center'> about</td><td align='right'>30<i>s.</i></td>
+ <td align='right'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1750</td><td align='center'> about</td><td align='right'>30<i>s.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>1724</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>36<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>1732</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>24<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>1755</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>35<i>s.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>1725</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>46<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>1736</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>30<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>1760</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>38<i>s.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>1726</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>35<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>1740</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>42<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>1765</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>42<i>s.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>1728</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>52<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>1744</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='right'>23<i>s.</i></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_417_418" id="Footnote_417_418"></a><a href="#FNanchor_417_418"><span class="label">[417]</span></a> Ellis, <i>Chiltern and Vale Farming</i>, p. 209. Nothing is
+charged for tithe and taxes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_418_419" id="Footnote_418_419"></a><a href="#FNanchor_418_419"><span class="label">[418]</span></a> Ibid. p. 352.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_419_420" id="Footnote_419_420"></a><a href="#FNanchor_419_420"><span class="label">[419]</span></a> See above, p. 177, also p. 199 for Young's estimate in
+1770.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_420_421" id="Footnote_420_421"></a><a href="#FNanchor_420_421"><span class="label">[420]</span></a> Nothing is charged for the manure which was carted and
+spread.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_421_422" id="Footnote_421_422"></a><a href="#FNanchor_421_422"><span class="label">[421]</span></a> John Trusler, <i>Practical Husbandry</i>, p. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_422_423" id="Footnote_422_423"></a><a href="#FNanchor_422_423"><span class="label">[422]</span></a> <i>Country Gentleman and Farmer's Director</i> (1726), p.
+xiii.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>1700-1765</h3>
+
+<h3>TOWNSHEND.&mdash;SHEEP-ROT.&mdash;CATTLE PLAGUE. FRUIT-GROWING</h3>
+
+<p>In 1730 Charles, second Viscount Townshend, retired from politics, on
+his quarrel with his brother-in-law Walpole, who remarked that 'as
+long as the firm was Townshend and Walpole the utmost harmony
+prevailed, but it no sooner became Walpole and Townshend than things
+went wrong'. He devoted himself to the management of his Norfolk
+estates and set an example to English landlords in wisely and
+diligently experimenting in farm practice which was soon followed on
+all sides, the names of Lords Ducie, Peterborough, and Bolingbroke
+being the best known of his fellow-labourers. A generation afterwards
+Young wrote, 'half the County of Norfolk within the memory of man
+yielded nothing but sheep feed, whereas those very tracts of land are
+now covered with as fine barley and rye as any in the world and great
+quantities of wheat besides.'<a name="FNanchor_423_424" id="FNanchor_423_424"></a><a href="#Footnote_423_424" class="fnanchor">[423]</a> There can be no doubt from this
+statement, made by an eyewitness of exceptional capacity, that he
+commenced the work so nobly carried on by Coke. The same authority
+tells us that when Townshend began his improvements near Norwich much
+of the land was an extensive heath without either tree or shrub, only
+a sheepwalk to another farm; so many carriages crossed it that they
+would sometimes be a mile abreast of each other in pursuit of the best
+track. By 1760 there was an excellent turnpike road, enclosed on each
+side with a good quickset hedge, and all the land let out in
+enclosures and cultivated on the Norfolk system in superior style; the
+<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>whole being let at 15<i>s.</i> an acre, or ten times its original value.
+Townshend's two special hobbies were the field cultivation of turnips,
+and improvement in the rotation of crops. Pope says his conversation
+was largely of turnips, and he was so zealous in advocating them that
+he was nicknamed 'Turnip Townsend'.<a name="FNanchor_424_425" id="FNanchor_424_425"></a><a href="#Footnote_424_425" class="fnanchor">[424]</a> He initiated the Norfolk or
+four-course system of cropping, in which roots, grasses, and cereals
+were wisely blended, viz. turnips, barley, clover and rye grass,
+wheat. He also reintroduced marling to the light lands of Norfolk, and
+followed Tull's system of drilling and horse-hoeing turnips, with the
+result that the poor land of which his estate was largely composed was
+converted into good corn and cattle-growing farms. Like all the
+progressive agriculturists of the day, he was an advocate of
+enclosures, and he had no small share in the growth of the movement by
+which, in the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges, 244 enclosure
+Acts were passed and 338,177 acres enclosed. The progress of enclosure
+was alleged as a proof that England was never more prosperous than
+under Walpole; the number of private gentlemen in Britain of ample
+estates was said to exceed that of any country in the world
+proportionately, and was far greater than in the reign of Charles II.
+The value of land at twenty-six or twenty-seven years' purchase was a
+conclusive proof of the wealth of England.<a name="FNanchor_425_426" id="FNanchor_425_426"></a><a href="#Footnote_425_426" class="fnanchor">[425]</a></p>
+
+<p>Though, however, the first half of the century was generally
+prosperous there were bad times for farmer and landlord. We have seen
+that wheat-growing paid little, although from 1689 to 1773 the farmer
+was protected against imports and aided by a bounty on exports. In
+1738 Lord Lyttelton wrote: 'In most parts of England, gentlemen's
+rents are so ill paid and the weight of taxes lies so heavy upon them
+that those who have nothing from the Court can scarce support their
+families.'<a name="FNanchor_426_427" id="FNanchor_426_427"></a><a href="#Footnote_426_427" class="fnanchor">[426]</a> <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>Sheep in the damp climate of England have always been
+subject to rot, and in 1735 there was, according to Ellis, the most
+general rot in the memory of man owing to a very wet season; and, as
+in the disastrous year of 1879, which must be fresh in many farmers'
+memories, other animals, deer, hares, and rabbits, were affected also;
+and the dead bodies of rotten sheep were so numerous in road and field
+that the stench was offensive to every one. Another bad outbreak
+occurred in 1747. It is well known that farmers are always grumblers,
+probably with an eye to the rent; but even in these much praised times
+they apparently made small profits. The west country farmer quoted
+before, who had been fifty years on the same estate, and writes with
+the stamp of sincerity, admits in 1737 that 'with all the skill and
+diligence in the world he can hardly keep the cart upon the wheels.
+Wool had gone down, wheat didn't pay and graziers were doing badly;
+tho' formerly our cattle and wool was always a sure card'. He says
+that the profits of grazing were reckoned at one-third of the
+improvement that ensued from the grazing, but the grazier was not now
+getting this. He attributed much of the distress, however, to the
+extravagance of the times. Landlords, including his own, preferred
+London to the country, and spent their money there. How different was
+the behaviour of his landlord's grandfather. 'Many a time would his
+worship send for me to go a-hunting or shooting with him; often would
+he take me with him on his visits and would introduce me as his
+friend. The country gentlewoman and the parson's wife, that used to
+stitch for themselves, are now so hurried with dressings and visits
+and other attractions that they hire an Abigail to do it.'</p>
+
+<p>He thought, too, the labourers were getting too high wages; 'they are
+so puffed up by our provender as to offer us their heels and threaten
+on any occasion to leave us to do our work ourselves.' One would like
+to hear the labourers' opinion on this point, but they were dumb. In
+spite of higher wages the <a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>young men and young women flocked to the
+cities, and those who remain were lazy and extravagant, even the
+country wenches contending about 'double caps, huge petticoats, clock
+stockings, and other trumpery'.<a name="FNanchor_427_428" id="FNanchor_427_428"></a><a href="#Footnote_427_428" class="fnanchor">[427]</a></p>
+
+<p>The bounty now paid on the export of wheat was naturally resented by
+the common people, as it raised the price of their bread. In 1737 a
+load belonging to Farmer Waters of Burford, travelling along the road
+to Redbridge for exportation, was stopped near White parish by a crowd
+of people who knocked down the leading horse, broke the wagon in
+pieces, cut the sacks, and strewed about the corn, with threats that
+they would do the like to all who sold wheat to export.<a name="FNanchor_428_429" id="FNanchor_428_429"></a><a href="#Footnote_428_429" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> While
+England was paying farmers to export wheat she was also importing,
+though in plentiful years importers had a very bad time. In 1730 there
+were lying at Liverpool 33,000 windles (a windle&mdash;220 lb.) of imported
+corn, unsaleable owing to the great crop in England.<a name="FNanchor_429_430" id="FNanchor_429_430"></a><a href="#Footnote_429_430" class="fnanchor">[429]</a> The year
+1740 was distinguished by one of the severest winters on record. From
+January 1 to February 5 the thermometer seldom reached 32&deg;, and the
+cold was so intense that hens and ducks, even cattle in their stalls
+died of it, trees were split asunder, crows and other birds fell to
+the ground frozen in their flight. This extraordinary winter was
+followed by a cold and late spring; no verdure had appeared by May; in
+July it was still cold, and thousands of acres of turnips rotted in
+the ground. Among minor misfortunes may be noticed the swarms of
+grasshoppers who devastated the pastures near Bristol at the end of
+August 1742,<a name="FNanchor_430_431" id="FNanchor_430_431"></a><a href="#Footnote_430_431" class="fnanchor">[430]</a> and the swarms of locusts who came to England in
+1748 and consumed the vegetables.<a name="FNanchor_431_432" id="FNanchor_431_432"></a><a href="#Footnote_431_432" class="fnanchor">[431]</a></p>
+
+<p>The cattle plague of 1745<a name="FNanchor_432_433" id="FNanchor_432_433"></a><a href="#Footnote_432_433" class="fnanchor">[432]</a> was so severe that owing to the
+<a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>scarcity of stock great quantities of grass land were ploughed up,
+which helped to account for the fact that in 1750 the export of corn
+from England reached its maximum; though the main cause of this was
+the long series of excellent seasons that set in after 1740.<a name="FNanchor_433_434" id="FNanchor_433_434"></a><a href="#Footnote_433_434" class="fnanchor">[433]</a> The
+cattle plague also raged in 1754 in spite of an Order in Council that
+all infected cattle should be shot and buried 4 ft. deep, and pitch,
+tar, rosin, and gunpowder burnt where infected cattle had died, and
+cow-houses washed with vinegar and water. Such were the sanitary
+precautions of the time.<a name="FNanchor_434_435" id="FNanchor_434_435"></a><a href="#Footnote_434_435" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> In 1756 came another bad year, corn was
+so scarce that there were many riots; the king expressed to Parliament
+his concern at the suffering of the poor, and the export of corn was
+temporarily prohibited. The fluctuations in price are remarkable: in
+1756, before the deficiency of the harvest was realized, wheat was
+22<i>s.</i> and it went up at the following rate: Jan., 1757, 49<i>s.</i>; Feb.,
+51<i>s.</i>; March, 54<i>s.</i>; April, 64<i>s.</i>; June, 72<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>About the middle of the century, if we may judge from the <i>Compleat
+Cyderman</i> written in 1754 by experienced hands living in Devon,
+Cornwall, Herefordshire, and elsewhere, fruit-growing received an
+amount of attention which diminished greatly in after years. The
+authors fully realized that an orchard under tillage causes apple
+trees to grow as fast again as under grass, and this was well
+understood and practised in Kent, where crops of corn were grown
+between the trees.</p>
+
+<p>A Devonshire 'cyderist' urged that orchards should be well sheltered
+from the east winds, which 'bring over the narrow sea swarms of
+imperceptible eggs, or insects in the air, from the vast tracts of
+Tartarian and other lands, from which proceeded infinite numbers of
+lice, flies, bugs, caterpillars, cobwebs, &amp;c.' <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>The best protection
+was a screen of trees, and the best tree for the purpose, a perry pear
+tree. In the hard frosts of 1709, 1716, and 1740 great numbers of
+fruit and other trees had been destroyed. In Devon what was called the
+'Southams method' was used for top-dressing the roots of old apple
+trees, which was done in November with soil from the roads and
+ditches, or lime or chalk, laid on furze sometimes, 6 inches thick,
+for 4 or 5 ft. all round the trees. Great attention was paid there to
+keeping the heads of fruit trees in good order, so that branches did
+not interfere with each other,<a name="FNanchor_435_436" id="FNanchor_435_436"></a><a href="#Footnote_435_436" class="fnanchor">[435]</a> and the heads were made to spread
+as much as possible. Many of the trees were grown with the first
+branches commencing 4 ft. 6 in. from the ground. It was claimed that
+Devon excelled all other parts of England in the management of fruit
+trees, a reputation that was not maintained, according to the works of
+half a century later. The best cider apple In the county then was the
+White-sour, white in colour, of a middling size, and early ripe; other
+good ones were the 'Deux-Anns, Jersey, French Longtail, Royal Wilding,
+Culvering, Russet, Holland Pippin, and Cowley Crab.' In Herefordshire
+it was the custom to open the earth about the roots of the apple trees
+and lay them bare and exposed for the 'twelve days of the Christmas
+holidays', that the wind might loosen them. Then they were covered
+with a compost of dung, mould, and a little lime. 'The best way' to
+plant was to take off the turf and lay it by itself, then the next
+earth or virgin mould, to be laid also by itself. Next put horse
+litter over the bottom of the hole with some of the virgin mould on
+that, on which place the tree, scattering some more virgin mould over
+the roots, then spread some old horse-dung over this and upon that the
+turf, leaving it in a basin shape. The ground between the trees in
+Devonshire in young orchards was first planted with cabbage plants,
+next year with potatoes, next with beans, and so on until the heads of
+the trees became large enough, <a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>when the land was allowed to return to
+pasture, a proceeding which was quite contrary to their previously
+quoted assertion that tillage was best for fruit trees. The
+cider-makers were quite convinced, as many are to-day, that rotten
+apples were invaluable for cider, and the lady who was famous for the
+best cider in the county never allowed one to be thrown away. A
+generation later than this Marshall<a name="FNanchor_436_437" id="FNanchor_436_437"></a><a href="#Footnote_436_437" class="fnanchor">[436]</a> noted that in Herefordshire
+the management of orchards and their produce was far from being well
+understood, though 'it has ever borne the name of the first cider
+county'. All the old fruits were lost or declining in quality, the
+famous Red Streak Apple was given up and the Squash Pear no longer
+made to flourish.</p>
+
+<p>As for prices, in 1707 apples were selling at Liverpool for 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a
+bushel,<a name="FNanchor_437_438" id="FNanchor_437_438"></a><a href="#Footnote_437_438" class="fnanchor">[437]</a> a very good price if we allow for the difference in the
+value of money, but prices then were entirely dependent on the English
+seasons; no foreign apples were imported, and a night's frost would
+treble prices in a day. In 1742 at Aspall Hall, Suffolk, apples,
+apparently for cider, were 10<i>d.</i> a bushel, in 1745 1<i>s.</i> a bushel, in
+1746 only 4<i>d.</i>, and in 1747 cider there was worth 6<i>d.</i> a gallon.<a name="FNanchor_438_439" id="FNanchor_438_439"></a><a href="#Footnote_438_439" class="fnanchor">[438]</a> At
+the end of the century, in 'the great hit' of 1784, common apples were
+less than 6<i>d.</i> a bushel, the best about 2<i>s.</i> in 1786 the price was twice
+as high, owing to a short crop. Incidentally there is mentioned in the
+<i>Compleat Cyderman</i> a novel implement, 'a most profitable new invented
+five-hoe plough, that after the ground has been once ploughed with a
+common plough will plough four or five acres in one day with only four
+horses, and by a little alteration is fitted to hoe turnips or rape
+crops as it is now practised by the ordinary farmers'; much too
+favourable an estimate of the ordinary farmer, as Young found
+horse-hoeing rare.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>An acre of good orchard land at this time was let at <i>&pound;</i>2 an acre; and
+this is a fair balance sheet for an acre<a name="FNanchor_439_440" id="FNanchor_439_440"></a><a href="#Footnote_439_440" class="fnanchor">[439]</a>:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='center'>DR.</td><td align='right'>&nbsp;<i>&pound;</i>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rent of one acre</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tithe on 10 hogsheads, @ 6<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Gathering, making, and carriage to and from the pound, @ 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a hogshead</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Racking twice, @ 6<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Casks and cooperage</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>4</td><td align='right'>13</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>CR.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>10 hogsheads diminished by racking and waste to 8, @ 12<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Leaving a balance of 7<i>s.</i> for spoiling, &amp;c., so there was not much
+profit in cider-making then. The same authority sets down the cost of
+planting an acre of apples as:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>&nbsp;<i>&pound;</i>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>132 trees, @ 2<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>13</td><td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(The custom had been to plant 160 trees to the acre, but this was considered too close.)</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Carriage per tree, @ 2<i>d.</i>; manure per tree, @ 3<i>d.</i>; planting per tree, @ 3<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Interest on <i>&pound;</i>17 12<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i> for fifteen years before orchard is profitable, @ 5 per cent</td>
+  <td align='right'>13</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Loss of half the rent of the land for the same period, @ 10<i>s.</i>an acre</td>
+  <td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Building cellarage for product per acre</td>
+  <td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>43</td><td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>========</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>For this outlay the landowner would gain an additional rent of <i>&pound;</i>1 a
+year, so that, according to this authority, growing cider fruit at
+that time paid neither landlord nor tenant.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_197" id="Footnotes_197"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_423_424" id="Footnote_423_424"></a><a href="#FNanchor_423_424"><span class="label">[423]</span></a> <i>Farmer's Letters</i>, i. 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_424_425" id="Footnote_424_425"></a><a href="#FNanchor_424_425"><span class="label">[424]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (3rd Series), iii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_425_426" id="Footnote_425_426"></a><a href="#FNanchor_425_426"><span class="label">[425]</span></a> See the <i>Hyp Doctor</i>, No. 49.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_426_427" id="Footnote_426_427"></a><a href="#FNanchor_426_427"><span class="label">[426]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, i. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_427_428" id="Footnote_427_428"></a><a href="#FNanchor_427_428"><span class="label">[427]</span></a> Cf. this and Tull's character of servants with Defoe's
+accusation of their laziness.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_428_429" id="Footnote_428_429"></a><a href="#FNanchor_428_429"><span class="label">[428]</span></a> Salisbury newspaper, quoted by Baker, <i>Seasons and
+Prices</i>, p. 187.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_429_430" id="Footnote_429_430"></a><a href="#FNanchor_429_430"><span class="label">[429]</span></a> See <i>Autobiography of Wm. Stout</i>, ed. by J. Harland.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_430_431" id="Footnote_430_431"></a><a href="#FNanchor_430_431"><span class="label">[430]</span></a> <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, 1742.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_431_432" id="Footnote_431_432"></a><a href="#FNanchor_431_432"><span class="label">[431]</span></a> Baker, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 194.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_432_433" id="Footnote_432_433"></a><a href="#FNanchor_432_433"><span class="label">[432]</span></a> <i>A Defence of the Farmers of Great Britain</i> (1814), p.
+30.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_433_434" id="Footnote_433_434"></a><a href="#FNanchor_433_434"><span class="label">[433]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, i. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_434_435" id="Footnote_434_435"></a><a href="#FNanchor_434_435"><span class="label">[434]</span></a> See a curious pamphlet called <i>An Exhortation to all
+People to Consider the Afflicting Hand of God</i> (1754), p. 6. The
+plague lasted from 1745 to 1756.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_435_436" id="Footnote_435_436"></a><a href="#FNanchor_435_436"><span class="label">[435]</span></a> <i>The Compleat Cyderman</i>, p. 46.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_436_437" id="Footnote_436_437"></a><a href="#FNanchor_436_437"><span class="label">[436]</span></a> <i>Rural Economy of Gloucestershire</i> (1788), ii. 206.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_437_438" id="Footnote_437_438"></a><a href="#FNanchor_437_438"><span class="label">[437]</span></a> Blundell's <i>Diary</i>, p. 55.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_438_439" id="Footnote_438_439"></a><a href="#FNanchor_438_439"><span class="label">[438]</span></a> MS. accounts of Mr. Chevallier, of Aspall Hall.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_439_440" id="Footnote_439_440"></a><a href="#FNanchor_439_440"><span class="label">[439]</span></a> <i>The Case with the County of Devon with respect to the
+New Excise Duty on Cider</i> (1763). The duty was 4<i>s.</i> a hogshead, but the
+opposition was so strong it was taken off.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>1765-1793</h3>
+
+<h3>ARTHUR YOUNG.&mdash;CROPS AND THEIR COST.&mdash;THE LABOURERS' WAGES AND DIET.&mdash;THE
+PROSPERITY OF FARMERS.&mdash;THE COUNTRY SQUIRE.&mdash;ELKINGTON.&mdash;BAKEWELL.&mdash;THE
+ROADS.&mdash;COKE OF HOLKHAM.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The history of English agriculture in the latter half of the
+eighteenth century has been so well described by Arthur Young that any
+account of it at that time must largely be an epitome of his writings.
+The greatest of English writers on agriculture was born in 1741, and
+began farming early; but, as he confesses himself, was a complete
+failure. When he was twenty-six he took a farm of 300 acres at Samford
+Hall in Essex, and after five years of it paid a farmer <i>&pound;</i>100 to take
+it off his hands, who thereupon made a fortune out of it. He had
+already begun writing on agriculture, and it must be confessed that he
+began to advise people concerning the art of agriculture on a very
+limited experience. It paid him, however, much better than farming,
+for between 1766 and 1775 he realized <i>&pound;</i>3,000 on his works, among which
+were <i>The Farmer's Letters</i>, <i>The Southern</i>, <i>Northern</i>, and <i>Eastern
+Tours</i>. These are his qualifications for writing on agriculture, from
+his own pen: 'I have been a farmer these many years' (he was not yet
+thirty), 'and that not in a single field or two but upon a tract of
+near 300 acres most part of the time. I have cultivated on various
+soils most of the vegetables common in England and many never
+introduced into field husbandry. I have always kept a minute register
+of my business in every detail of culture, expenses, and produce, and
+an accurate comparison <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>of the old and new husbandry.'<a name="FNanchor_440_441" id="FNanchor_440_441"></a><a href="#Footnote_440_441" class="fnanchor">[440]</a> It is said
+that though he really understood the theory and practice of farming he
+failed utterly in small economies. He was also far too vivacious and
+fond of society for the monotonous work of the plain farmer. At the
+same time his failures gave his observant mind a clear insight into
+the principles of agriculture. He was indefatigable in inquiries,
+researches, and experiments; and the best proof of the value of his
+works is that they were translated into Russian, German, and French.
+He tells us in the preface to <i>Rural Economy</i> that his constant
+employment for the previous seven years, 'when out of my fields, has
+been registering experiments.' His pet aversions were absentee
+landlords, obsolete methods of cultivation, wastes and commons, and
+small holdings (though towards the end of his life he changed his
+opinion as to the last); and the following, according to him, were the
+especially needed improvements of the time:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The knowledge of good rotations of crops so as to do away with
+fallows, which was to be effected by the general use of turnips,
+beans, peas, tares, clover, &amp;c., as preparation for white corn;
+covered drains; marling, chalking, and claying; irrigation of meadows;
+cultivation of carrots, cabbages, potatoes, sainfoin, and lucerne;
+ploughing, &amp;c., with as few cattle as possible; the use of harness for
+oxen; cultivation of madden liquorice, hemp, and flax where
+suitable.<a name="FNanchor_441_442" id="FNanchor_441_442"></a><a href="#Footnote_441_442" class="fnanchor">[441]</a> Above all, the cultivation of waste lands, which he was
+to live to see so largely effected.</p>
+
+<p>There was little knowledge of the various sorts of grasses at this
+time, and to Young is due the credit of introducing the cocksfoot, and
+crested dog's tail.</p>
+
+<p>In 1790 he contemplated retiring to France or America, so heavy was
+taxation in England. 'Men of large fortune and the poor', he said, in
+words which many to-day will heartily <a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>endorse, 'have reason to think
+the government of this country the first in the world; the middle
+classes bear the brunt.' Perhaps to-day 'men of large fortune' have
+altered their opinion and only 'the poor' are satisfied. However, he
+only visited France, and gave us his vivid picture of that country
+before the great revolution.</p>
+
+<p>In 1793 the Board of Agriculture was formed, and Young was made
+secretary with a salary of <i>&pound;</i>400 a year.</p>
+
+<p>About 1810 he wrote that the preceding half-century had been by far
+the most interesting in the progress of agriculture, and ascribes the
+increase of interest in it to the publication of his <i>Tours</i>. George
+III told him he always took with him the <i>Farmer's Letters</i>. The
+improvement, Young said, had been largely due to individual effort,
+for commerce had been predominant in Parliament and agriculture had
+begun to be neglected; a statement which, seeing that Parliament was
+then almost entirely composed of landowners, must be accepted with
+some reserve.</p>
+
+<p>Young died in 1820, having been totally blind for some time, a
+misfortune which did not prevent him working hard. In his well-known
+<i>Tours</i> he often had much difficulty in obtaining information, and
+confesses that he was forced to make more than one farmer drunk before
+he got anything out of him.</p>
+
+<p>The exodus from the country to the towns then, as so often in history,
+was noted by thinking people, but Young says it was merely a natural
+consequence of the demand for profitable employment and was not to be
+regretted; but he wrote in a time when the country population was
+still numerous, and there was little danger of England becoming, what
+she is to-day, a country without a solid foundation, with no reservoir
+of good country blood to supply the waste of the towns.</p>
+
+<p>When Young began to write, the example of Townshend and his
+contemporaries was being followed on all sides, and this good movement
+was stimulated by Young's writings. Farming was the reigning taste of
+the day. There was scarce <a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>a nobleman without his farm, most of the
+country gentlemen were farmers, and attended closely to their business
+instead of leaving it to stewards, 'who governed in matters of wheat
+and barley as absolutely as in covenants of leases,' and the squire
+delighted in setting the country a staring at the novelties he
+introduced. Even the stable and the kennel were ousted by farming from
+rural talk,<a name="FNanchor_442_443" id="FNanchor_442_443"></a><a href="#Footnote_442_443" class="fnanchor">[442]</a> and citizens who breathed the smoke of London five
+days a week were farmers the other two, and many young fellows of
+small fortune who had been brought up in the country took farms, and
+the fashion was followed by doctors, lawyers, clergymen, soldiers,
+sailors, and merchants. The American and French War of 1775-83 and the
+great conflict with France from 1793 to 1815 were, however, to divert
+many of the upper classes from agriculture, for they very properly
+thought their duty was then to fight for their country; so that we
+again have numerous complaints of agents and stewards managing estates
+who knew nothing whatever about their business. It was not to be
+wondered at that all this activity brought about considerable
+progress. 'There have been,' said Young about 1770, 'more experiments,
+more discoveries, and more general good sense displayed within these
+ten years than in a hundred preceding ones,' a statement which perhaps
+did not attach sufficient importance to the work of Townshend and his
+contemporaries, and to the 'new husbandry' of Tull, which Young did
+not appreciate at its full value.<a name="FNanchor_443_444" id="FNanchor_443_444"></a><a href="#Footnote_443_444" class="fnanchor">[443]</a></p>
+
+<p>The place subsequently taken by the Board of Agriculture, and in our
+time by the Royal Agricultural Society, was then <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>occupied by the
+Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce,
+which offered premiums for such objects as the cultivation of carrots
+in the field for stock, then little practised; for gathering the
+different sorts of grass seeds and keeping them clean and free from
+all mixture with other grasses, a very rare thing at that time; for
+experiments in the comparative merits of the old and new husbandry;
+for the growth of madder; <i>&pound;</i>20 for a turnip-slicing machine, then
+apparently unknown, and for experiments whether rolling or harrowing
+grass land was better, 'at present one of the most disputed points of
+husbandry.'</p>
+
+<p>In spite of this progress, many crops introduced years before were
+unknown to many farmers. Sainfoin, cabbages, potatoes, carrots, were
+not common crops in every part of England, though every one of them
+was well known in some part or other; not more than half, or at most
+two-thirds, of the nation cultivated clover. Many, however, of the
+nobility and gentry in the north had grown cabbages with amazing
+success, lately, 30 guineas an acre being sometimes the value of the
+crop.</p>
+
+<p>Half the cultivated lands, in spite of the progress of enclosure for
+centuries, were still farmed on the old common-field system. When
+anything out of the common was to be done on common farms, all common
+work came to a standstill. 'To carry out corn stops the ploughs,
+perhaps at a critical season; the fallows are frequently seen overrun
+with weeds because it is seed time; in a word, some business is ever
+neglected.'<a name="FNanchor_444_445" id="FNanchor_444_445"></a><a href="#Footnote_444_445" class="fnanchor">[444]</a> As for the outcry against enclosing commons and
+wastes, people forgot that the farmers as well as the poor had a right
+of common and took special care by their large number of stock to
+starve every animal the poor put on the common.<a name="FNanchor_445_446" id="FNanchor_445_446"></a><a href="#Footnote_445_446" class="fnanchor">[445]</a></p>
+
+<p>About the same time that Young wrote these words there appeared a
+pamphlet written by 'A Country Gentleman' on the advantages and
+disadvantages of enclosing waste lands and common fields, which puts
+the arguments against enclosure <a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>very forcibly.<a name="FNanchor_446_447" id="FNanchor_446_447"></a><a href="#Footnote_446_447" class="fnanchor">[446]</a> The writer's
+opinion was that it was clearly to the landowner's gain to promote
+enclosures, but that the impropriator of tithes reaped most benefit
+and the small freeholder least, because his expenses increased
+inversely to the smallness of his allotment. As to diminution of
+employment, he reckoned that enclosed arable employed about ten
+families per 1,000 acres, open field arable twenty families, a
+statement opposed to the opinion of nearly all the agricultural
+writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is surely an
+incontestable fact that enclosed land meant much better tillage, and
+better tillage meant more labour, the excessive amount of fallow
+necessary under the common-field system, from the inability to grow
+roots except by special arrangement, is alone enough to prove this.
+The same writer admitted that common pastures, wastes, &amp;c., employed
+only one family per 2,000 acres, but enclosed pasture five families
+per 1,000 acres, and enclosed wastes sixteen families.</p>
+
+<p>A 'Country Farmer', who wrote in 1786, states that many of the small
+farmers displaced by enclosures sold their few possessions and
+emigrated to America.<a name="FNanchor_447_448" id="FNanchor_447_448"></a><a href="#Footnote_447_448" class="fnanchor">[447]</a> The growing manufacturing towns also
+absorbed a considerable number. That there was a considerable amount
+of hardship inflicted on small holders and commoners is certain, but
+industrial progress is frequently attended by the dislocation of
+industry and consequent distress; the introduction of machinery, for
+instance, often causing great suffering to hand-workers, but
+eventually benefiting the whole community. How many men has the
+self-binding reaping machine thrown for a time out of work? So
+enclosure caused distress to many individuals, but was for the good of
+the whole nation. The history of enclosure is really the history of
+progress in farming; the conversion of land badly tilled in the old
+common fields, and of waste <a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>land little more valuable than the
+prairies; into well-managed fruitful farms. That much of the
+common-field land when enclosed was laid down to grass is certainly
+true, and certainly inevitable if it paid best under grass.<a name="FNanchor_448_449" id="FNanchor_448_449"></a><a href="#Footnote_448_449" class="fnanchor">[448]</a> No
+one can expect the holders of land naturally best suited for grass to
+keep it under tillage for philanthropic purposes. A vast number of the
+commoners too were idle thriftless beings, whose rights on a few acres
+enabled them to live a life of pilfering and poaching; and it was a
+very good thing when such people were induced to lead a more regular
+and respectable existence. The great blot on the process was that it
+made the English labourer a landless man. Compensation was given him
+at the time of enclosure in the shape of allotments or sums of money,
+but the former he was generally compelled to give up owing to the
+expense he had been put to at allotment, and the latter he often spent
+in the public-house.</p>
+
+<p>At this date the proprietors of large estates who wished to enclose by
+Act of Parliament, generally settled all the particulars among
+themselves before calling any meeting of the rest of the proprietors.
+The small proprietor had very little say either in regulating the
+clauses of the Act, or in the choice of commissioners. Any owner of
+one-fifth of the land, however, could negative the measure and often
+used his right to impose unreasonable clauses. It is well known that
+the legal expenses and fencing were very costly. The enclosure
+commissioners too often divided the land in an arbitrary and ignorant
+manner, and there was no appeal from them except by filing a bill in
+Chancery. Accounts were hardly ever shown by the commissioners, and if
+a proprietor refused to pay the sums levied they were empowered to
+distrain immediately. <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>All these evils attending enclosure made many
+who were eager to benefit by it very chary in commencing it.<a name="FNanchor_449_450" id="FNanchor_449_450"></a><a href="#Footnote_449_450" class="fnanchor">[449]</a></p>
+
+<p>Then, as now, one of the commonest errors of farmers was that of
+taking too much land for their capital; Young considered <i>&pound;</i>6 an acre
+necessary on an average, equal to more than <i>&pound;</i>12 to-day; a sum which
+few farmers at any time have in hand when they take a farm. As for
+gentlemen farmers, who were then rushing into the business, they were
+warned that they had no chance of success if they kept any company or
+amused themselves with anything but their own business, unless perhaps
+they had a good bailiff.</p>
+
+<p>Lime, one of the most ancient of manures, was then the most commonly
+used in England, 80 to 100 loads an acre being a common dressing, but
+many farmers were very ignorant of its proper use. Marl, which to-day
+is seldom used, was considered to last for twenty years, though for
+the first year no benefit was observable, and very little the second
+and the third, its value then becoming very apparent. In the last five
+years, however, its value was nearly worn out. But it was much to be
+questioned whether marl in its best state anywhere yields an increase
+of produce equal to that which a good manuring of dung will give.<a name="FNanchor_450_451" id="FNanchor_450_451"></a><a href="#Footnote_450_451" class="fnanchor">[450]</a>
+Marl was applied in huge quantities on arable and grass, and often
+made the latter look like arable land so thickly was it spread.</p>
+
+<p>At this date (1770) the average crops on poor, and on good land were<a name="FNanchor_451_452" id="FNanchor_451_452"></a><a href="#Footnote_451_452" class="fnanchor">[451]</a>:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>On land worth 5<i>s.</i> an acre:</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Wheat</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='left'>bushels</td><td align='left'>per acre.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Rye</td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Barley</td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Oats</td><td align='right'>20</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Turnips, to the value of <i>&pound;</i>1.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Clover &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>On land worth 20<i>s.</i> an acre:<a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Wheat</td><td align='right'>28</td><td align='left'>bushels</td><td align='left'>per acre.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Barley</td><td align='right'>40</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Oats</td><td align='right'>48</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Beans</td><td align='right'>40</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Turnips, to the value of <i>&pound;</i>3.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Clover &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The cost of cultivating the latter, which may be given in full, as it
+affords an excellent example of the price of growing various crops,
+and the methods of their cultivation at this period, was as follows:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>First year, turnips:</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Rent</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Tithe and 'town charges'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Five ploughings, @ 4<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Three harrowings</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Seed</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Sowing</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Twice hand-hoeing</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>2</td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>It will be noticed there was no horse-hoeing.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Second year, barley:</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Rent, tithe, &amp;c.</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Three ploughings</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Three harrowings</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Seed</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Sowing</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Mowing and harvesting</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Water furrowing</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Threshing, @ 1<i>s.</i>a quarter</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>2</td><td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'><br />Third year, clover:</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Rent, &amp;c.</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Seed</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Sowing</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>1</td><td align='left'>13</td><td align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'><br />Fourth year,<a name="FNanchor_452_453" id="FNanchor_452_453"></a><a href="#Footnote_452_453" class="fnanchor">[452]</a>wheat:</td>
+  <td align='right'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Rent, &amp;c.</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>One ploughing</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Three harrowings</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Seed</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Sowing</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Water furrowing</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>9</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Thistling</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Reaping and harvesting</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Threshing, @ 2<i>s.</i>a quarter</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>2</td><td align='right'>19</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'><br />Fifth year, beans:</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Rent, &amp;c.</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Two ploughings</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Seed, 2 bushels</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Sowing</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Twice hand-hoeing</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Twice horse-hoeing</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Reaping and harvesting</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'> 8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Threshing </td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>3</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'><br />Sixth year, oats:</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Rent, &amp;c.</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Once ploughing</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Two harrowings</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Four bushels of seed </td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Sowing</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Mowing and harvesting</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Threshing, @ 1<i>s.</i>a quarter</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>2</td><td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>11</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Good land at a high rent is always better than poor land at a low
+rent; the average profit per acre on 5<i>s.</i> land was then about 8<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>,
+on 20<i>s.</i> land, 29<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>Grass was much more profitable than tillage, the profit on 20 acres of
+arable in nine years amounted to <i>&pound;</i>88, whereas on grass it was <i>&pound;</i>212, or
+9<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> an acre per annum for the former and 23<i>s.</i> for the latter.<a name="FNanchor_453_454" id="FNanchor_453_454"></a><a href="#Footnote_453_454" class="fnanchor">[453]</a>
+Yet dairying, at all events, was then <a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>on the whole badly managed and
+unprofitable. The average cow ate 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;acres of grass, and the rent
+of this with labour and other expenses made the cost <i>&pound;</i>5 a year per
+cow, and its average produce was not worth more than <i>&pound;</i>5 6<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_454_455" id="FNanchor_454_455"></a><a href="#Footnote_454_455" class="fnanchor">[454]</a>
+This scanty profit was due to the fact that few farmers used roots,
+cabbages, &amp;c., for their cows, and to their wrong management of pigs,
+kept on the surplus dairy food. By good management the nett return
+could be made as much as <i>&pound;</i>4 15<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i> per cow.</p>
+
+<p>The management of sheep in the north of England was wretched. In
+Northumberland the profit was reckoned at 1<i>s.</i> a head, partly derived
+from cheese made from ewes' milk. The fleeces averaged 2 lb., and the
+wool was so bad as not to be worth more than 3<i>d.</i> or 4<i>d.</i> per lb.<a name="FNanchor_455_456" id="FNanchor_455_456"></a><a href="#Footnote_455_456" class="fnanchor">[455]</a></p>
+
+<p>Pigs could be made to pay well, as the following account testifies:</p>
+
+<p>Food and produce of a sow in one year (1763), which produced seven
+pigs in April and eleven in October:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>DR.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>CR.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Grains</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>4</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>A pig</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>3</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Cutting a litter</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>A fat hog</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>5 quarters peas</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Another, 110 lb. wt.</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>10 bushels barley</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Another, 116 lb. wt.</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Expenses in selling<a name="FNanchor_456_457" id="FNanchor_456_457"></a><a href="#Footnote_456_457" class="fnanchor">[456]</a></td>
+    <td colspan="2" align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Heads</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>3</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>10 bushels peas</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>3</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>3 fat hogs</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>1 fat hog</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>10 young pigs</td><td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>18</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>8</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>7</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>Profit&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i>10</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>========</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>========</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>We have seen that Young thought little of the 'new husbandry'; he does
+not even give Tull the credit of inventing the drill: 'Mr. Tull
+perhaps <i>again</i> invented it. He practised it <a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>upon an extent of ground
+far beyond that of any person preceding him: the spirit of drilling
+died with Mr. Tull and was not revived till within a few years.'<a name="FNanchor_457_458" id="FNanchor_457_458"></a><a href="#Footnote_457_458" class="fnanchor">[457]</a>
+It was doubtful if 50 acres of corn were then annually drilled in
+England. Lately drilling had been revived and there were keen disputes
+as to the old and new methods of husbandry, the efficacy of the new
+being far from decided. The cause of the slow adoption of drill
+husbandry was the inferiority of the drills hitherto invented. They
+were complex in construction, expensive, and hard to procure. It
+seemed impossible to make a drill or drill plough as it was called,
+for such it then was&mdash;a combination of drill, plough, and
+harrow&mdash;capable of sowing at various depths and widths, and at the
+same time light enough for ordinary use. All the drills hitherto made
+were too light to stand the rough use of farm labourers: 'common
+ploughs and harrows the fellows tumble about in so violent a manner
+that if they were not strength itself they would drop to pieces. In
+drawing such instruments into the field the men generally mount the
+horses, and drag them after them; in passing gateways twenty to one
+they draw them against the gate post.' Some of 'these fellows' are
+still to be seen!</p>
+
+<p>Another defect in drilling was that the drill plough filled up all the
+water furrows, which, at a time when drainage was often neglected,
+were deemed of especial importance, and they all had to be opened
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Further, said the advocates of the old husbandry, it was a question
+whether all the horse-hoeings, hand-hoeings, and weedings of the new
+husbandry, though undoubtedly beneficial, really paid. It was very
+hard to get enough labourers for these operations. With more reason
+they objected to the principles of discarding manure and sowing a
+large number of white straw crops in succession, but admitted the new
+system was admirably adapted for beans, turnips, cabbages, and
+lucerne.</p>
+
+<p>However, there were many followers of Tull. The Author of
+<a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a><i>Dissertations on Rural Subjects</i><a name="FNanchor_458_459" id="FNanchor_458_459"></a><a href="#Footnote_458_459" class="fnanchor">[458]</a> thought the drill plough an
+excellent invention, as it saved seed and facilitated hoeing; but he
+said Tull's drill was defective in that the distances between the rows
+could not be altered, a defect which the writer claims to have
+remedied. Young's desire for a stronger drill seems to have been soon
+answered, as the same writer says the barrel drill invented by
+Du-Hamel and improved by Craik was strong, cheap, and easily managed.</p>
+
+<p>The tendency of the latter half of the century was decidedly in favour
+of larger farms; it was a bad thing for the small holders, but it was
+an economic tendency which could not be resisted. The larger farmers
+had more capital, were more able and ready to execute improvements;
+they drained their land, others often did not; having sufficient
+capital they were able both to buy and sell to the best advantage and
+not sacrifice their produce at a low price to meet the rent, as the
+small farmer so often did and does. They could pay better wages and so
+get better men, kept more stock and better, and more efficient
+implements. They also had a great advantage in being able by their
+good teams to haul home plenty of purchased manure, which the small
+farmer often could not do. The small tenants, who had no by-industry,
+then, as now, had to work and live harder than the ordinary labourer
+to pay their way.</p>
+
+<p>Young calculated as early as 1768 that the average size of farms over
+the greater part of England was slightly under 300 acres.<a name="FNanchor_459_460" id="FNanchor_459_460"></a><a href="#Footnote_459_460" class="fnanchor">[459]</a> In his
+<i>Tour in France</i> Young, speaking of the smallness of French farms as
+compared with English ones, and of the consequent great inferiority of
+French farming, says, 'Where is the little farmer to be found who will
+cover his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 to 150 tons per
+acre; who will drain his land at the expense of <i>&pound;</i>2 to <i>&pound;</i>3 an acre; who
+will, to improve the breed of his sheep, give 1,000 guineas for the
+use of a single ram for a single season; who will send across the
+kingdom to distant provinces for new implements and for <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>men to use
+them? Deduct from agriculture all the practices that have made it
+flourishing in this island, and you have precisely the management of
+small farms.' In 1868 the <i>Report of the Commission on the Agriculture
+of France</i><a name="FNanchor_460_461" id="FNanchor_460_461"></a><a href="#Footnote_460_461" class="fnanchor">[460]</a> agreed with Young, noting the grave consequences of
+the excessive subdivision of land, loss of time, waste of labour,
+difficulties in rotation of crops, and of liberty of cultivation.</p>
+
+<p>For stocking an arable farm of 70 acres Young considered the following
+expenditure necessary, the items of which give us interesting
+information as to prices about 1770:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rent, tithe, and town charges for first year</td>
+  <td align='right'>70</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Household furniture</td>
+  <td align='right'>30</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wagon</td>
+  <td align='right'>25</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cart with ladders</td>
+  <td align='right'> 12</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tumbril</td>
+  <td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Roller for broad lands (of wood)</td>
+  <td align='right'> 2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; narrow &nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cart harness for 4 horses</td>
+  <td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Plough &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td>
+  <td align='right'> 2</td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2 ploughs</td>
+  <td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A pair of harrows</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Screen, bushel, fan, sieves, forks, rakes, &amp;c.</td>
+  <td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Dairy furniture</td>
+  <td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>20 sacks</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4 horses</td>
+  <td align='right'>32</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wear and tear, and shoeing one year</td>
+  <td align='right'> 13</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Keep of 4 horses from Michaelmas to May Day, @ 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> each a week</td>
+  <td align='right'>14</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5 cows</td>
+  <td align='right'>20</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>20 sheep</td>
+  <td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>One sow</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>One servant's board and wages for one year</td>
+  <td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A labourer's wages for one year </td>
+  <td align='right'> 20</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Seed for first year, 42 acres, @ 11<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'> 24</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Harvest labour</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>326</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=========</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Or nearly <i>&pound;</i>5 an acre.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>About the same date the <i>Complete English Farmer</i> reckoned that the
+occupier of a farm of 500 acres (300 arable, 200 pasture), ought to
+have a capital of <i>&pound;</i>1,500, and estimated that, after paying expenses
+and maintaining his family, he could put by <i>&pound;</i>50 a year; 'but this
+capital was much beyond what farmers in general can attain to.'<a name="FNanchor_461_462" id="FNanchor_461_462"></a><a href="#Footnote_461_462" class="fnanchor">[461]</a></p>
+
+<p>The controversy of horses versus oxen for working purposes was still
+raging, and Young favoured the use of oxen; for the food of horses
+cost more, so did their harness and their shoeing, they are much more
+liable to disease, and oxen when done with could be sold for beef. One
+stout lad, moreover, could attend to 8 or 10 oxen, for all he had to
+do was to put their fodder in the racks and clean the shed; no
+rubbing, no currying or dressing being necessary. No beasts fattened
+better than oxen that had been worked. A yoke of oxen would plough as
+much as a pair of horses and carry a deeper and truer furrow, while
+they were just as handy as horses in wagons, carts, rollers, &amp;c.
+William Marshall, the other great agricultural writer of the end of
+the eighteenth century, agreed with Young, yet in spite of all these
+advantages horses were continually supplanting oxen.</p>
+
+<p>Among the improvements in agriculture was the introduction of
+broad-wheeled wagons; narrow-wheeled ones were usual, and these on the
+turnpikes were only allowed to be drawn by 4 horses so that the load
+was small, but broad-wheeled wagons might use 8 horses. The cost of
+the latter was <i>&pound;</i>50 against <i>&pound;</i>25 for the former.<a name="FNanchor_462_463" id="FNanchor_462_463"></a><a href="#Footnote_462_463" class="fnanchor">[462]</a></p>
+
+<p>Young's opinion of the labouring man, like Tull's, was not a high one.
+'I never yet knew', he says, 'one instance of any poor man's working
+diligently while young and in health to escape coming to the parish
+when ill or old.' This is doubtless too sweeping. There must have been
+others like George Barwell, whom Marshall tells of in his <i>Rural
+Economy of the Midlands</i>, <a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>who had brought up a family of five or six
+sons and daughters on a wage of 5<i>s.</i> to 7<i>s.</i> a week, and after they were
+out in the world saved enough to support him in his old age. The
+majority, however, long before the crushing times of the French War,
+seem to have been thoroughly demoralized by indiscriminate parish
+relief, and habitually looked to the parish to maintain them in
+sickness and old age. Cullum<a name="FNanchor_463_464" id="FNanchor_463_464"></a><a href="#Footnote_463_464" class="fnanchor">[463]</a> a few years later, remarks on the
+poor demanding assistance without the scruple and delicacy they used
+to have, and says 'the present age seems to aim at abolishing all
+subordination and dependence and reducing all ranks as near a level as
+possible.'! Idleness, drunkenness, and what was then often looked on
+with disgust and contempt, excessive tea-drinking, were rife. Tea then
+was very expensive, 8<i>s.</i> or 10<i>s.</i> a lb. being an ordinary price, so that
+the poor had to put up with a very much adulterated article, most
+pernicious to health. The immoderate use of this was stated to have
+worse effects than the immoderate use of spirits. The consumption of
+it was largely caused by the deficiency of the milk supply, owing to
+the decrease of small farms; the large farmers did not retail such
+small commodities as milk and butter, but sent them to the towns so
+that the poor often went without.<a name="FNanchor_464_465" id="FNanchor_464_465"></a><a href="#Footnote_464_465" class="fnanchor">[464]</a></p>
+
+<p>In 1767 Young found wages differing according to the distance from
+London<a name="FNanchor_465_466" id="FNanchor_465_466"></a><a href="#Footnote_465_466" class="fnanchor">[465]</a>:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='center'>20 miles</td><td align='left'>from London they were per week</td>
+  <td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>From</td><td align='center'>20 to 60</td><td align='center'>" &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td>
+  <td align='right'> 7</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>60 to 110</td><td align='center'>" &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td>
+  <td align='right'> 6</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>110 to 170</td><td align='center'>" &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td>
+  <td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>3</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Giving an average of 7<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> which, however, was often <a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>exceeded as
+there was much piece-work which enabled the men to earn more.</p>
+
+<p>Young drew up a dietary for a labourer, his wife, and a family of
+three children, which he declared to be sufficient:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Food, 6<i>s.</i> per week<a name="FNanchor_466_467" id="FNanchor_466_467"></a><a href="#Footnote_466_467" class="fnanchor">[466]</a>; per year</td>
+  <td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rent</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Clothes</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Soap and candles</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Loss of time through illness, and medicine</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Fuel</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>23</td><td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=========</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><br /><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The man's wages were, @ 1<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> a day, for the year&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>19</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The woman's, @ 3<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i> d.</i> a day, for the year</td>
+  <td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The boy of fifteen could earn </td>
+  <td align='right'> 9</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The boy of ten could earn</td>
+  <td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>37</td><td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=========</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p>Which would give the family a surplus of <i>&pound;</i>13 18<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i> a year.</p>
+
+<p>What the man's food should consist of is shown by a list of 'seven
+days' messes for a stout man':&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day.</td><td align='left'>2 lb. of bread made of wheat, rye, and potatoes&mdash;'no bread exceeds it'</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>2 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Cheese, 2 oz. @ 4<i>d.</i> a lb</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Beer, 2 quarts</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day.</td><td align='left'>Three messes of soup</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>2 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day.</td><td align='left'>Rice pudding</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day.</td><td align='left'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub> lb. of fat meat and potatoes baked together&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>2<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Beer</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day.</td><td align='left'>Rice milk</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>2 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day.</td><td align='left'>Same as first day</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day.</td><td align='left'>Potatoes, fat meat, cheese, and beer</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'> 4 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>========</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>As Young was a man of large practical experience we may <a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>assume that
+this, though it seems a very insufficient diet, was not unlike the
+food of some labourers at that date. However, the bread he recommends
+was not that eaten by a large number of them. Eden<a name="FNanchor_467_468" id="FNanchor_467_468"></a><a href="#Footnote_467_468" class="fnanchor">[467]</a> states that in
+1764 about half the people of England were estimated to be using
+wheaten bread, and at the end of the century, although prices had
+risen greatly, he says that in the Home Counties wheaten bread was
+universal among the peasant class. Young, indeed, acknowledges that
+many insisted on wheaten bread.<a name="FNanchor_468_469" id="FNanchor_468_469"></a><a href="#Footnote_468_469" class="fnanchor">[468]</a> In Suffolk, according to
+Cullum,<a name="FNanchor_469_470" id="FNanchor_469_470"></a><a href="#Footnote_469_470" class="fnanchor">[469]</a> pork and bacon were the labourer's delicacies, bread and
+cheese his ordinary diet.</p>
+
+<p>The north of England was more thrifty than the south. At the end of
+the eighteenth century barley and oaten bread were much used there.
+Lancashire people fed largely on oat bread, leavened and unleavened;
+the 33rd Regiment, which went by the name of the 'Havercake lads', was
+usually recruited from the West Riding where oat bread was in common
+use, and was famous for having fine men in its ranks.<a name="FNanchor_470_471" id="FNanchor_470_471"></a><a href="#Footnote_470_471" class="fnanchor">[470]</a> The
+labourers of the north were also noted for their skill in making soups
+in which barley was an important ingredient. In many of the southern
+counties tea was drunk at breakfast, dinner, and supper by the poor,
+often without milk or sugar; but alcoholic liquors were also consumed
+in great quantities, the southerner apparently always drinking a
+considerable amount, the northerner at rare intervals drinking deep.
+The drinking in cider counties seems always to have been worse as far
+as quantity goes than elsewhere, and the drink bills on farms were
+enormous. Marshall says that in Gloucestershire drinking a gallon
+'bottle', generally a little wooden barrel, at a draught was no
+uncommon feat; and in the Vale of Evesham a labourer who <a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>wanted to be
+even with his master for short payment emptied a two-gallon bottle
+without taking it from his lips. Even this feat was excelled by 'four
+well-seasoned yeomen, who resolved to have a fresh hogshead tapped,
+and setting foot to foot emptied it at one sitting.'<a name="FNanchor_471_472" id="FNanchor_471_472"></a><a href="#Footnote_471_472" class="fnanchor">[471]</a> Yet in the
+beer-drinking counties great quantities were consumed; a gallon a day
+per man all the year round being no uncommon allowance.<a name="FNanchor_472_473" id="FNanchor_472_473"></a><a href="#Footnote_472_473" class="fnanchor">[472]</a></p>
+
+<p>The superior thrift of the north was shown in clothes as well as food,
+the midland and southern labourer at the end of the century buying all
+his clothes, the northerner making them almost all at home; there were
+many respectable families in the north who had never bought a pair of
+stockings, coat, or waistcoat in their lives, and a purchased coat was
+considered a mark of extravagance and pride.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Young's dietary is that green
+vegetables are absolutely ignored. The peasant was supposed to need
+them as little as in the Middle Ages.</p>
+
+<p>However, Young admits that very few labourers lived as cheaply as
+this, and he found the actual ordinary budget for the same family to
+be:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Food, per week, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>; per year &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>19</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Beer &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td>
+  <td align='right'> 3</td><td align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Soap and candles</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rent</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Clothes</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Fuel</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Illness, &amp;c.</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Infant</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>34</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=========</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>This, with the same Income as before, left him with a surplus of <i>&pound;</i>3
+10<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i>; but as it was not likely his wife could work all the year
+round, or that both his eldest children should be boys, it appears
+that his expenses must often have exceeded his <a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>income. This being so,
+it is not surprising that he was often drunken and reckless, and ready
+to come on the parish for relief. To labour incessantly, often with
+wife and boys, to live very poorly, yet not even make both ends meet,
+was enough to kill all spirit in any one.</p>
+
+<p>A great evil from which the labourer suffered was the restrictions
+thrown on him of settling in another parish. If he desired to take his
+labour to a better market he often found it closed to him. His
+marriage was discouraged,<a name="FNanchor_473_474" id="FNanchor_473_474"></a><a href="#Footnote_473_474" class="fnanchor">[473]</a> because a single man did not want a
+cottage and a married one did. To ease the rates there was open war
+against cottages, and many were pulled down.<a name="FNanchor_474_475" id="FNanchor_474_475"></a><a href="#Footnote_474_475" class="fnanchor">[474]</a> If a labourer in a
+parish to which he did not legally belong signified his intention of
+marrying, he immediately had notice to quit the parish and retire to
+his own, unless he could procure a certificate that neither he nor his
+would be chargeable. If he went to his own parish he came off very
+badly, for they didn't want him, and cottages being scarce he probably
+had to put up with sharing one with one or more families. Sensible men
+cried out for the total abolition of the poor laws, the worst effects
+of which were still to be felt.</p>
+
+<p>Yet there was a considerable migration of labour at harvest time when
+additional hands were needed. Labourers came from neighbouring
+counties, artisans left their workshops in the towns, Scots came to
+the Northern counties, Welshmen to the western, and Irishmen appeared
+in many parts; and they were as a rule supplied by a contractor.<a name="FNanchor_475_476" id="FNanchor_475_476"></a><a href="#Footnote_475_476" class="fnanchor">[475]</a></p>
+
+<p>London was regarded as a source of great evil to the country by
+attracting the young and energetic thither. It used, men <a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>said, to be
+no such easy matter to get there when a stage coach was four or five
+days creeping 100 miles and fares were high; but in 1770 a country
+fellow 100 miles from London jumped on a coach in the morning and for
+8<i>s.</i> or 10<i>s.</i> got to town by night, 'and ten times the boasts are
+sounded in the ears of country fools by those who have seen London to
+induce them to quit their healthy clean fields for a region of dirt,
+stink, and noise.' A prejudice might well have been entertained
+against the metropolis at this time, for it literally devoured the
+people of England, the deaths exceeding the births by 8,000 a year.
+One of the causes that had hitherto kept people from London was the
+dread of the small-pox, but that was now said to be removed by
+inoculation. Among the troubles farmers had to contend with were the
+audacious depredations caused by poachers, generally labourers, who
+swarmed in many villages. They took the farmer's horses out of his
+fields after they had done a hard day's work and rode them all night
+to drive the game into their nets, blundering over the hedges,
+sometimes staking the horses, riding over standing corn, or anything
+that was cover for partridges, and when they had sold their ill-gotten
+game spent the money openly at the nearest alehouse. Then they would
+go back and work for the farmers they had robbed, drunk, asleep, or
+idle the whole day. The subscription packs of foxhounds were also a
+great nuisance, many of the followers being townsmen who bored through
+hedges and smashed the gates and stiles, conduct not unknown to-day.
+In spite of these drawbacks the long period of great abundance from
+1715 to 1765 and the consequent cheapness of food with an increase of
+wages was attended with a great improvement in the condition and habits
+of the people. Adam Smith refers to 'the peculiarly happy circumstances
+of the country'; Hallam described the reign of George II as 'the most
+prosperous period that England has ever experienced'<a name="FNanchor_476_477" id="FNanchor_476_477"></a><a href="#Footnote_476_477" class="fnanchor">[476]</a>; and it was
+Young's opinion about 1770 that <a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>England was in a most rich and
+flourishing situation, 'her agriculture is upon the whole good and
+spirited and every day improving, her industrious poor are well fed,
+clothed, and lodged at reasonable rates, the prices of all necessaries
+being moderate, our population increasing, the price of labour
+generally high.'<a name="FNanchor_477_478" id="FNanchor_477_478"></a><a href="#Footnote_477_478" class="fnanchor">[477]</a> The great degree of luxury to which the country
+had arrived within a few years 'is not only astonishing but almost
+dreadful to think of. Time was when those articles of indulgence which
+now every mechanic aims at the possession of were enjoyed only by the
+baron or lord.'<a name="FNanchor_478_479" id="FNanchor_478_479"></a><a href="#Footnote_478_479" class="fnanchor">[478]</a> Great towns became the winter residence of those
+who could not afford London, and the country was said to be everywhere
+deserted, an evil largely attributed to the improvement of posting and
+coaches. The true country gentleman was seldom to be found, the
+luxuries of the age had softened down the hardy roughness of former
+times and the 'country, like the capital, is one scene of dissipation.'
+The private gentleman of <i>&pound;</i>300 or <i>&pound;</i>400 a year must have his horses,
+dogs, carriages, pictures, and parties, and thus goes to ruin. The
+articles of living, says the same writer, were 100 per cent. dearer
+than some time back. This is a very different picture from that in
+which Young represents every one rushing into farming, but no doubt
+depicts one phase of national life.</p>
+
+<p>An excellent observer<a name="FNanchor_479_480" id="FNanchor_479_480"></a><a href="#Footnote_479_480" class="fnanchor">[479]</a> noticed in 1792 that the preceding forty or
+fifty years had witnessed the total destruction in England of the once
+common type of the small country squire. He was:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'An independent gentleman of <i>&pound;</i>300 per annum who commonly
+appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver buttons, a
+jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>never
+exceeded the distance of the county town, and that only at
+assize or session time, or to attend an election. Once a week
+he commonly dined at the next market town with the attorneys
+and justices. He went to church regularly, read the weekly
+journal, settled the parochial disputes, and afterwards
+adjourned to the neighbouring alehouse, where he generally got
+drunk for the good of his country. He was commonly followed by
+a couple of greyhounds and a pointer, and announced his arrival
+at a neighbour's house by smacking his whip and giving a view
+halloo. His drink was generally ale, except on Christmas Day,
+the Fifth of November, or some other gala day, when he would
+make a bowl of strong brandy. The mansion of one of these
+squires was of plaster striped with timber, not unaptly called
+callimanco work, or of red brick with large casemented bow
+windows; a porch with seats in it and over it a study: the
+eaves of the house well inhabited by swallows, and the court
+set round with hollyhocks; near the gate a horse-block for
+mounting. The hall was furnished with flitches of bacon, and
+the mantelpiece with guns and fishing-rods of different
+dimensions, accompanied by the broadsword, partisan, and dagger
+borne by his ancestor in the Civil Wars. Against the wall was
+posted King Charles's <i>Golden Rules</i>, Vincent Wing's <i>Almanac</i>
+and a portrait of the Duke of Marlborough; in his window lay
+Baker's <i>Chronicle</i>, Foxe's <i>Book of Martyrs</i>, Glanvill <i>On
+Apparitions</i>, Quincey's <i>Dispensatory</i>, <i>The Complete Justice</i>,
+and a <i>Book of Farriery</i>. In a corner by the fireside stood a
+large wooden two-armed chair with a cushion, and within the
+chimney corner were a couple of seats. Here at Christmas he
+entertained his tenants, assembled round a glowing fire made of
+the roots of trees; and told and heard the traditionary tales
+of the village about ghosts and witches while a jorum of ale
+went round. These men and their houses are no more.'</p></div>
+
+<p>The farmer, in some parts at all events, was becoming a more civilized
+individual; the late race had lived in the midst of their enlightened
+neighbours like beings of another order<a name="FNanchor_480_481" id="FNanchor_480_481"></a><a href="#Footnote_480_481" class="fnanchor">[480]</a>; in their personal labour
+they were indefatigable, in their fare hard, in their dress homely, in
+their manners rude. The French and American War of 1775-83 was a very
+prosperous <a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>time, and the farmer's mode of living greatly improved.
+Farmhouses in England, it was noticed, were in general well furnished
+with every convenient accommodation. Into many of them a 'barometer
+had of late years been introduced'. The teapot and the mug of ale
+jointly possessed the breakfast table, and meat and pudding smoked on
+the board every noon. Formerly one might see at church what was the
+cut of a coat half a century ago, now dress was spruce and
+modern.<a name="FNanchor_481_482" id="FNanchor_481_482"></a><a href="#Footnote_481_482" class="fnanchor">[481]</a> As a proof of the spirit of improvement among farmers,
+Marshall instances the custom in the Midlands of placing their sons as
+pupils on other farms to widen their experience. 'Their entertainments
+are as expensive as they are elegant, for it is no uncommon thing for
+one of these new-created farmers to spend <i>&pound;</i>10 or <i>&pound;</i>12, at one
+entertainment, and to have the most expensive wines; to set off the
+entertainment in the greatest splendour an elegant sideboard of plate
+is provided in the newest fashion.'<a name="FNanchor_482_483" id="FNanchor_482_483"></a><a href="#Footnote_482_483" class="fnanchor">[482]</a> As to dress, no one could
+tell the farmer's daughter from the duke's. Marshall noticed that in
+Warwickshire the harness of the farmer's teams was often ridiculously
+ornamented, and the horses were overfed and underworked to save their
+looks. Before enclosure the farmer entertained his friends with bacon
+fed by himself, washed down with ale brewed from his own malt, in a
+brown jug, or a glass if he was extravagant. He wore a coat of woollen
+stuff, the growth of his own flock, spun by his wife and daughters,
+his stockings came from the same quarter, so did the clothes of his
+family.</p>
+
+<p>Some of these farmers were doing their share in helping the progress
+of agriculture. In 1764 Joseph Elkington, of Princethorpe in
+Warwickshire, was the first to practise the under drainage of sloping
+land that was drowned by the bursting of springs. He drained some
+fields at Princethorpe which were very wet, and dug a trench 4 or 5
+feet deep for this purpose; <a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>but finding this did not reach the
+principal body of subjacent water, he drove an iron bar 4 feet below
+the bottom of his trench and on withdrawing it the water gushed out.
+He was thus led to combine the system of cutting drains, aided when
+necessary by auger holes. His main principles were three: (1) Finding
+the main spring, or cause of the mischief. (2) Taking the level of
+that spring and ascertaining its subterranean bearings, for if the
+drain is cut a yard below the line of the spring the water issuing
+from it cannot be reached, but on ascertaining the line by levelling
+the spring can be cut effectually. (3) Using the auger to tap the
+spring when the drain was not deep enough for the purpose.<a name="FNanchor_483_484" id="FNanchor_483_484"></a><a href="#Footnote_483_484" class="fnanchor">[483]</a> It was
+owing to the Board of Agriculture at the end of the century that he
+obtained the vote of <i>&pound;</i>1,000 from Parliament, and a skilful surveyor
+was appointed to observe his methods and give them to the public, for
+he was too ignorant himself to give an intelligible account of his
+system. After the publication of the report his system was followed
+generally until Smith of Deanston in 1835 gave the method now in use
+to his country.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Bakewell, who did more to improve live stock than any other
+man, was born at Dishley, Leicestershire, in 1735, and succeeding to
+the management of his father's farm in 1760 began to make experiments
+in breeding.<a name="FNanchor_484_485" id="FNanchor_484_485"></a><a href="#Footnote_484_485" class="fnanchor">[484]</a> He scorned the old idea that the blood must be
+constantly varied by the mixture of different breeds, and his new
+system differed from the old in two chief points: (1) small versus
+large bone, and consequently a greater proportion of flesh and a
+greater tendency to fatten; (2) permissible in-breeding versus
+perpetual crossing with strange breeds. He took immense pains in
+selecting the best animals to breed from, and had at Dishley a museum
+of skeletons and pickled specimens for the comparison of one
+generation with another, and he conducted careful post-mortem
+examinations <a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>on his stock. His great production was the new Leicester
+breed of sheep,<a name="FNanchor_485_486" id="FNanchor_485_486"></a><a href="#Footnote_485_486" class="fnanchor">[485]</a> which in half a century spread over every part of
+the United Kingdom, as well as to Europe and America, and gave England
+2 lb. of meat where she had one before. Sheep at this time were
+divided into two main classes: (1) short-woolled or field sheep, fed
+in the open fields; (2) long-woolled or pasture sheep, fed in
+enclosures. That they were not at a very high state of perfection may
+be gathered from this description of the chief variety of the latter,
+the 'Warwickshire' breed: 'his frame large and loose, his bones heavy,
+his legs long and thick, his chine as well as his rump as sharp as a
+hatchet, his skin rattling on his ribs like a skeleton covered with
+parchments.' The origin of the new Leicester sheep is uncertain, but
+apparently the old Lincoln breed was the basis of it, though this,
+like other large breeds of English sheep, was itself an introduction
+of the last half century. The new sheep was described as having a
+clean head, straight broad flat back, barrel-like body, fine small
+eyes, thin feet, mutton fat, fine-grained and of good flavour, wool 8
+lb. to the fleece, and wethers at two years old weighed from 20 to 30
+lb. a quarter.</p>
+
+<p>By 1770 his rams were hired for 25 guineas a season, and soon after he
+made <i>&pound;</i>3,000 a year by their hire, one named 'Two-pounder' bringing him
+1,200 guineas in one year.</p>
+
+<p>One of his theories was that the poorer the land the more it demanded
+well-made sheep, which is no doubt true to a certain extent; but it
+has been proved conclusively since that the quality of the breed
+gradually drops to the level of the land unless artificially assisted.
+At his death he left two distinct breeds of sheep, for he improved on
+his own new Leicester, so that the improved became the 'New Leicester'
+and the former the 'Old Leicester.' However, at the time <a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>and,
+afterwards, his sheep were generally called 'New Leicesters', and
+sometimes the 'Dishley breed'. There was much prejudice among farmers
+against the new breed; in the Midlands most of the farmers would have
+nothing to do with them, and 'their grounds were stocked with
+creatures that would disgrace the meanest lands in the kingdom.' Yet
+in April, 1786, yearling wethers of the new breed were sold for 28<i>s.</i>
+while those of the old were 16<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>The cattle which he set to work to improve were the famous old longhorn
+breed, the prevailing breed of the Midlands, which had already been
+considerably improved by Webster of Canley in Warwickshire, and
+others, especially in Lancashire and the north. The kind of cattle
+esteemed hitherto had been 'the large, long-bodied, big-boned, coarse,
+flat-sided kind, and often lyery or black-fleshed.'<a name="FNanchor_486_487" id="FNanchor_486_487"></a><a href="#Footnote_486_487" class="fnanchor">[486]</a> He founded
+his herd upon two heifers of Webster's and a bull from Westmoreland,
+and from these bred all his cattle. The celebrated bull 'Twopenny' was
+a son of the Westmoreland bull and one of these heifers, who came to
+be celebrated in agricultural history as 'Old Comely', for she was
+slaughtered at the age of twenty-six. He bred his cattle so that they
+produced an enormous amount of fat, as hitherto there had been a
+difficulty in producing animals to fatten readily; but this he pushed
+to too great an extreme, so that there has been a reaction. The
+following is a description of a six-year-old bull, got by 'Twopenny'
+out of a Canley cow: 'His head, chest, and neck remarkably fine and
+clean; his chest extraordinarily deep; his brisket bearing down to his
+knees; his chine thin, loin narrow at the chine, but remarkably wide
+at the hips. Quarters long, round bones snug, but thighs rather full
+and remarkably let down. The carcase throughout, chine excepted,
+large, roomy, deep, and well spread.'<a name="FNanchor_487_488" id="FNanchor_487_488"></a><a href="#Footnote_487_488" class="fnanchor">[487]</a> The new longhorn, however
+good for the grazier, was not a good milker. Bakewell was a great
+believer in straw as <a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>a food, and strongly objected to having it
+trodden into manure; his beasts were largely fed on it, in such small
+quantities that they greedily ate what was before them and wasted
+little. His activity was not confined to the breeding of cattle and
+sheep, for he also produced a breed of black horses, thick and short
+in the body, with very short legs and very powerful, two ploughing 4
+acres a day, a statement which seems much exaggerated; and was famous
+for his skill in irrigating meadows, by which he could cut grass four
+times a year. He was a firm believer in the wisdom of treating stock
+gently and kindly, and his sheep were kept as clean as racehorses. A
+visitor to Dishley saw a bull of huge proportions, with enormous
+horns, led about by a boy of seven. He travelled much, and admired the
+farms of Norfolk most in England, and those of Holland and Flanders
+abroad, founding his own system on these. It was his opinion that the
+Devon breed of cattle were incapable of improvement by a cross of any
+other breed, and that from the West Highland heifer the best breed of
+cattle might be produced.</p>
+
+<p>He died in 1795, and apparently did not keep what he made, owing
+largely to his boundless hospitality, which had entertained Russian
+princes, German royal dukes, English peers, and travellers from all
+countries. His breed of cattle has completely disappeared, unless
+traces survive in the lately resuscitated longhorn breed, but his
+principles are still acted upon, viz. the correlation of form, and the
+practice of consanguineous breeding under certain conditions.</p>
+
+<p>Bakewell's earliest pupil was George Culley, who devoted himself to
+improving the breed of cattle, and became one of the most famous
+agriculturists at the end of the eighteenth and the commencement of
+the nineteenth centuries. Another farmer to whom English agriculture
+owes much was John Ellman of Glynde, born in 1753, who by careful
+selection firmly established the reputation of the Southdown sheep
+which had previously been hardly recognized. He was one of the
+<a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>founders of the Smithfield Cattle Show in 1793, which helped
+materially to improve the live stock of the country.</p>
+
+<p>The relations between landlord and tenant, judging from the accounts
+of contemporary writers, were generally good. Leases were less
+frequent than agreements voidable by six months' notice on either
+side, and when there was a tenancy-at-will the tenant who entered as a
+young man was often expected to hand on the holding to his posterity,
+and therefore executed improvements at his own cost, so complete was
+the trust between landlord and tenant. Tenants then did much that they
+would refuse to do to-day, as the following lease, common in the
+Midlands in 1786, shows<a name="FNanchor_488_489" id="FNanchor_488_489"></a><a href="#Footnote_488_489" class="fnanchor">[488]</a>:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+Tenant agrees to take, &amp;c., and to pay the stipulated rent
+within forty days, without any deduction for taxes, and
+double rent so long as he continues to hold after notice
+given.<br />
+<br />
+To repair buildings, accidents by fire excepted.<br />
+<br />
+To repair gates and fences.<br />
+<br />
+When required, to cut and plash the hedges, and make the
+ditches 3 feet by 2 feet, or pay or cause to be paid to
+the landlord 1<i>s.</i> per rood for such as shall not be done
+after three months' notice has been given in writing.<br />
+<br />
+Not to break up certain lands specified in the schedule,
+'under <i>&pound;</i>20 an acre.'<br />
+<br />
+Not to plough more than a specified number of acres of the
+rest of the land in any one year, under the same penalty.<br />
+<br />
+To forfeit the same sum for every acre that shall be ploughed
+for any longer time than three crops successively, without
+making a clean summer fallow thereof after the third
+crop.<br />
+<br />
+And the like sum for every acre over and above a specified
+number (clover excepted) that shall be mown in any one
+year.<br />
+<br />
+At the time of laying down arable lands to grass he shall
+manure them with 8 quarters of lime per acre, and sow
+the same with 12 lb. of clover seeds, and one bushel of
+rye-grass per acre.<br />
+<br />
+Shall spend on the premises all hay, straw, and manure, or<a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>
+leave them at the end of the term.<br />
+<br />
+Tenant on quitting to be allowed for hay left on the premises,
+for clover and rye-grass sown in the last year, and for all
+fallows made within that time.'<a name="FNanchor_489_490" id="FNanchor_489_490"></a><a href="#Footnote_489_490" class="fnanchor">[489]</a><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>A striking picture of the conditions prevailing in many parts of
+England at this period is given by Mr. Loch in his account of the
+estates of the Marquis of Stafford.<a name="FNanchor_490_491" id="FNanchor_490_491"></a><a href="#Footnote_490_491" class="fnanchor">[490]</a> When this nobleman inherited
+his property in Staffordshire and Shropshire, much of the land, as in
+other parts of England, was held on leases for three lives, a system
+said to have been ruinous in its effects. Although the farms were held
+at one-third of their value, nothing could be worse than the course of
+cultivation pursued, no improvements were carried out, and all that
+could be hoped for was that the land would not be entirely run out
+when the lease expired. The closes were extremely small and of the
+most irregular shape; the straggling fences occupied a large portion
+of the land; the crookedness of the ditches, by keeping the water
+stagnant, added to, rather than relieved, the wetness of the soil.
+Farms were much scattered, and to enable the occupiers to get at their
+land, lanes wound backwards and forwards from field to field, covering
+a large quantity of ground.</p>
+
+<p>It is to the great credit of the Marquis of Stafford that this
+miserable state of things was swept away. Lands were laid together,
+the size of the fields enlarged, hedges and ditches straightened, the
+drainage conducted according to a uniform plan, new and substantial
+buildings erected, indeed the whole countryside transformed.</p>
+
+<p>Another evil custom on the estate had been to permit huts <a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>of miserable
+construction to be erected to the number of several hundreds by the
+poorest, and in many instances the most profligate, of the population.
+They were not regularly entered in the rental account, but had a
+nominal payment fixed upon them which was paid annually at the court
+leet. These cottages were built on the sides of the roads and on the
+lord's waste, which was gradually absorbed by the encroachment, which
+the occupiers of these huts made from time to time by enclosing the
+land that lay next them. These wretched holdings gradually fell into
+the hands of a body of middlemen, who underlet them at an extravagant
+rent to the occupiers; and these men began to consider that they had
+an interest independent of the landlord, and had at times actually
+mortgaged, sold, and devised it. This abuse was also put an end to,
+the cottagers being made immediate tenants of the landlord, to their
+great gain, but to this day small aggregations of houses in Shropshire
+called 'Heaths' mark the encroachments of these squatters on the
+roadside wastes. This class, indeed, has been well known in England
+since the Middle Ages. Norden speaks of them in 1602, and so do many
+subsequent writers. Numbers of small holdings exist to-day obtained in
+this manner, and the custom must to some extent have counteracted the
+effect of enclosure.<a name="FNanchor_491_492" id="FNanchor_491_492"></a><a href="#Footnote_491_492" class="fnanchor">[491]</a></p>
+
+<p>The roads of England up to the end of the eighteenth century were
+generally in a disgraceful condition. Some improvement was effected in
+the latter half of the century, but it was not until the days of
+Telford and Macadam that they assumed the appearance with which we are
+familiar; and long after that, though the main roads were excellent,
+the by-roads were often atrocious, as readers of such books as
+<i>Handley Cross</i>, written in the middle of the nineteenth century, will
+remember.</p>
+
+<p>Defoe in his tour in 1724 found the road between S. Albans <a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>and
+Nottingham 'perfectly frightful,' and the great number of horses
+killed by the 'labour of these heavy ways a great charge to the
+country'. He notes, however, an improvement from turnpikes. Many of
+the roads were much worn by the continual passing of droves of heavy
+cattle on their way to London. Sheep could not travel in the winter to
+London as the roads were too heavy, so that the price of mutton at
+that season in town was high. Breeders were often compelled to sell
+them cheap before they got to London, because the roads became
+impassable for their flocks when the bad weather set in.<a name="FNanchor_492_493" id="FNanchor_492_493"></a><a href="#Footnote_492_493" class="fnanchor">[492]</a></p>
+
+<p>In 1734 Lord Cathcart wrote in his diary: 'All went well until I
+arrived within 3 miles of Doncaster, when suddenly my horse fell with
+a crash and with me under him. I fancied myself crushed to death. I
+slept at Doncaster and had a bad night. I was so bad all day, that I
+could get no further than Wetherby. Next day I was all right again. I
+had another terrible fall between North Allerton and Darlington, but
+was not a bit the worse.'<a name="FNanchor_493_494" id="FNanchor_493_494"></a><a href="#Footnote_493_494" class="fnanchor">[493]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was owing to this defective condition of the roads that the prices
+of corn still differed greatly in various localities; there would be a
+glut in one place and a deficiency in another, with no means of
+equalizing matters. To the same cause must be attributed in great
+measure the slow progress made in the improvement of agriculture. New
+discoveries travelled very slowly; the expense of procuring manure
+beyond that produced on the farm was prohibitive; and the uncertain
+returns which arose from such confined markets caused the farmer to
+lack both spirit and ability to exert himself in the cultivation of
+his land.<a name="FNanchor_494_495" id="FNanchor_494_495"></a><a href="#Footnote_494_495" class="fnanchor">[494]</a> Therefore farming was limited to procuring the
+subsistence of particular farms rather than feeding the public. The
+opposition to better roads was due in great measure to the landowners,
+who feared that if the markets in their neighbourhood were rendered
+accessible to <a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>distant farmers their estates would suffer. But they
+were not alone in their opposition; in the reign of Queen Anne the
+people of Northampton were against any improvement in the navigation
+of the Nene, because they feared that corn from Huntingdon and
+Cambridge would come up the river and spoil their market.<a name="FNanchor_495_496" id="FNanchor_495_496"></a><a href="#Footnote_495_496" class="fnanchor">[495]</a> Horner
+was very enthusiastic over the improvement recently effected: 'our
+very carriages travel with almost winged expedition between every town
+of consequence in the kingdom and the metropolis' and inland
+navigation was soon likely to be established in every part, in
+consequence of which the demand for the produce of the land increased
+and the land itself became more valuable and rents rose. 'There never
+was a more astonishing revolution accomplished in the internal system
+of any country'; and the carriage of grain was effected with half the
+former number of horses.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear, however, that he was easily satisfied, and this opinion
+must be compared with the statements of Young and Marshall, who were
+continually travelling all over England some time after it was
+written, and found the roads, in many parts, in a very bad state.</p>
+
+<p>Even near London they were often terrible. 'Of all the cursed roads
+that ever disgraced this kingdom in the very ages of barbarism, none
+ever equalled that from Billericay to the King's Head at Tilbury.<a name="FNanchor_496_497" id="FNanchor_496_497"></a><a href="#Footnote_496_497" class="fnanchor">[496]</a>
+It is for near 12 miles so narrow that a mouse cannot pass by any
+carriage. I saw a fellow creep under his wagon to assist me to lift,
+if possible, my chaise over a hedge. The ruts are of an incredible
+depth, and everywhere chalk wagons were stuck fast till 20 or 30
+horses tacked to each drew them out one by one' Others said that
+turnpike roads were the enemies of cheapness; as soon as they opened
+up secluded spots, low prices vanished and all tended to one level.
+Owing to the work of Telford and Macadam, the high roads by the first
+quarter of the nineteenth <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>century attained a high pitch of excellence;
+and were thronged with traffic, coaches, postchaises, private
+carriages, equestrians, carts and wagons: so animated a sight that our
+forefathers built small houses called 'gazebos' on the sides of the
+road, where they met to take tea and watch the ever varying stream. It
+should not be forgotten, too, that the inns, where numbers of horses
+put up, were splendid markets for the farmers' oats, hay, and straw.</p>
+
+<p>The seasons in the latter part of the eighteenth century were
+distinguished for being frequently bad. In 1774 Gilbert White wrote,
+'Such a run of wet seasons as we have had the last ten or eleven years
+would have produced a famine a century or two ago.' Owing to the
+dearness of bread in 1767 riots broke out in many places, many lives
+were lost, and the gaols were filled with prisoners.<a name="FNanchor_497_498" id="FNanchor_497_498"></a><a href="#Footnote_497_498" class="fnanchor">[497]</a> 1779 was,
+however, a year of great fertility and prices were low all round:
+wheat 33<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>, barley 26<i>s.</i>, oats 13<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, wool 12<i>s.</i> a tod of 28 lb.:
+and there were many complaints of ruined farmers and distressed
+landlords. Though England was now becoming an importing country, the
+amount of corn imported was insufficient to have any appreciable
+effect on prices, which were mainly influenced by the seasons, as the
+following instance of the fluctuations caused by a single bad season
+(1782) testifies<a name="FNanchor_498_499" id="FNanchor_498_499"></a><a href="#Footnote_498_499" class="fnanchor">[498]</a>:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='center'><i>Prices after harvest of 1781.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='center'><i>Prices after harvest of 1782.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Wheat, per bushel</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Wheat, per bushel.</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Barley &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>9</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Barley &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Dutch oats for seed</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>8</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Dutch oats for seed&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Clover seed, per cwt.</td><td align='right'> 1</td><td align='right'> 11</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Clover seed, per cwt.</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'> 10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>The summer of 1783 was amazing and portentous and full of horrible
+phenomena, according to White, with a peculiar haze or smoky fog
+prevailing for many weeks. 'The sun at noon looked as blank as a
+clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferruginous light on the ground
+and floors of rooms.' This was succeeded by a very severe winter, the
+thermometer on December 10 being 1&deg; below zero; the worst since
+1739-40.</p>
+
+<p>In 1788 occurred a severe drought in the summer, 5,000 horned cattle
+perishing for lack of water.<a name="FNanchor_499_500" id="FNanchor_499_500"></a><a href="#Footnote_499_500" class="fnanchor">[499]</a> In 1791 there was a remarkable
+change of temperature in the middle of June, the thermometer in a few
+days falling from 75&deg; to 25&deg;, and the hills of Kent and Surrey were
+covered with snow.</p>
+
+<p>We have now to deal with one of those landowners whose great example
+is one of the glories of English agriculture. Coke of Holkham began
+his great agricultural work about 1776 on an estate where, as old Lady
+Townshend said, 'all you will see will be one blade of grass and two
+rabbits fighting for that;' in fact it was little better than a rabbit
+warren. It has been said that all the wheat consumed in the county of
+Norfolk was at this time imported from abroad; but this is in direct
+contradiction to Young's assertion, already noted, that there were in
+1767 great quantities of wheat besides other crops in the county.
+Coke's estate indeed seems to have been considerably behind many parts
+of the shire when he began his farming career.<a name="FNanchor_500_501" id="FNanchor_500_501"></a><a href="#Footnote_500_501" class="fnanchor">[500]</a> When Coke came
+into his estate, in five leases which were about to expire the farms
+were held at 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> an acre; and in the previous leases they had been
+1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> an acre. We may judge of the quality of this land by comparing
+it with the average rent of 10<i>s.</i> which Young says prevailed at this
+time. With a view to remedy this state of things he studied the
+agriculture of other counties, and his observations thereon reveal a
+very poor kind of farming in many places: in Cheshire <a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>the rich pasture
+was wasted and the poor impoverished by sheer ignorance, in Yorkshire
+luxuriant grass was understocked, in Shropshire there were hardly any
+sheep; in his own part of Norfolk the usual rotation was three white
+straw crops and then broadcast turnips.<a name="FNanchor_501_502" id="FNanchor_501_502"></a><a href="#Footnote_501_502" class="fnanchor">[501]</a> This Coke changed to two
+white crops and two years pasture, and he dug up and brought to the
+surface the rich marl which lay under the flint and sand, so that
+clover and grasses began to grow. So successful was he in this that in
+1796 he cut nearly 400 tons of sainfoin from 104 acres of land
+previously valued at 12<i>s.</i> an acre. He increased his flock of sheep
+from 800 worthless animals with backs as narrow as rabbits, the
+description of the Norfolk sheep of the day, to 2,500 good Southdowns.
+Encouraged by the Duke of Bedford, another great agriculturist, he
+started a herd of North Devons, and, fattening two Devons against one
+Shorthorn, found the former weighed 140 stone, the latter 110, and the
+Shorthorn had eaten more food than the two Devons. However, a single
+experiment of this kind is not very conclusive.</p>
+
+<p>The ploughs of Norfolk were, as in many other counties, absurdly
+over-horsed, from three to five being used when only two were
+necessary; so Coke set the example of using two whenever possible, and
+won a bet with Sir John Sebright by ploughing an acre of stiff land in
+Hertfordshire in a day with a pair of horses. He transformed the bleak
+bare countryside by planting 50 acres of trees every year until he had
+3,000 acres well covered, and in 1832 had probably the unique
+experience of embarking in a ship which was built of oak <a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>grown from
+the acorns he had himself planted.<a name="FNanchor_502_503" id="FNanchor_502_503"></a><a href="#Footnote_502_503" class="fnanchor">[502]</a> Between 1776 and 1842 (the
+date of his death) he is said to have spent <i>&pound;</i>536,992 on improving his
+estate, without reckoning the large sums spent on his house and
+demesne, the home farm, and his marsh farm of 459 acres. This
+expenditure paid in the long run, but when he entered upon it, it must
+have seemed very doubtful if this would be the case. A good
+understanding between landlord and tenant was the basis of his policy,
+and to further this he let his farms on long leases, at moderate
+rents, with few restrictions. When farmers improved their holdings on
+his estate the rent was not raised on them, so that the estate
+benefited greatly, and good tenants were often rewarded by having
+excellent houses built for them; so good, indeed, that his political
+opponents the Tories, whom he, as a staunch Whig detested, made it one
+of their complaints against him that he built palaces for farmhouses.
+At first he met with that stolid opposition to progress which seems
+the particular characteristic of the farmer. For sixteen years no one
+followed him in the use of the drill, though it was no new thing; and
+when it was adopted he reckoned its use spread at the rate of a mile a
+year. Yet eventually he had his reward; his estate came to command the
+pick of English tenant farmers, who never left it except through old
+age, and would never live under any other landlord. Even the Radical
+Cobbett, to whom, as to most of his party, landlords were, and are,
+the objects of inveterate hatred, said that every one who knew him
+spoke of him with affection. Coke was the first to distinguish between
+the adaptability of the different kinds of grass seeds to different
+soils, and thereby made the hitherto barren lands of his estate better
+pasture land than that of many rich counties. Carelessness about the
+quality of grasses sown was universal for a long time. The farmer took
+his seeds from his own foul hayrick, or sent to his neighbour for a
+supply of rubbish; even Bakewell derived his stock <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>from his hayloft.
+It was not until the Society for the Encouragement of Arts offered
+prizes for clean hay seeds that some improvement was noticeable. In
+Norfolk, as in other parts of England, there was at this time a strong
+prejudice against potatoes; the villagers of Holkham refused to have
+anything to do with them, but Coke's invincible persistency overcame
+this unreasoning dislike and soon they refused to do without them.</p>
+
+<p>Coke was a great advocate for sowing wheat early and very thick in the
+rows, and for cutting it when ear and stem were green and the grain
+soft, declaring that by so doing he got 2<i>s.</i> a quarter more for it; he
+also believed in the early cutting of oats and peas. It was his custom
+to drill 4 bushels of wheat per acre, which he said prevented
+tillering and mildew. He was the first to grow swedes on a large
+scale.<a name="FNanchor_503_504" id="FNanchor_503_504"></a><a href="#Footnote_503_504" class="fnanchor">[503]</a> The famous Holkham Sheep-shearings, known locally as
+'Coke's Clippings', which began in 1778 and lasted till 1821, arose
+from his practice of gathering farmers together for consultation on
+matters agricultural, and developed into world-famous meetings
+attended by all nationalities and all ranks, men journeying from
+America especially to attend them, and Lafayette expressed it as one
+of his great regrets that he had never attended one. At these
+gatherings all were equal, the suggestion of the smallest tenant
+farmer was listened to with respect, and the same courtesy and
+hospitality were shown to all whether prince or farmer. At the last
+meeting in 1821 no less than 7,000 people were present. His skill,
+energy, and perseverance worked a revolution in the crops; his own
+wheat crops were from 10 to 12 coombs an acre, his barley sometimes
+nearly 20. The annual income of timber and underwood was <i>&pound;</i>2,700, and
+from 1776 to 1816 he increased the rent roll of his estate from <i>&pound;</i>2,200
+to <i>&pound;</i>20,000, which, even after allowing for the great advance in prices
+during that period, is a wonderful rise. It is a very significant fact
+that there was not an alehouse on <a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>the estate, and in connexion with
+this, and with the fact that his improvements made a constant demand
+for labour, we are not surprised to learn that the workhouse was
+pulled down as useless, for it was always empty, and this at a time
+when the working-classes of England were pauperized to an alarming
+degree. The year 1818 was one of terrible distress all over England in
+country and town, yet at his sheep-shearing of that year Coke was
+enabled to say he had trebled the population of his estate and not a
+single person was out of employment, though everywhere else farmers
+were turning off hands and cutting down wages. Principally through his
+agency, between 1804 and 1821, no less than 153 enclosures took place
+in Norfolk, while between 1790 and 1810, 2,000,000 acres of waste land
+in England were brought under cultivation largely by his efforts. He
+is said, indeed, to have transformed agriculture throughout England,
+and, but for that, the country would not have been able to grow enough
+food for its support during the war with Napoleon, and must have
+succumbed.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_236" id="Footnotes_236"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_440_441" id="Footnote_440_441"></a><a href="#FNanchor_440_441"><span class="label">[440]</span></a> <i>Northern Tour</i>, i. 9. For an interesting account of
+Young, see <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (3rd Series), iv. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_441_442" id="Footnote_441_442"></a><a href="#FNanchor_441_442"><span class="label">[441]</span></a> In 1726 Bradley had urged the use of liquorice, madder,
+woad, and caraway as improvers of the land in the Preface to the
+<i>Country Gentleman</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_442_443" id="Footnote_442_443"></a><a href="#FNanchor_442_443"><span class="label">[442]</span></a> <i>Rural Economy</i> (1771), pp. 173-5. Trusler, who wrote
+in 1780, mentions 'the general rage for farming throughout the
+kingdom.'&mdash;<i>Practical Husbandry</i>, p. I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_443_444" id="Footnote_443_444"></a><a href="#FNanchor_443_444"><span class="label">[443]</span></a> In 1780 Sir Thomas Bernard, travelling through
+Northumberland, saw 'luxuriant plantations, neat hedges, rich crops of
+corn, comfortable farmhouses' in a county whereof the greater part
+was barren moor dearly rented at 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> an acre thirty years before,
+and he said the county had increased in annual value fourfold,
+(Contemporary MS., unpublished.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_444_445" id="Footnote_444_445"></a><a href="#FNanchor_444_445"><span class="label">[444]</span></a> <i>Rural Economy</i>, p. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_445_446" id="Footnote_445_446"></a><a href="#FNanchor_445_446"><span class="label">[445]</span></a> <i>Farmer's Letters</i> (3rd ed.), p. 89.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_446_447" id="Footnote_446_447"></a><a href="#FNanchor_446_447"><span class="label">[446]</span></a> Slater, <i>English Peasantry and Enclosure</i>, p. 95.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_447_448" id="Footnote_447_448"></a><a href="#FNanchor_447_448"><span class="label">[447]</span></a> Ibid. p. 101.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_448_449" id="Footnote_448_449"></a><a href="#FNanchor_448_449"><span class="label">[448]</span></a> Young, <i>Northern Tour</i>, iv. 340, about 1770 estimates
+the cultivated land of England to be half pasture and half arable,
+and, in the absence of reliable statistics, his opinion on this point
+is certainly the best available. The conversion of a large portion of
+the richer land from arable to grass in the eighteenth century was
+compensated for, according to Young, by the conversion, on enclosure,
+of poor sandy soils and heaths or moors into corn land. Hasbach, <i>op.
+cit.</i> pp. 370-1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_449_450" id="Footnote_449_450"></a><a href="#FNanchor_449_450"><span class="label">[449]</span></a> Young, <i>Northern Tour</i>, i. 222.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_450_451" id="Footnote_450_451"></a><a href="#FNanchor_450_451"><span class="label">[450]</span></a> <i>Rural Economy</i>, p. 252.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_451_452" id="Footnote_451_452"></a><a href="#FNanchor_451_452"><span class="label">[451]</span></a> Ibid. p. 271.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_452_453" id="Footnote_452_453"></a><a href="#FNanchor_452_453"><span class="label">[452]</span></a> Cf. above, p. 180.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_453_454" id="Footnote_453_454"></a><a href="#FNanchor_453_454"><span class="label">[453]</span></a> <i>Farmer's Letters</i> (3rd ed), p. 372.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_454_455" id="Footnote_454_455"></a><a href="#FNanchor_454_455"><span class="label">[454]</span></a> <i>Northern Tour</i>, iv. 167.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_455_456" id="Footnote_455_456"></a><a href="#FNanchor_455_456"><span class="label">[455]</span></a> Ibid. iv. 186.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_456_457" id="Footnote_456_457"></a><a href="#FNanchor_456_457"><span class="label">[456]</span></a> This large item is explained by the fact that a bailiff
+was employed to sell, and no bailiff could find customers 'without
+feeling the same drought as stage coachmen when they see a
+sign'.&mdash;Young, <i>Farmer's Letters</i>, p. 403.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_457_458" id="Footnote_457_458"></a><a href="#FNanchor_457_458"><span class="label">[457]</span></a> <i>Rural Economy</i>, p. 314.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_458_459" id="Footnote_458_459"></a><a href="#FNanchor_458_459"><span class="label">[458]</span></a> 1775, pp. x-xiii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_459_460" id="Footnote_459_460"></a><a href="#FNanchor_459_460"><span class="label">[459]</span></a> <i>Northern Tour</i>, iv. 192-202.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_460_461" id="Footnote_460_461"></a><a href="#FNanchor_460_461"><span class="label">[460]</span></a> See <i>Parliamentary Reports Commission</i> (1881), xvi.
+260.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_461_462" id="Footnote_461_462"></a><a href="#FNanchor_461_462"><span class="label">[461]</span></a> <i>Dissertations on Rural Subjects</i>, p. 278.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_462_463" id="Footnote_462_463"></a><a href="#FNanchor_462_463"><span class="label">[462]</span></a> <i>Farmer's Letters</i>, p. 433.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_463_464" id="Footnote_463_464"></a><a href="#FNanchor_463_464"><span class="label">[463]</span></a> <i>History of Hawsted</i>, p. 169.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_464_465" id="Footnote_464_465"></a><a href="#FNanchor_464_465"><span class="label">[464]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 127; Kent, <i>Hints to Gentlemen</i>,
+p. 152.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_465_466" id="Footnote_465_466"></a><a href="#FNanchor_465_466"><span class="label">[465]</span></a> <i>Southern Tour</i>, p. 324. He says nothing of the
+manufacturing towns, which had not yet began to influence the wages of
+farm labourers near them as they soon afterwards did.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_466_467" id="Footnote_466_467"></a><a href="#FNanchor_466_467"><span class="label">[466]</span></a> Some prices at this time were: bread per lb., 2<i>d.</i>;
+butter, 5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> to 8<i>d.</i>; cheese, 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> to 4<i>d.</i>; beef, 3<i>d.</i> to 5<i>d.</i>;
+mutton, 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> to 5<i>d.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_467_468" id="Footnote_467_468"></a><a href="#FNanchor_467_468"><span class="label">[467]</span></a> <i>State of the Poor</i>, i. 562.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_468_469" id="Footnote_468_469"></a><a href="#FNanchor_468_469"><span class="label">[468]</span></a> According to Walter Harte, though the yeoman in the
+middle of the seventeenth century ate bread of rye and barley
+(maslin), in 1766 even the poor cottagers looked upon it with horror
+and demanded best wheaten bread. Yet in 1766 the quartern loaf in
+London was 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>&mdash;Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, i. 68.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_469_470" id="Footnote_469_470"></a><a href="#FNanchor_469_470"><span class="label">[469]</span></a> <i>History of Hawsted</i>, p. 184.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_470_471" id="Footnote_470_471"></a><a href="#FNanchor_470_471"><span class="label">[470]</span></a> Eden, <i>State of the Poor</i>, i. 513.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_471_472" id="Footnote_471_472"></a><a href="#FNanchor_471_472"><span class="label">[471]</span></a> <i>Rural Economy of Gloucestershire</i>, i. 53.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_472_473" id="Footnote_472_473"></a><a href="#FNanchor_472_473"><span class="label">[472]</span></a> Eden, <i>op. cit.</i> i. 547.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_473_474" id="Footnote_473_474"></a><a href="#FNanchor_473_474"><span class="label">[473]</span></a> <i>Farmer's Letters</i>, i. 300</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_474_475" id="Footnote_474_475"></a><a href="#FNanchor_474_475"><span class="label">[474]</span></a> The pulling down of cottages began to be complained of
+in the seventeenth century; they harboured the poor, who were a charge
+upon the parish, and repairs were saved.&mdash;<i>Transactions Royal
+Historical Society</i> (New Series), xix. 120.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_475_476" id="Footnote_475_476"></a><a href="#FNanchor_475_476"><span class="label">[475]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> 82; Clarke, <i>General View of
+Herefordshire</i>, p. 29; Marshall, <i>Review of Northern Department</i>, p.
+375.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_476_477" id="Footnote_476_477"></a><a href="#FNanchor_476_477"><span class="label">[476]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, i. 50; Hallam,
+<i>Constitutional History</i>, iii. 302.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_477_478" id="Footnote_477_478"></a><a href="#FNanchor_477_478"><span class="label">[477]</span></a> <i>Northern Tour</i>, iv. 420. The increase in population in
+the first half of the eighteenth century was slow; after the Peace of
+Paris in 1763, when the commerce and manufactures of the country were
+extended in an unprecedented degree, it was rapid.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_478_479" id="Footnote_478_479"></a><a href="#FNanchor_478_479"><span class="label">[478]</span></a> <i>The Way to be Rich and Respectable</i>, London, 1780.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_479_480" id="Footnote_479_480"></a><a href="#FNanchor_479_480"><span class="label">[479]</span></a> Grose, <i>Olio</i>, pp. 41-4; Lecky, <i>History of England in
+Eighteenth Century</i>, vi. 169 et. seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_480_481" id="Footnote_480_481"></a><a href="#FNanchor_480_481"><span class="label">[480]</span></a> Cullum, <i>History of Hawsted</i>, p. 219.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_481_482" id="Footnote_481_482"></a><a href="#FNanchor_481_482"><span class="label">[481]</span></a> Cullum, <i>History of Hawsted</i>, p. 225.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_482_483" id="Footnote_482_483"></a><a href="#FNanchor_482_483"><span class="label">[482]</span></a> <i>Thoughts on Enclosure, by a Country Farmer</i> (1786), p.
+21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_483_484" id="Footnote_483_484"></a><a href="#FNanchor_483_484"><span class="label">[483]</span></a> Johnstone, <i>Account of Elkington's Draining</i> (1797),
+pp. 8-9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_484_485" id="Footnote_484_485"></a><a href="#FNanchor_484_485"><span class="label">[484]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (1894), p. 11, from which this
+account of Bakewell is mainly taken.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_485_486" id="Footnote_485_486"></a><a href="#FNanchor_485_486"><span class="label">[485]</span></a> According to some, Joseph Allom originated the breed,
+and Bakewell vastly improved it. We may safely give the chief credit
+to so careful and gifted a breeder as Bakewell.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_486_487" id="Footnote_486_487"></a><a href="#FNanchor_486_487"><span class="label">[486]</span></a> <i>Culley on Live Stock</i> (1807), p. 56.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_487_488" id="Footnote_487_488"></a><a href="#FNanchor_487_488"><span class="label">[487]</span></a> Marshall, <i>Rural Economy of the Midland Counties</i>, i.
+273.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_488_489" id="Footnote_488_489"></a><a href="#FNanchor_488_489"><span class="label">[488]</span></a> <i>Victoria County History: Warwickshire, Agriculture</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_489_490" id="Footnote_489_490"></a><a href="#FNanchor_489_490"><span class="label">[489]</span></a> In Lancashire at this date it was not uncommon, when
+a tenant wished for his farm or a particular field to be improved
+by draining, marling, liming, or laying down to grass, to hand it
+over to the landlord for the process; who, when completed, returned
+it to the tenant with an advanced rent of 10 per cent. upon the
+improvements.&mdash;Marshall, <i>Review of Reports to Board of Agriculture</i>
+(under Lancashire).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_490_491" id="Footnote_490_491"></a><a href="#FNanchor_490_491"><span class="label">[490]</span></a> 1820, p. 173 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_491_492" id="Footnote_491_492"></a><a href="#FNanchor_491_492"><span class="label">[491]</span></a> See Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. 77 sq.; <i>Annals of
+Agriculture</i>, xxxvi. 497; Scrutton, <i>Commons and Common Fields</i>, p.
+139.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_492_493" id="Footnote_492_493"></a><a href="#FNanchor_492_493"><span class="label">[492]</span></a> Defoe, <i>Tour</i>, ii. 178 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_493_494" id="Footnote_493_494"></a><a href="#FNanchor_493_494"><span class="label">[493]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (3rd Ser.), ii. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_494_495" id="Footnote_494_495"></a><a href="#FNanchor_494_495"><span class="label">[494]</span></a> Horner, <i>Inquiry into the Means of Preserving the
+Public Roads</i> (1767), pp. 4 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_495_496" id="Footnote_495_496"></a><a href="#FNanchor_495_496"><span class="label">[495]</span></a> <i>Victoria County History: Northants.</i>, ii. 250.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_496_497" id="Footnote_496_497"></a><a href="#FNanchor_496_497"><span class="label">[496]</span></a> Young, <i>Southern Tour</i> (ed. 2), p. 88.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_497_498" id="Footnote_497_498"></a><a href="#FNanchor_497_498"><span class="label">[497]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, i. 68. It is difficult to
+understand the price of the quartern loaf, 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> in 1766, as wheat
+was only 43<i>s.</i> 1<i>d.</i> a quarter. Prices of wheat in these years were:
+</p>
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'> <i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1767</td><td align='right'>47</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1768</td><td align='right'>53</td><td align='right'> 9</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1769</td><td align='right'>40</td><td align='right'> 7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1770</td><td align='right'>43</td><td align='right'> 6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1771</td><td align='right'>47</td><td align='right'> 2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1772</td><td align='right'>50</td><td align='right'> 8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1773</td><td align='right'>51</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1774</td><td align='right'> 52</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1775</td><td align='right'> 48</td><td align='right'> 4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1776</td><td align='right'> 38</td><td align='right'> 2</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1777</td><td align='right'>45</td><td align='right'> 6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1778</td><td align='right'> 42</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1779</td><td align='right'>33</td><td align='right'> 8</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p>
+These returns differ from those of the Board of Agriculture; see
+Appendix III.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_498_499" id="Footnote_498_499"></a><a href="#FNanchor_498_499"><span class="label">[498]</span></a> <i>Annals of Agriculture</i>, iii. 366.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_499_500" id="Footnote_499_500"></a><a href="#FNanchor_499_500"><span class="label">[499]</span></a> Baker, <i>Seasons and Prices</i>, pp. 224 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_500_501" id="Footnote_500_501"></a><a href="#FNanchor_500_501"><span class="label">[500]</span></a> A. Stirling, <i>Coke of Holkham</i>, i. 249.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_501_502" id="Footnote_501_502"></a><a href="#FNanchor_501_502"><span class="label">[501]</span></a> But in other parts of it the cultivation of turnips was
+well understood, for the <i>Complete Farmer</i>, s.v. <i>Turnips</i> (ed. 3),
+says that about 1750 Norfolk farmers boasted that turnips had doubled
+the value of their holdings, and Norfolk men were famous for
+understanding hoeing and thinning, which were little practised
+elsewhere. Further, Young, <i>Southern Tour</i>, p. 273, says: 'the
+extensive use of turnips is known but little of except in Norfolk,
+Suffolk, and Essex. I found no farmers but in these counties that
+understood anything of fatting cattle with them; feeding lean sheep
+being the only use they put them to.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_502_503" id="Footnote_502_503"></a><a href="#FNanchor_502_503"><span class="label">[502]</span></a> A. Stirling, <i>op. cit.</i> i. 264.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_503_504" id="Footnote_503_504"></a><a href="#FNanchor_503_504"><span class="label">[503]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (1895), p. 12.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>1793-1815</h3>
+
+<h3>THE GREAT FRENCH WAR.&mdash;THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.&mdash;HIGH PRICES, AND
+HEAVY TAXATION.</h3>
+
+
+<p>This period, that of the great war with France, was one generally of
+high prices and prosperity for landowners and farmers. It was a
+prosperity, however, that was largely fictitious, and when the high
+prices of the war time were over, it was succeeded by many disastrous
+years. The prosperity, too, was also largely neutralized by a crushing
+weight of taxation and rates, while the labourer, although his wages
+were increased, found prices grow at a much greater rate, and it was,
+as Thorold Rogers has said, the most miserable period in his history.</p>
+
+<p>Its commencement was marked by the foundation of the Board of
+Agriculture. On May 15, 1793, Sir John Sinclair<a name="FNanchor_504_505" id="FNanchor_504_505"></a><a href="#Footnote_504_505" class="fnanchor">[504]</a> moved in the
+House of Commons, 'that His Majesty would take into his consideration
+the advantages which might be derived from the establishment of such a
+board, for though in some particular districts improved methods of
+cultivating the soil were practised, yet in the greatest part of these
+kingdoms the principles of agriculture are not sufficiently
+understood, nor are the implements of husbandry or the stock of the
+farmer brought to that perfection of which they are capable. His
+Majesty's faithful Commons were persuaded that if it were founded a
+spirit of improvement might be encouraged, which would result in
+important national benefits.</p>
+
+<p>The motion was carried by 101 to 26. By its charter the board
+consisted of a president, 16 ex-officio and 30 ordinary <a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>members, with
+honorary and corresponding members. It was not a Government department
+in the modern sense of the term, but a society for the encouragement
+of agriculture, as the Royal Society is for the encouragement of
+science. It was, indeed, supported by parliamentary grants, receiving
+a sum of <i>&pound;</i>3,000 a year, but the Government had only a limited control
+over its affairs through the ex-officio members, among whom were the
+Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Lord Chancellor, the First
+Lord of the Admiralty, and the Speaker.</p>
+
+<p>The first president was Sir John Sinclair, and the first secretary
+Arthur Young, with a salary of <i>&pound;</i>400 a year, which he thought
+insufficient.<a name="FNanchor_505_506" id="FNanchor_505_506"></a><a href="#Footnote_505_506" class="fnanchor">[505]</a> The first task of the new board was that of
+preparing statistical accounts of English agriculture, and it was
+intended to take in hand the commutation of tithes, which would have
+been a great boon to farmers, with whom the prevailing system of
+collecting tithes was very unpopular; but the Primate's opposition
+stopped this. The board appointed lecturers, procured a reward for
+Elkington for his draining system, encouraged Macadam in his plans for
+improving roads, and Meikle the inventor of the thrashing machine, and
+obtained the removal of taxes on draining tiles, and other taxes
+injurious to agriculture. It also recommended the allotment system,
+and Sinclair desired 3 acres and a cow for every industrious cottager.
+During the abnormally high prices of provisions from 1794-6, the
+quartern loaf in London in 1795 being 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, though next year it
+dropped to 7<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i>,<a name="FNanchor_506_507" id="FNanchor_506_507"></a><a href="#Footnote_506_507" class="fnanchor">[506]</a> the board made experiments in making bread
+with substitutes for wheat, which resulted in a public exhibition of
+eighty different sorts of bread. Its efforts were generally followed
+by increased zeal among agriculturists; but Sinclair, an able but
+impetuous man,<a name="FNanchor_507_508" id="FNanchor_507_508"></a><a href="#Footnote_507_508" class="fnanchor">[507]</a> appears to have taken things too much into his own
+hands and pushed them too speedily.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>Financial difficulties came, chiefly owing to the cost of the surveys,
+which had been hurried on with undue haste and often with great
+carelessness, the surveyors sometimes being men who knew nothing of
+the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Sinclair was deposed from the presidency in 1798, and succeeded by
+Lord Somerville. He again was succeeded by Lord Carrington, under
+whose presidency the board offered premiums (the first of <i>&pound;</i>200), owing
+to the high price of wheat and consequent distress, for essays on the
+best means of converting certain portions of grass land into tillage
+without exhausting the soil, and of returning the same to grass, after
+a certain period, in an improved state, or at least without injury.
+The general report, based on the information derived from these
+essays, states that no high price of corn or temporary distress would
+justify the ploughing up of old meadows or rich pastures, and that on
+certain soils well adapted to grass age improves the quality of the
+pasture to a degree which no system of management on lands broken up
+and laid down can equal. In spite of this, the cupidity of landowners
+and farmers, when wheat was a guinea a bushel or at prices near it,
+led to the ploughing up of much splendid grass land, which was never
+laid down again until, perhaps in recent years, owing to the low price
+of grain; so that some of the land at all events has, owing to bad
+times, returned to the state best suited to it.</p>
+
+<p>The board looked upon the enclosure and cultivation of waste lands,
+which in England they estimated at 6,000,000 acres,<a name="FNanchor_508_509" id="FNanchor_508_509"></a><a href="#Footnote_508_509" class="fnanchor">[508]</a> as a panacea
+for the prevailing distress, and after much opposition they managed to
+pass through both Houses in 1801 a Bill cheapening and facilitating
+the process of parliamentary enclosure. This Act, 41 Geo. III, c. 109,
+'extracted a number of clauses from various private Acts and enacted
+that they should hold good in all cases where <a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>the special Act did not
+expressly provide to the contrary.' Another benefit rendered to
+agriculture was the establishment in 1803 of lectures on agricultural
+chemistry, the first lecturer engaged being Mr., afterwards Sir
+Humphry, Davy, who may be regarded as the father of agricultural
+chemistry.</p>
+
+<p>In 1806 Sinclair was re-elected president, and his second term was
+mainly devoted to completing the agricultural surveys of the different
+counties, which, before his retirement in 1813, he had with one or two
+exceptions the satisfaction of seeing finished. Though over-impetuous,
+he rendered valuable service to agriculture, not only by his own
+energy but by stirring up energy in others; as William Wilberforce the
+philanthrophist said, 'I have myself seen collected in that small room
+several of the noblemen and gentlemen of the greatest properties in
+the British Isles, all of them catching and cultivating an
+agricultural spirit, and going forth to spend in the employment of
+labourers, and I hope in the improvement of land, immense sums which
+might otherwise have been lavished on hounds and horses, or squandered
+on theatricals.'</p>
+
+<p>Among the numerous subjects into which the board inquired was the
+divining rod for finding water, which was tested in Hyde Park in 1801,
+and successfully stood the test. In 1805, Davy the chemist reported on
+a substance in South America called 'guana', which he had analysed and
+found to contain one-third of ammoniacal salt with other salts and
+carbon, but its use was not to come for another generation. From the
+time of Sinclair's retirement in 1813 the board declined. Arthur
+Young, its secretary, had become blind and his capacity therefore
+impaired. One year its lack of energy was shown by the return of
+<i>&pound;</i>2,000 of the Government grant to the Treasury because it had nothing
+to spend it on. The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was against it,
+the clergy feared the commutation of tithe which the board <a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>advocated,
+the legal profession was against the Enclosure Act, the landed
+interest thought the surveys were intended for purposes of taxation;
+and the grant being withdrawn, an effort to maintain the board by
+voluntary subscription failed, so that it dissolved in 1822, after
+doing much valuable work for English agriculture.</p>
+
+<p>Before its extinction it had held in 1821, at Aldridge's Repository,
+the first national agricultural show. <i>&pound;</i>685 was given in prizes, and
+the entries included 10 bulls, 9 cows and heifers, several fat steers
+and cows, 7 pens of Leicester and Cotswold rams and ewes; 12 pens of
+Down, and 9 or 10 pens of Merino rams and ewes.<a name="FNanchor_509_510" id="FNanchor_509_510"></a><a href="#Footnote_509_510" class="fnanchor">[509]</a> Most of the
+cattle shown were Shorthorn, or Durham, as they were then called, with
+some Herefords, Devons, Longhorns, and Alderneys. There were also
+exhibits of grass, turnip-seed, roots, and implements.</p>
+
+<p>This first national show had been preceded by many local ones.<a name="FNanchor_510_511" id="FNanchor_510_511"></a><a href="#Footnote_510_511" class="fnanchor">[510]</a>
+The end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries
+saw the establishment all over England of farmers' clubs, cattle
+shows, and ploughing matches.</p>
+
+<p>The period now before us is marked by the great work of the Collings,
+who next to Bakewell did most to improve the cattle of the United
+Kingdom. Charles Colling was born in 1751, and the scene of his famous
+labours was Ketton near Darlington. He had learnt from Bakewell the
+all-importance of quality in cattle, and determined to improve the
+local Shorthorn breed near his own home, which had been described in
+1744 as 'the most profitable beasts for the dairyman, butcher, and
+grazier, with their wide bags, short horns, and large bodies.' He was
+to make these 'profitable beasts' the best <a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>all-round cattle in the
+world, and to succeed where George Culley had failed. The first bull
+of merit he possessed was 'Hubback',<a name="FNanchor_511_512" id="FNanchor_511_512"></a><a href="#Footnote_511_512" class="fnanchor">[511]</a> described as a little
+yellow, red, and white five-year-old, which was mated with cows
+afterwards to be famous, named Duchess, Daisy, Cherry, and Lady
+Maynard. At first Colling was against in-breeding, and not until 1793
+did he adopt it, more by accident than intention, but the experiment
+being successful he became an enthusiast. The experiment was the
+putting of Phoenix to Lord Bolingbroke, who was both her half-brother
+and her nephew, and the result was the famous Favourite. A young
+farmer who saw Favourite and his sister at Darlington in 1799, was so
+struck by them that he paid Colling the first 100 guineas ever given
+for a Shorthorn cow.<a name="FNanchor_512_513" id="FNanchor_512_513"></a><a href="#Footnote_512_513" class="fnanchor">[512]</a></p>
+
+<p>One of Hubback's daughters had in 1795, by Favourite, a roan calf
+which grew to be the celebrated Durham Ox, which at five and a half
+years weighed 3,024 lb., and was sold for <i>&pound;</i>140. It was sold again for
+<i>&pound;</i>250, the second purchaser refusing <i>&pound;</i>2,000 for it, and taking it round
+England on show made a profitable business out of it, in one day in
+London making <i>&pound;</i>97. A still more famous animal was the bull Comet, born
+1804, which at the great sale in 1810 fetched 1,000 guineas. This bull
+was the crowning triumph of Colling's career and the result of very
+close breeding, being described as the best bull ever seen, with a
+fine masculine head, broad and deep chest, shoulders well laid back,
+loins good, hind-quarters long, straight and well packed, thighs
+thick, with nice straight hocks and hind legs. Perhaps Colling thought
+he had pursued in-and-in breeding too far, at all events in 1810 he
+dispersed his famous herd. The sale was <a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>held at a most propitious
+time, for the Durham Ox had advertised the name of Colling far and
+wide, and owing to the war prices were very high. Comet fetched 1,000
+guineas, and the other forty-seven lots averaged <i>&pound;</i>151 8<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i>, an
+unheard-of sale, yet all the auctioneer got was 5 guineas, much of the
+work of the sale falling on the owner, and the former sold the stock
+with a sand-glass.</p>
+
+<p>After the sale at Ketton, Brampton, the farm of Charles's brother
+Robert, became the centre of interest to the Shorthorn world. Robert
+obtained excellent prices for his stock, five daughters of his famous
+bull George fetching 200 guineas each. Probably he, like his brother,
+pursued in-and-in breeding too far, and in 1818 there was another
+great sale; but war-prices had gone and agriculture was depressed, so
+that the cattle fetched less than at Ketton, but still averaged <i>&pound;</i>128
+14<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> for 61 lots, and 22 rams averaged <i>&pound;</i>39 6<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> Robert died in
+1820, his brother in 1836.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be said that the Collings were the founders of a new breed
+of cattle; they were the collectors and preservers of an ancient breed
+that might otherwise have disappeared.<a name="FNanchor_513_514" id="FNanchor_513_514"></a><a href="#Footnote_513_514" class="fnanchor">[513]</a> The object of good
+breeders was now to get their cattle fat at an early age, and they so
+far succeeded as to sell three-year-old steers for <i>&pound;</i>20 apiece,
+generally fed thus: in the first winter, hay and turnips; the
+following summer, coarse pasture; the second winter, straw in the
+foldyard and a few turnips; next summer, tolerable good pasture; and
+the third winter, as many turnips as they could eat.<a name="FNanchor_514_515" id="FNanchor_514_515"></a><a href="#Footnote_514_515" class="fnanchor">[514]</a></p>
+
+<p>Cattle at this time were classified thus: Shorthorns, Devons, Sussex,
+Herefords (the two latter said by Culley to be varieties of the
+Devon), Longhorned, Galloway or Polled, Suffolk Duns, Kyloes, and
+Alderneys.</p>
+
+<p>Sheep thus: the Dishley Breed (New Leicesters), Lincolns, Teeswaters,
+Devonshire Notts, Exmoor, Dorsetshire, Herefordshire, <a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>Southdown,
+Norfolk, Heath, Herdwick, Cheviot, Dunfaced, Shetland, Irish.<a name="FNanchor_515_516" id="FNanchor_515_516"></a><a href="#Footnote_515_516" class="fnanchor">[515]</a></p>
+
+<p>With the increased demand for corn and meat from the towns the
+necessity of new and better implements became apparent, and many
+patents were taken out: by Praed, for drill ploughs, in 1781; by
+Horn, for sowing machines, in 1784; by Heaton, for harrows, in 1787;
+for sowing machines, by Sandilands, 1788; for reaping machines, by
+Boyce, 1799; winnowing machines, by Cooch, 1800; haymakers, by Salmon,
+1816; and for scarifiers, chaff-cutters, turnip-slicers, and
+food-crushers.<a name="FNanchor_516_517" id="FNanchor_516_517"></a><a href="#Footnote_516_517" class="fnanchor">[516]</a> But the great innovation was the threshing machine
+of Meikle. Like most inventions, it had forerunners. The first
+threshing machine is mentioned in the <i>Select Transactions of the
+Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland</i>,
+published in 1743 by Maxwell. It was invented by Michael Menzies, and
+by it one man could do the work of six. One machine was worked by a
+great water-wheel and triddles, another by a little wheel of 3 feet
+diameter, moved by a small quantity of water. The first attempts to
+substitute horse or other power for manual in threshing were directed
+to the revolution of jointed flails, which should strike the floor on
+which the corn was spread, but this proved unsatisfactory, so that
+rubbing the grain out of the straw by revolving cylinders was
+tried,<a name="FNanchor_517_518" id="FNanchor_517_518"></a><a href="#Footnote_517_518" class="fnanchor">[517]</a> Young, in his northern tour, met a Mr. Clarke at Belford
+in Northumberland, who was famous for mechanics,<a name="FNanchor_518_519" id="FNanchor_518_519"></a><a href="#Footnote_518_519" class="fnanchor">[518]</a> among his
+inventions being a threshing machine worked by one horse, which does
+not seem to have effected much. Eventually Mr. A. Meikle, of Houston
+Mill near Haddington, in 1798 erected a machine the principles of
+which, much modified, are those of to-day; and in 1803 <a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>Mr. Aitchison,
+of Drumore in East Lothian, first applied steam to threshing. It was
+some time, however, before this beneficent invention was generally
+used, and when the machines were used they were usually driven by
+horse&mdash;or water-power until about 1850. In 1883 Messrs. Howard, of
+Bedford, adapted a sheaf-binding apparatus to the threshing machine.
+With new implements came new crops; the Swede turnip was grown on some
+farms in Notts just before 1800, but it is not known who introduced
+it.<a name="FNanchor_519_520" id="FNanchor_519_520"></a><a href="#Footnote_519_520" class="fnanchor">[519]</a> The mangel wurzel was introduced about 1780-5 by Parkyns, and
+prickly comfrey in 1811.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1795 was one of great scarcity owing to the wet and stormy
+summer, and in August wheat went up to 108<i>s.</i> a quarter.<a name="FNanchor_520_521" id="FNanchor_520_521"></a><a href="#Footnote_520_521" class="fnanchor">[520]</a> As usual
+many other causes but the right one were put forth, and the old
+accusations of monopoly, forestalling, and regrating were heard again.
+The war with France, with more reason, was considered to have helped
+in raising prices, but the chief cause was the bad season. The members
+of both Houses of Parliament bound themselves to reduce the
+consumption of bread in their homes by one-third, and recommended
+others to a similar reduction. It was a period of terrible distress
+for the agricultural labourer. His wages were about 9<i>s.</i> a week, and it
+was impossible for him to live on them, so that what is known as 'the
+allowance system' came in. At Speenhamland in Berkshire, in this year,
+the magistrates agreed that it was not expedient to help the labourer
+by regulating his wages according to the statute of Elizabeth, but
+recommended the farmers to increase their pay in proportion to the
+present price of provisions, and they also granted relief to all poor
+and industrious men according to the price of bread. They were merely
+giving effect to Gilbert's Act of 1782, which legalized the
+supplementing of the wages of able-bodied men from the rates, and the
+decision <a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>was nicknamed the 'Speenhamland Act' because it was so
+generally followed. However well meant, the effect was most
+demoralizing and the English labourer, already too prone to look to
+the State for help, was induced to depend less on his own exertions.
+The real remedy would have been a substantial increase of his scanty
+wages. As it was, landowner and farmer were often paying the labourer
+in rates money that would far better have come to him in wages, and
+the rates in some districts became so burdensome that land was thrown
+out of cultivation. In the same year as the Speenhamland Act the
+statute 36 Geo. III, c. 23, forbade the removal of persons from any
+parish until they were in actual need of support; but although the law
+was thus relaxed, the fixed principle which caused the refusal of all
+permanent relief to labourers who had no settlement in the parish
+acted as a very efficient check on migration, though, as we have seen,
+it did not entirely check it. In 1796 the question of regulating the
+labourers' wages by Parliament was raised; but Pitt, remembering such
+schemes had always failed, was hostile, and the matter dropped.<a name="FNanchor_521_522" id="FNanchor_521_522"></a><a href="#Footnote_521_522" class="fnanchor">[521]</a>
+In the same year Eden made his inquiries concerning the rate of wages
+and the cost of living. In Bedford, he found the agricultural labourer
+was getting 1<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> a day and beer, with extras in harvest<a name="FNanchor_522_523" id="FNanchor_522_523"></a><a href="#Footnote_522_523" class="fnanchor">[522]</a>; but
+bacon was 10<i>d.</i> a lb. and wheat 12<i>s.</i> a bushel. However, parish
+allowances were liberal, a man, his wife, and four children sometimes
+receiving 11<i>s.</i> a week from that source.</p>
+
+<p>In Cumberland the labourer was being paid 10<i>d.</i> to 1<i>s.</i> a day with food,
+or 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to 1<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> without; in Hertfordshire, 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a day; in
+Suffolk, 1<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> a day and beer.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly everywhere his expenditure was much in excess of <a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>his earnings,
+the yearly budgets of fifty-three families in twelve different
+counties showed generally large annual deficiencies, amounting in one
+case to <i>&pound;</i>21 18<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> In one case in Lindsey, where the deficiency was
+small, the family lived on bread alone. The factory system, too, had
+already deprived the labourer of many of his by-industries, and thus
+helped the pauperism for which landlord and farmer had to pay in
+rates.</p>
+
+<p>About 1788 Sir William Young proposed to send the unemployed labourers
+round to the parishioners to get work, their wages being paid by their
+employers and by the parish. This method of obtaining work was known
+as the 'roundsman system'.<a name="FNanchor_523_524" id="FNanchor_523_524"></a><a href="#Footnote_523_524" class="fnanchor">[523]</a></p>
+
+<p>Landlords, however, and farmers were profiting greatly by the high
+prices, which fortunately received a check by the abundant harvest of
+1796, which, with large imports,<a name="FNanchor_524_525" id="FNanchor_524_525"></a><a href="#Footnote_524_525" class="fnanchor">[524]</a> caused the price of wheat to
+fall to 57<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i>, and in 1798 to 47<i>s.</i> 10<i>d.</i> It is difficult to conceive
+what instability, speculation, and disaster such fluctuations must
+have led to. In 1797 the Bank Restriction Act was passed, suspending
+cash payments, and thereby causing a huge growth in credit
+transactions, a great factor in the inflated prosperity of this
+period. In January, 1799, wool was 2<i>s.</i> a lb., and prices at
+Smithfield:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Beef, per stone of 8 lb.</td>
+  <td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>to</td>
+  <td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Mutton &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " </td>
+  <td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td align='center'>"</td>
+  <td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Pork&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; "&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; "</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>8</td>
+  <td align='center'>"</td>
+  <td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'> 8</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The summer of that year was uninterruptedly wet; some corn in the
+north was uncut in November, so that wheat went up to 94<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i>, and in
+June, 1800, was 134<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i>, the scarcity being aggravated by the
+Russian Government laying an embargo on British shipping.<a name="FNanchor_525_526" id="FNanchor_525_526"></a><a href="#Footnote_525_526" class="fnanchor">[525]</a> Yet
+Pitt denied that the high <a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>prices were due to the war.<a name="FNanchor_526_527" id="FNanchor_526_527"></a><a href="#Footnote_526_527" class="fnanchor">[526]</a> They were
+due, indeed, to several causes:</p>
+
+<ol>
+<li>Frequent years of scarcity.</li>
+
+<li>Increase of consumption, owing to the great growth of
+the manufacturing population, England during the war having
+almost a monopoly of the trade of Europe.</li>
+
+<li>Napoleon's obstructions to importation.</li>
+
+<li>The unprecedented fall of foreign exchanges.</li>
+
+<li>The rise in the price of labour, scanty as it was.</li>
+
+<li>Suspension of cash payments, which produced a medium
+of circulation of an unlimited nature, and led to speculation.
+<a name="FNanchor_527_528" id="FNanchor_527_528"></a><a href="#Footnote_527_528" class="fnanchor">[527]</a></li>
+</ol>
+
+
+<p>In March, 1801, wheat was 156<i>s.</i>; beef at Smithfield, 5<i>s.</i> to 6<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a
+stone; and mutton, 6<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to 8<i>s.</i> A rise in wages was allowed on all
+sides to be imperative, but the labourer even now got on an average
+little more than 9<i>s.</i> a week,<a name="FNanchor_528_529" id="FNanchor_528_529"></a><a href="#Footnote_528_529" class="fnanchor">[528]</a> a very inadequate pittance, though
+generally supplemented by the parish. Arthur Young<a name="FNanchor_529_530" id="FNanchor_529_530"></a><a href="#Footnote_529_530" class="fnanchor">[529]</a> tells of a
+person living near Bury in 1801, who, before the era of high prices,
+earned 5<i>s.</i> a week, and with that could purchase:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>A bushel of wheat.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; malt.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 lb. of butter.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 lb. of cheese.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A pennyworth of tobacco.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>But in 1801 the same articles cost him:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A bushel of wheat&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; malt </td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 lb. of butter</td><td colspan="2" align='right'> 1</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1 lb. of cheese</td><td colspan="3" align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tobacco</td><td colspan="3" align='right'>1</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>1</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=======</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>His wages were now 9<i>s.</i>, and his allowance from the rates 6<i>s.</i>, so that
+there was a deficiency of 11<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p>The increase in the cost of living in the last thirty years is
+further illustrated by the following table:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='center'>1773.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='center'>1793.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='center'>1799.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='center'>1800.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Coomb of malt</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Chaldron of coals</td>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'> 11</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Coomb of oats</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>13</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>1</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Load of hay</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Meat, per lb.</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>4</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>5</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>7</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Butter, &nbsp;&nbsp; " </td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>6</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>11</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>11</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Loaf sugar, per lb.</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>8</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>3</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Poor rates, in the <i>&pound;</i></td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>It was again proposed by Mr. Whitbread in the House of Commons that
+wages should be regulated by the price of provisions, and a minimum
+wage fixed; but there was enough sense in the House to reject this
+return to obsolete methods.</p>
+
+<p>After March, 1801, prices commenced to fall, owing to a favourable
+season and the reopening of the Baltic ports, which allowed imports to
+come in more freely, for most of our foreign corn at this time came
+from Germany and Denmark. At the end of the year wheat averaged 75<i>s.</i>
+6<i>d.</i>, and with fair seasons it came down in the beginning of 1804 to
+49<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> Beef at Smithfield was from 4<i>s.</i> to 5<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> a stone, <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>mutton
+from 4<i>s.</i> to 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_530_531" id="FNanchor_530_531"></a><a href="#Footnote_530_531" class="fnanchor">[530]</a> This great drop in prices was accompanied by
+an increase in wages, the labourer from 1804 to 1810 getting on an
+average 12<i>s.</i> a week<a name="FNanchor_531_532" id="FNanchor_531_532"></a><a href="#Footnote_531_532" class="fnanchor">[531]</a>; the cost of implements rose, so did the rate
+of interest, and the cry of agricultural distress in 1804 was heard
+everywhere. More protection was demanded by those interested in the
+land, and accordingly a duty of 24<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> was imposed when the price
+was 63<i>s.</i> or under; a bounty was paid on export when it was 40<i>s.</i> or
+under; and wheat might be exported without bounty up to 54<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>However, 1804 was a very deficient harvest, owing to blight and
+mildew, and by the end of the year wheat was 86<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> The harvests
+till 1808 were not as bad as that of 1804, but not good enough to
+lower the prices. Also, owing to the Berlin and Milan Decrees of
+Napoleon and the Non-intercourse Act of the United States of America,
+imports were restricted so that at the end of 1808 wheat was 92<i>s.</i> In
+this year the exports of wheat exceeded the imports, but it was due to
+the requirements of our army in Spain; and 1789 was the last year when
+exports were greater under normal circumstances.<a name="FNanchor_532_533" id="FNanchor_532_533"></a><a href="#Footnote_532_533" class="fnanchor">[532]</a> 1809 was a bad
+harvest, so was 1810; in the former rot being very prevalent among
+sheep; and by August, 1810, hay was <i>&pound;</i>11 a load and wheat 116<i>s.</i>, only
+large imports (1,567,126 quarters) preventing a famine. Down wool was
+2<i>s.</i> 1<i>d.</i> per lb., beef and mutton 8<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>, cheese 8<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_533_534" id="FNanchor_533_534"></a><a href="#Footnote_533_534" class="fnanchor">[533]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>In 1811 the whole of July and part of August were wet and cold; and
+in August, 1812, wheat averaged 155<i>s.</i>, the finest Dantzic selling at
+Mark Lane for 180<i>s.</i>, and oats reached 84<i>s.</i> As our imports of corn then
+chiefly came from the north-west of Europe, which has a climate very
+similar to our own, crops there were often deficient from bad seasons
+in the same years as our own, and the price consequently high. On the
+other hand, it is a proof that produce will find the best market
+regardless of hindrances, that much of our corn at this time came from
+France. Corn in 1813 was seized on with such avidity that there was no
+need to show samples. As high prices had now prevailed for some time
+and were still rising, landlords and farmers jumped to the conclusion
+that they would be permanent; so that this is the period when rents
+experienced their greatest increase, in some cases having increased
+fivefold since 1790, and speculations in land were most general. Land
+sold for forty years' purchase, many men of spirit and adventure very
+different from farmers 'were tempted to risk their property in
+agricultural speculations',<a name="FNanchor_534_535" id="FNanchor_534_535"></a><a href="#Footnote_534_535" class="fnanchor">[534]</a> and large sums were sunk in lands and
+improvements in the spirit of mercantile enterprise. The land was
+considered as a kind of manufacturing establishment, and 'such powers
+of capital and labour were applied as forced almost sterility itself
+to become fertile.' Even good pastures were ploughed up to grow wheat
+at a guinea a bushel, and much worthless land was sown with corn.
+Manure was procured from the most remote quarters, and we are told a
+new science rose up, agricultural chemistry, which, 'with much
+frivolity and many refinements remote from common sense, was not
+without great operation on the productive powers of land.'</p>
+
+<p>Land jobbing and speculation became general, and credit came to the
+aid of capital. The larger farmers, as we have seen, were before the
+war inclined to an extravagance that amazed their older
+contemporaries; now we are told, some <a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>insisted on being called
+esquire, and some kept liveried servants.<a name="FNanchor_535_536" id="FNanchor_535_536"></a><a href="#Footnote_535_536" class="fnanchor">[535]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is somewhat curious to learn that one of the drawbacks from which
+farmers suffered at this time was the ravages of pigeons, which seem
+to have been as numerous as in the Middle Ages, when the lord's
+dovecote was the scourge of the villein's crops. In 1813 there was
+said to be 20,000 pigeon houses in England and Wales, each on an
+average containing 100 pairs of old pigeons.<a name="FNanchor_536_537" id="FNanchor_536_537"></a><a href="#Footnote_536_537" class="fnanchor">[536]</a></p>
+
+<p>Another pest was the large number of 'vermin', whose destruction had
+long before been considered important enough to demand the attention
+of the legislature.<a name="FNanchor_537_538" id="FNanchor_537_538"></a><a href="#Footnote_537_538" class="fnanchor">[537]</a> Some parishes devoted large portions of their
+funds to this object; in 1786 East Budleigh in Devonshire, out of a
+total receipt of <i>&pound;</i>20 1<i>s.</i> 8<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>, voted <i>&pound;</i>5 10<i>s.</i> for vermin killing.
+That now sacred animal the fox was then treated with scant respect,
+farmers and landlords paying for his destruction as 'vermin'<a name="FNanchor_538_539" id="FNanchor_538_539"></a><a href="#Footnote_538_539" class="fnanchor">[538]</a>; the
+parish accounts of Ashburton in Devonshire, for instance, from
+1761-1820 include payments for killing 18 foxes and 4 vixens, with no
+less than 153 badgers.</p>
+
+<p>But the edifice of artificial prosperity was already tottering. After
+1812 prices fell steadily,<a name="FNanchor_539_540" id="FNanchor_539_540"></a><a href="#Footnote_539_540" class="fnanchor">[539]</a> the abundant harvest of 1813 and the
+opening of the continental ports accelerated this, and by December,
+1813, wheat was 73<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> Yet agriculture had made solid progress. The
+Committee of the House of Commons which inquired into the state of the
+corn trade in 1813 stated that through the extension of, and
+improvements in, agriculture the agricultural produce of the kingdom
+had increased one-fourth in the preceding ten years.<a name="FNanchor_540_541" id="FNanchor_540_541"></a><a href="#Footnote_540_541" class="fnanchor">[540]</a> The high
+<a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>prices had attracted a large amount of capital to the land, so that
+there was very rapid and extensive progress, the methods of tillage
+were improved, large tracts of inferior pasture converted into arable,
+much, however, of which was soon to revert to weeds; there were many
+enclosures, and many fens, commons, and wastes reclaimed. But there
+was a reverse side to this picture of prosperity, even in the case of
+landlord and farmer. The burden of taxation was crushing; a
+contemporary writer, a farmer of twenty-five years standing,<a name="FNanchor_541_542" id="FNanchor_541_542"></a><a href="#Footnote_541_542" class="fnanchor">[541]</a>
+wrote that, with the land tax remaining the same, there was a high
+property tax, house and window taxes were doubled, poor rates in some
+places trebled, highway, church, and constable rates doubled and
+trebled, and there were oppressive taxes on malt and horses, both nags
+and farm animals. A man renting a farm at <i>&pound;</i>70 and keeping two
+farm-horses, a nag, and a dog, would pay taxes for them of <i>&pound;</i>5 0<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>,
+a fourteenth of his rent.<a name="FNanchor_542_543" id="FNanchor_542_543"></a><a href="#Footnote_542_543" class="fnanchor">[542]</a> Indeed, poor rates of 16<i>s.</i> and 20<i>s.</i> in
+the <i>&pound;</i> were known,<a name="FNanchor_543_544" id="FNanchor_543_544"></a><a href="#Footnote_543_544" class="fnanchor">[543]</a> and they were occasionally more than the whole
+rent received by the landlord forty years before. A Devonshire
+landowner complained that seven-sixteenths out of the annual value of
+every estate in the county was taken from owners and occupiers in
+direct taxes.<a name="FNanchor_544_545" id="FNanchor_544_545"></a><a href="#Footnote_544_545" class="fnanchor">[544]</a> And the Committee on Agricultural Depression of
+1822 asserted that during the war taxes and rates were quadrupled.<a name="FNanchor_545_546" id="FNanchor_545_546"></a><a href="#Footnote_545_546" class="fnanchor">[545]</a>
+Blacksmiths, whitesmiths, collar makers, ropers, carpenters, and many
+other tradesmen with whom the farmer dealt, raised their prices
+threefold; and it was openly asserted that the high prices of grain
+and stock were not proportionate to the increase of other prices. Much
+of the grass land broken up in the earlier years of the war was before
+the close in a miserable condition, for it was cropped year after year
+without manure, and was worn out. On the <a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a>whole it may be doubted if
+the bulk of the farmers of England made large profits during the war;
+many no doubt profited by the extraordinary fluctuations in prices,
+and it was those men who 'kept liveried servants'; but there must have
+been many who lost heavily by the same means, and the rise of rent,
+taxes, rates, labour, and tradesmen's prices largely discounted the
+prices of corn and stock. The landowners at this period have generally
+been described as flourishing at the expense of the community, but
+their increased rents were greatly neutralized by the weight of
+taxation and the general rise in prices. A contemporary writer says
+that owing to the heavy taxes, even in the war time, he 'often had not
+a shilling at the end of the year.'<a name="FNanchor_546_547" id="FNanchor_546_547"></a><a href="#Footnote_546_547" class="fnanchor">[546]</a></p>
+
+<p>The following accounts, drawn up in 1805,<a name="FNanchor_547_548" id="FNanchor_547_548"></a><a href="#Footnote_547_548" class="fnanchor">[547]</a> do not show that
+farmers were making much money with wheat at 10<i>s.</i> a bushel:</p>
+
+<p>Account of the culture of an acre of wheat on good fallow land:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>Dr.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>Cr.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Two years' rent </td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>20 bushels of wheat at 10<i>s.</i></td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Hauling dung from fold</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td rowspan="4" valign='top' align='left'>The straw was set against<br />
+the value of the dung.<br />
+The tailend wheat was<br />
+Eaten by the family!</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Four ploughings </td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Two harrowings  </td><td colspan="2" align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Lime</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'> 18</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Seed, 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;bushels </td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'> 5</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Reaping </td><td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Threshing </td><td colspan="2" align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Wages</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Tithes and taxes</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>9</td><td align='right'> 12</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>10</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'> 0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>=======</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>=======</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>And on a farm on good land in the same county the following would be
+the annual balance sheet at the same date:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>Dr.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>Cr.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Rent</td><td align='right'>200</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>360 bushels of wheat, @ 10<i>s.</i></td><td align='right'>180</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Tithes</td><td align='right'>40</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'> 0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>300 bushels of barley, @ 6<i>s.</i></td><td align='right'> 90</td><td align='right'> 0</td><td align='right'> 0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Wages</td><td align='right'>58</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>100 bushels of peas, @ 6<i>s.</i></td><td align='right'>30</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Extra harvestmen</td><td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>20 cwt. hops</td><td align='right'>60</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'> 0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Tradesmen's bills</td><td align='right'>50</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Sale of oxen, cows and calves</td><td align='right'>150</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'> 0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Taxes and rates</td><td align='right'>58</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Profits from sheep</td><td align='right'>100</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'> 0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Malt, hops, and cider</td><td align='right'>60</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; from pigs, poultry,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Lime</td><td align='right'>20</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; dairy, and sundries</td><td align='right'>50</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Hop poles</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Expenses at fairs and markets</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Clothing, groceries, &amp;c., for the family</td><td align='right'>45</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'> 0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Interest on <i>&pound;</i>1,500 capital, at 5 per cent.</td><td align='right'>75</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Sundries</td><td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>646</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>660</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>=========</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>=========</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>According to this the farmer did little more than pay rent, interest
+on capital, and get a living. Yet prices of what he had to sell had
+gone up greatly: wheat in Herefordshire in 1760 was 3<i>s.</i> a bushel, in
+1805, 10<i>s.</i>; butcher's meat in 1760 was 1<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> a lb., in 1804, 7<i>d.</i>;
+fresh butter 4<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> in 1760, 1<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> in 1804; a fat goose in Hereford
+market in 1740, 10<i>d.</i>; 1760, 1<i>s.</i>; 1804, 4<i>s.</i>; a couple of fowls in 1740,
+6<i>d.</i>; 1760, 7<i>d.</i>; 1804, 2<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_548_549" id="FNanchor_548_549"></a><a href="#Footnote_548_549" class="fnanchor">[548]</a> The winter of 1813-4 was
+extraordinarily severe, and the wheat crop was seriously injured, but
+the increased breadth of cultivation, a large surplus, and great
+importations kept the price down. Many sheep, however, were killed by
+the hard winter, which also reduced the quality of the cattle, so that
+meat was higher in 1814 than at any previous period.<a name="FNanchor_549_550" id="FNanchor_549_550"></a><a href="#Footnote_549_550" class="fnanchor">[549]</a> At
+Smithfield beef was 6<i>s.</i> to 7<i>s.</i> a stone, mutton 7<i>s.</i> to 8<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> With the
+peace of 1814 the fictitious prosperity came to an end, <a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>a large amount
+of paper was withdrawn from circulation, which lowered the price of
+all commodities, and a large number of country banks failed. The first
+sufferers were the agricultural classes, who happened at that time to
+hold larger supplies than usual, the value of which fell at once; the
+incomes of all were diminished, and the capital of many
+annihilated.<a name="FNanchor_550_551" id="FNanchor_550_551"></a><a href="#Footnote_550_551" class="fnanchor">[550]</a> At the same time the demand for our manufactures
+from abroad fell off; the towns were impoverished, and bought less
+from the farmer.</p>
+
+<p>The short period of war in 1815 had little effect on prices, and in
+January, 1816, wheat was 52<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, and the prices of live stock had
+fallen considerably. In 1815 protection reached its highest limit, the
+Act of that year prohibiting import of wheat when the price was under
+80<i>s.</i> a quarter, and other grain in proportion.<a name="FNanchor_551_552" id="FNanchor_551_552"></a><a href="#Footnote_551_552" class="fnanchor">[551]</a> However, it was of
+no avail; and in the beginning of 1816 the complaints of agricultural
+distress were so loud and deep that the Board of Agriculture issued
+circular letters to every part of the kingdom, asking for information
+on the state of agriculture.</p>
+
+<p>According to the answers given, rent had already fallen on an average
+25 per cent. and agriculture was in a 'deplorable state.'<a name="FNanchor_552_553" id="FNanchor_552_553"></a><a href="#Footnote_552_553" class="fnanchor">[552]</a>
+Bankruptcies, seizures, executions, imprisonments, were rife, many
+farmers had become parish paupers. Rent was much in arrear, tithes and
+poor rates unpaid, improvements generally discontinued, live stock
+diminished; alarming gangs of poachers and other depredators ranged
+the country. The loss was greater on arable than on grass land, and
+'flock farms' had suffered less than others, though they had begun to
+feel it heavily.</p>
+
+<p>All classes connected with the land suffered severely; the landlords
+could not get many of their rents; the farmer's stock had depreciated
+40 per cent.<a name="FNanchor_553_554" id="FNanchor_553_554"></a><a href="#Footnote_553_554" class="fnanchor">[553]</a>; many labourers, who during the <a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a>war had been getting
+from 15<i>s.</i> to 16<i>s.</i> a week and 18<i>s.</i> in summer,<a name="FNanchor_554_555" id="FNanchor_554_555"></a><a href="#Footnote_554_555" class="fnanchor">[554]</a> were walking the
+country searching for employment. Many tenants threw up their farms,
+and it was often noticed that landlords, 'knowing very little of
+agriculture and taken by surprise,' could not manage the farms thrown
+on their hands, and they went uncultivated. Some farmers paid up their
+rent to date, sold their stock, and went off without any notice;
+others, less scrupulous, drove off their stock and moved their
+household furniture in the night without settling.<a name="FNanchor_555_556" id="FNanchor_555_556"></a><a href="#Footnote_555_556" class="fnanchor">[555]</a></p>
+
+<p>Farmers and landowners were asked to state the remedies required. Some
+asked for more rent reduction and further prohibition of import, but
+the most general cry was for the lessening of taxation.</p>
+
+<p>A Herefordshire farmer<a name="FNanchor_556_557" id="FNanchor_556_557"></a><a href="#Footnote_556_557" class="fnanchor">[556]</a> stated that in 1815 the taxes on a farm of
+300 acres in that county were:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Property tax, landlord and tenant</td>
+  <td align='right'>95</td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>10</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Great tithes</td>
+  <td align='right'>64</td><td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Lesser tithes</td>
+  <td align='right'> 29</td><td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Land tax</td>
+  <td align='right'>14</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Window lights</td>
+  <td align='right'>24</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Poor rates, landlord</td>
+  <td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; tenant</td>
+  <td align='right'>40</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cart-horse duty, landlord, 3 horses</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Two saddle horses, landlord </td>
+  <td align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Gig</td>
+  <td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cart-horse duty,<a name="FNanchor_557_558" id="FNanchor_557_558"></a><a href="#Footnote_557_558" class="fnanchor">[557]</a> tenant</td>
+  <td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>One saddle horse, tenant</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='left'>13</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Landlord's malt duty on 60 bushels of barley</td>
+  <td align='right'>21</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tenant's duty for making 120 bushels of barley into malt&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>42</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>New rate for building shire hall, paid by landlord</td>
+  <td align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; tenant</td>
+  <td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Surcharge</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>383</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>=========</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a>The parish of Kentchurch, in Herefordshire, paid in direct taxes a
+greater sum than the lands of the whole parish could be let for.</p>
+
+<p>Another very general complaint was of the collection of tithe in kind,
+a most awkward and offensive method, causing great expense and waste,
+which, however, had given way in many places to compounding.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the picture of agriculture after twenty years of high prices
+and protection.<a name="FNanchor_558_559" id="FNanchor_558_559"></a><a href="#Footnote_558_559" class="fnanchor">[558]</a> One may naturally ask, if much money had been
+made by farmers during these years, where had it all gone to that they
+were reduced at the first breath of adversity to such straits? Some
+allowance must be made for the fact that these accounts come from
+those interested in the land, who were always ready to make the most
+of misfortune with a view to further protection, and the farmer is a
+notorious grumbler. It seems, however, that most landlords and tenants
+believed that the high prices would last for ever, and lived
+accordingly, and, as we have seen, many made no profit at all because
+of their increased burdens. As a matter of fact, both were grumbling
+because prices had come back to their natural level after an unnatural
+inflation.<a name="FNanchor_559_560" id="FNanchor_559_560"></a><a href="#Footnote_559_560" class="fnanchor">[559]</a></p>
+
+<p>Hemp at this date was still grown in Lincolnshire and Somerset, and
+Marshall tells us that in 1803 there was a considerable quantity of
+hemp grown in Shropshire.<a name="FNanchor_560_561" id="FNanchor_560_561"></a><a href="#Footnote_560_561" class="fnanchor">[560]</a> In that county there was a small plot
+of ground, called 'the hemp-yard,' appendant to almost every
+farm-house and to many of the best sort of cottages. Whenever a
+cottager had 10 or 15 perches of land to his cottage, worth from 1<i>s.</i>
+6<i>d.</i> to 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a year, with the aid of his wife's industry it enabled
+him to <a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>pay his rent. A peck of hempseed, costing 2<i>s.</i>, sowed about 10
+perches of land, and this produced from 24 to 36 lb. of tow when
+dressed and fit for spinning. A dozen pounds of tow made 10 ells of
+cloth, worth generally about 3<i>s.</i> an ell. Thus a good crop on 10
+perches of land brought in <i>&pound;</i>4 10<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i>, half of which was nett profit.
+The hemp was pulled a little before harvest, and immediately spread on
+grass land, where it lay for a month or six weeks. The more rain there
+was the sooner it was ready to take off the grass. When the rind
+peeled easily from the woody part, it was, on a dry day, taken into
+the house, and when harvest was over well dried in fine weather and
+dressed, being then fit for the tow dresser, who prepared it for
+spinning. After the crop of hemp the land was sown with turnips, a
+valuable resource for the winter.</p>
+
+<p>Since 1815 little hemp or flax has been grown in England<a name="FNanchor_561_562" id="FNanchor_561_562"></a><a href="#Footnote_561_562" class="fnanchor">[561]</a>; in 1907
+there were, according to the Agricultural Returns, 355 acres of flax
+grown in England, and hemp was not mentioned.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_259" id="Footnotes_259"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_504_505" id="Footnote_504_505"></a><a href="#FNanchor_504_505"><span class="label">[504]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1896, p. 1, and 1898, p. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_505_506" id="Footnote_505_506"></a><a href="#FNanchor_505_506"><span class="label">[505]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 242.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_506_507" id="Footnote_506_507"></a><a href="#FNanchor_506_507"><span class="label">[506]</span></a> Eden, <i>State of the Poor</i>, i. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_507_508" id="Footnote_507_508"></a><a href="#FNanchor_507_508"><span class="label">[507]</span></a> 'Had his industry been under the direction of a better
+judgement, he would have been an admirable president.'&mdash;Young,
+<i>Autobiography</i>, p. 316.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_508_509" id="Footnote_508_509"></a><a href="#FNanchor_508_509"><span class="label">[508]</span></a> <i>The Report of the Committee on Waste Lands</i>, 1795,
+estimated wastes and commons at 7,800,000 acres, p. 221.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_509_510" id="Footnote_509_510"></a><a href="#FNanchor_509_510"><span class="label">[509]</span></a> The Merino was largely imported into England by the
+efforts of George III, and a Merino Society was formed in 1811; but
+many circumstances made it of such little profit to cultivate it
+in preference to native breeds, that it was diverted to
+Australia.&mdash;Burnley, <i>History of Wool</i>, p. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_510_511" id="Footnote_510_511"></a><a href="#FNanchor_510_511"><span class="label">[510]</span></a> The first, the Bath and West of England, was
+established in 1777.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_511_512" id="Footnote_511_512"></a><a href="#FNanchor_511_512"><span class="label">[511]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1899, p. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_512_513" id="Footnote_512_513"></a><a href="#FNanchor_512_513"><span class="label">[512]</span></a> Higher prices had been realized for the improved
+Longhorns; in 1791, at the sale of Mr. Fowler of Little Rollright,
+Sultan a two-year-old bull fetched 210 guineas, and a cow 260 guineas;
+and at Mr. Paget's sale in 1793, a bull of the same breed sold for 400
+guineas.&mdash;<i>Culley on Live Stock</i>, p. 59.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_513_514" id="Footnote_513_514"></a><a href="#FNanchor_513_514"><span class="label">[513]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1899, p. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_514_515" id="Footnote_514_515"></a><a href="#FNanchor_514_515"><span class="label">[514]</span></a> <i>Culley on Live Stock</i> (1807), pp. 46-7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_515_516" id="Footnote_515_516"></a><a href="#FNanchor_515_516"><span class="label">[515]</span></a> <i>Culley on Live Stock</i>, p. vi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_516_517" id="Footnote_516_517"></a><a href="#FNanchor_516_517"><span class="label">[516]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1892, p. 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_517_518" id="Footnote_517_518"></a><a href="#FNanchor_517_518"><span class="label">[517]</span></a> Morton, <i>Cyclopaedia of Agriculture</i>, ii. 964.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_518_519" id="Footnote_518_519"></a><a href="#FNanchor_518_519"><span class="label">[518]</span></a> <i>Northern Tour</i>, iii. 49. Clarke also experimented on
+the effect of electricity on vegetables, electrifying turnips in boxes
+with the result that growth was quickened and weight increased.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_519_520" id="Footnote_519_520"></a><a href="#FNanchor_519_520"><span class="label">[519]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1896, p, 93.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_520_521" id="Footnote_520_521"></a><a href="#FNanchor_520_521"><span class="label">[520]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, p. 182.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_521_522" id="Footnote_521_522"></a><a href="#FNanchor_521_522"><span class="label">[521]</span></a> <i>Autobiography of A. Young</i>, p. 256.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_522_523" id="Footnote_522_523"></a><a href="#FNanchor_522_523"><span class="label">[522]</span></a> <i>State of the Poor</i>, i. 565 et seq.; Thorold Rogers,
+<i>Work and Wages</i>, p. 487. It is difficult to calculate the exact
+income of the labourer; besides extras in harvest, and relief from the
+parish, he might have a small holding, or common rights, also payments
+in kind and the earnings of his wife and children.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_523_524" id="Footnote_523_524"></a><a href="#FNanchor_523_524"><span class="label">[523]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 181; Eden, <i>op. cit.</i> li. 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_524_525" id="Footnote_524_525"></a><a href="#FNanchor_524_525"><span class="label">[524]</span></a> Imports of wheat and flour in 1796 were 879,200
+quarters.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_525_526" id="Footnote_525_526"></a><a href="#FNanchor_525_526"><span class="label">[525]</span></a> Yet imports were comparatively large; 1,264,520
+quarters of wheat, against 463,185 quarters in 1799.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_526_527" id="Footnote_526_527"></a><a href="#FNanchor_526_527"><span class="label">[526]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, p. 219.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_527_528" id="Footnote_527_528"></a><a href="#FNanchor_527_528"><span class="label">[527]</span></a> <i>Farmer's Magazine</i>, 1817, p. 60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_528_529" id="Footnote_528_529"></a><a href="#FNanchor_528_529"><span class="label">[528]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>Work and Wages</i>, c. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_529_530" id="Footnote_529_530"></a><a href="#FNanchor_529_530"><span class="label">[529]</span></a> <i>Annals of Agriculture</i>, xxxvii. 265. In 1805, in
+Herefordshire, the labourer was getting about 6<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a week&mdash;See
+Duncumb, <i>General View of Agriculture of Herefordshire</i>. Those who
+lived in the farm-house often fared best: in 1808 the diet of a
+Hampshire farm servant was, for breakfast, bacon, bread, and skim
+milk; for lunch, bread and cheese and small beer; for dinner, between
+3 p.m. and 4 p.m., pickled pork or bacon with potatoes, cabbages,
+turnips, or greens, and broths of wheat-flour and garden stuff. Supper
+consisted of bread and cheese and a pint of ale. His bread was usually
+made of wheat, which, considering the price, is remarkable. On Sundays
+he had fresh meat. The farmers lived in many cases little better; a
+statement which must be compared with others ascribing great
+extravagance to them.&mdash;Vancouver, <i>General View of the Agriculture of
+Hants</i> (1808), p. 383.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_530_531" id="Footnote_530_531"></a><a href="#FNanchor_530_531"><span class="label">[530]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, i. 236.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_531_532" id="Footnote_531_532"></a><a href="#FNanchor_531_532"><span class="label">[531]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>Work and Wages</i>, c. 18. In many cases
+he was getting 15<i>s.</i> and 16<i>s.</i> a week all the year round. The
+Parliamentary Committee of 1822 put his wages during the war at from
+15<i>s.</i> to 16<i>s.</i> a week. <i>Parliamentary Reports Committees</i>, v. 72; but it
+is difficult to say how much he received as wages, and how much as
+parish relief. Recruiting for the war helped to raise wages, as did
+the increased growth of corn.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_532_533" id="Footnote_532_533"></a><a href="#FNanchor_532_533"><span class="label">[532]</span></a> McCulloch, <i>Commercial Dictionary</i> (1847), p. 438. See
+Appendix, ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_533_534" id="Footnote_533_534"></a><a href="#FNanchor_533_534"><span class="label">[533]</span></a> Tooke, i. 319, and <i>Pamphleteer</i>, vi. 200 (A. Young).
+Since 1770, says the latter, labour by 1810-11 had doubled, but meat
+had risen 146 per cent., cheese 153 per cent., bread 100 per cent.
+Wages therefore had not risen in proportion to prices.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_534_535" id="Footnote_534_535"></a><a href="#FNanchor_534_535"><span class="label">[534]</span></a> <i>Inquiry into Agricultural Distress</i> (1822), p. 38.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_535_536" id="Footnote_535_536"></a><a href="#FNanchor_535_536"><span class="label">[535]</span></a> <i>Thoughts on Present Depressed State of Agricultural
+Industry</i> (1817), p. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_536_537" id="Footnote_536_537"></a><a href="#FNanchor_536_537"><span class="label">[536]</span></a> Vancouver, <i>General View of the Agriculture of Devon</i>,
+p. 357.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_537_538" id="Footnote_537_538"></a><a href="#FNanchor_537_538"><span class="label">[537]</span></a> See 14 Eliz., c. 11, and 39 Eliz., c. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_538_539" id="Footnote_538_539"></a><a href="#FNanchor_538_539"><span class="label">[538]</span></a> <i>Transactions of the Devon Association</i>, xxix.
+291-349.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_539_540" id="Footnote_539_540"></a><a href="#FNanchor_539_540"><span class="label">[539]</span></a> Average annual prices of wheat were: 1812, 126<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>;
+1813, 109<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i>; 1814, 74<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>; 1815, 65<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_540_541" id="Footnote_540_541"></a><a href="#FNanchor_540_541"><span class="label">[540]</span></a> Porter, <i>Progress of the Nation</i>, p. 149.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_541_542" id="Footnote_541_542"></a><a href="#FNanchor_541_542"><span class="label">[541]</span></a> <i>A Defence of the Farmers and Landowners of Great
+Britain</i> (1814), p. 49.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_542_543" id="Footnote_542_543"></a><a href="#FNanchor_542_543"><span class="label">[542]</span></a> Ibid. p. x.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_543_544" id="Footnote_543_544"></a><a href="#FNanchor_543_544"><span class="label">[543]</span></a> Ibid. p. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_544_545" id="Footnote_544_545"></a><a href="#FNanchor_544_545"><span class="label">[544]</span></a> <i>Agricultural State of the Kingdom</i>, p. 67.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_545_546" id="Footnote_545_546"></a><a href="#FNanchor_545_546"><span class="label">[545]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports (Committees)</i>, v. 72.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_546_547" id="Footnote_546_547"></a><a href="#FNanchor_546_547"><span class="label">[546]</span></a> <i>Thoughts on the Present Depressed State of the
+Agricultural Interest</i> (1817), p. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_547_548" id="Footnote_547_548"></a><a href="#FNanchor_547_548"><span class="label">[547]</span></a> Duncumb, <i>General View of the Agriculture of Hereford</i>,
+1805. The writer of <i>A Defence of the Farmers and Landowners of Great
+Britain</i> (1814) puts the average crop of wheat in the United Kingdom
+at 15 or 16 bushels an acre, p. 28. A very low estimate.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_548_549" id="Footnote_548_549"></a><a href="#FNanchor_548_549"><span class="label">[548]</span></a> Duncumb, <i>General View of the Agriculture of Hereford</i>,
+p. 140.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_549_550" id="Footnote_549_550"></a><a href="#FNanchor_549_550"><span class="label">[549]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, ii. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_550_551" id="Footnote_550_551"></a><a href="#FNanchor_550_551"><span class="label">[550]</span></a> <i>Farmer's Magazine</i> (1817), p. 69.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_551_552" id="Footnote_551_552"></a><a href="#FNanchor_551_552"><span class="label">[551]</span></a> The duties were often evaded by smuggling; coasting
+vessels met the foreign corn ships at sea, received their cargoes, and
+landed them so as to escape the duty.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_552_553" id="Footnote_552_553"></a><a href="#FNanchor_552_553"><span class="label">[552]</span></a> <i>Agricultural State of the Kingdom</i>, p. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_553_554" id="Footnote_553_554"></a><a href="#FNanchor_553_554"><span class="label">[553]</span></a> <i>Observations for the Use of Landed Gentlemen</i> (1817),
+p. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_554_555" id="Footnote_554_555"></a><a href="#FNanchor_554_555"><span class="label">[554]</span></a> <i>Defence of the Farmers, &amp;c.</i> (1814); and
+<i>Parliamentary Reports</i>, v. 72.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_555_556" id="Footnote_555_556"></a><a href="#FNanchor_555_556"><span class="label">[555]</span></a> <i>Agricultural State of the Kingdom</i>, p. 64.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_556_557" id="Footnote_556_557"></a><a href="#FNanchor_556_557"><span class="label">[556]</span></a> Ibid. p. 105.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_557_558" id="Footnote_557_558"></a><a href="#FNanchor_557_558"><span class="label">[557]</span></a> The agricultural horse tax was repealed in 1821, the
+tax on ponies and mules in 1823.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_558_559" id="Footnote_558_559"></a><a href="#FNanchor_558_559"><span class="label">[558]</span></a> There were some exceptions, but the overwhelming
+majority of replies to the letters were couched in the above spirit.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_559_560" id="Footnote_559_560"></a><a href="#FNanchor_559_560"><span class="label">[559]</span></a> At a time when landlords formed the majority in
+Parliament, it is curious to find a substantial farmer asserting that
+'the landed interest has been, since the corn law of 1773, held in a
+state of complete vassalage to the commercial and manufacturing, and
+the farmers of the country in a state very little superior to that of
+Polish peasants.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_560_561" id="Footnote_560_561"></a><a href="#FNanchor_560_561"><span class="label">[560]</span></a> <i>Review of Western Department</i>, pp. 249, 250.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_561_562" id="Footnote_561_562"></a><a href="#FNanchor_561_562"><span class="label">[561]</span></a> Morton, <i>Cyclopaedia of Agriculture</i>, ii. 26.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>ENCLOSURE&mdash;THE SMALL OWNER</h3>
+
+
+<p>The war period was one of great activity in enclosure; from 1798 to
+1810 there were 956 Bills; from 1811-20, 771.<a name="FNanchor_562_563" id="FNanchor_562_563"></a><a href="#Footnote_562_563" class="fnanchor">[562]</a></p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered, however, that the number of Acts is not a
+conclusive test of the amount of enclosure, as there was a large
+amount that was non-parliamentary: by the principal landlord, and by
+freeholders who agreed to amicable changes and transfer, as at
+Pickering, in Yorkshire.<a name="FNanchor_563_564" id="FNanchor_563_564"></a><a href="#Footnote_563_564" class="fnanchor">[563]</a> Roughly speaking, about one-third of the
+Acts were for enclosing commonable waste, the rest for enclosing open
+and commonable fields and lands.<a name="FNanchor_564_565" id="FNanchor_564_565"></a><a href="#Footnote_564_565" class="fnanchor">[564]</a> Owing to the expense an Act was
+only obtained in the last resource. It was also because of the
+expense<a name="FNanchor_565_566" id="FNanchor_565_566"></a><a href="#Footnote_565_566" class="fnanchor">[565]</a> that many landlords desirous to enclose were unable to do
+so, and therefore devoted their attention to the improvement of the
+common fields. That agriculture benefited by enclosure there is no
+possible doubt, but it was attended with great hardships. The
+landowner generally gained, for his rents increased largely. In
+twenty-three parishes of Lincolnshire, for instance, his rents doubled
+on enclosure. But the expenses were so heavy that his gain was often
+very small, and sometimes he was a loser by the process. As for the
+farmers, the poorer ones suffered, for more capital was needed for
+enclosed lands, and the process generally was so slow, taking <a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>from
+two to six years before the final award was given, that many farmers
+were thrown out in the management of their farms, for they did not
+know where their future lands would be allotted. That the poor
+suffered greatly is indubitable: 'By nineteen Enclosure Acts out of
+twenty the poor are injured, in some cases grossly injured,' wrote
+Young in 1801.<a name="FNanchor_566_567" id="FNanchor_566_567"></a><a href="#Footnote_566_567" class="fnanchor">[566]</a> In the Acts it was endeavoured to treat them
+fairly,<a name="FNanchor_567_568" id="FNanchor_567_568"></a><a href="#Footnote_567_568" class="fnanchor">[567]</a> and allotments were made to them, or money paid on
+enclosure in lieu of their rights of common, or small plots of land;
+but the expense of enclosing small allotments was proportionately very
+great, generally too great, and they had to be sold, while the sums of
+money were often spent in the alehouse. The results of sixty-eight
+Acts were investigated in the eastern counties, with the result that
+in all but fifteen the poor were injured. It was generally found that
+they had lost their cows.</p>
+
+<p>Its effect on the smallholder is well described by Davis in his
+<i>Report on Wilts</i>.<a name="FNanchor_568_569" id="FNanchor_568_569"></a><a href="#Footnote_568_569" class="fnanchor">[568]</a> There, before enclosure, the tenants usually
+occupied yard-lands consisting of a homestead, 2 acres of meadow, 18
+acres of arable, generally in eighteen or twenty strips, with a right
+on the common meadows, common fields and downs for 40 sheep, and as
+many cattle as the tenant could winter with the fodder he grew. The 40
+sheep were kept by a common shepherd with the common herd, were taken
+every day to the downs and brought back every night to be folded on
+the arable fields, the rule being to fold 1,000 sheep on a 'tenantry'
+acre (three-quarters of a statute acre) every night.<a name="FNanchor_569_570" id="FNanchor_569_570"></a><a href="#Footnote_569_570" class="fnanchor">[569]</a> In breeding
+sheep regard was had to 'folding <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>quality,' i.e. the propensity to
+drop manure only after being folded at night, as much as to quality
+and quantity of wool and meat. On enclosure the common flock was
+broken up. The small farmer had no longer any common to turn his
+horses on. The down on which he fed his sheep was largely curtailed,
+the common shepherd was abolished, and the farmer had too few sheep to
+enable him individually to employ a shepherd. Therefore he had to part
+with his flock. Having no cow common and very little pasture land he
+could not keep cows. In such circumstances the small farmer, after a
+few years, succumbed and became a labourer, or emigrated, or went to
+the towns.</p>
+
+<p>In a pamphlet called <i>The Case of Labourers in Husbandry</i>, 1795, the
+Rev. David Davies said, 'by enclosure an amazing number of people have
+been reduced from a comfortable state of partial independence to the
+precarious condition of mere hirelings, who when out of work
+immediately come on the parish.' It has often been said that the poor
+were robbed of their share in the land by the landowners; but as a
+matter of fact it was the expense of securing the compensation allowed
+them, much greater in proportion on small holdings than on large,
+which went into the pockets of surveyors and lawyers, that did this.
+It was also often through the farmer that the labourer was deprived of
+his land when he had retained an acre or two after enclosure. Wishing
+to make the labourer dependent on him, he persuaded the agent to let
+the cottages with the farm, and the agent in order to avoid collecting
+a number of small rents consented. As soon as the farmer had the
+cottages he took the land <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>from them and added it to his own. The
+peasant's losses engaged the serious attention of many landlords; near
+Tewkesbury, in 1773, the lord of the manor on enclosure, besides
+reserving 25 acres for the use of the poor, allowed land to each
+cottage sufficient to keep a horse or a cow, often added a small
+building, and gave stocks for raising orchards. Even some of the
+idlest were thereby made industrious, poor rates sank to 4<i>d.</i> in the <i>&pound;</i>,
+though the population increased, and the labourer always had for sale
+some poultry, or the produce of his cow, or some fruit.<a name="FNanchor_570_571" id="FNanchor_570_571"></a><a href="#Footnote_570_571" class="fnanchor">[570]</a></p>
+
+<p>In 1800 the Board of Agriculture, composed almost entirely of
+landowners, noticing that the poor of Rutland and Lincolnshire, who
+had land for one or two cows and some potatoes, had not applied for
+poor relief, offered a gold medal for the most satisfactory account of
+the best means of supporting cows on poor land, in a method applicable
+to cottagers.<a name="FNanchor_571_572" id="FNanchor_571_572"></a><a href="#Footnote_571_572" class="fnanchor">[571]</a> Young recommended that in the case of extensive
+wastes every cottage on enclosure should be secured sufficient land on
+which to keep a cow, the land to be inalienable from the cottage and
+the ownership vested in the parish.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Winchelsea<a name="FNanchor_572_573" id="FNanchor_572_573"></a><a href="#Footnote_572_573" class="fnanchor">[572]</a> urged that a good garden should always go with a
+cottage, and set the example himself, one which has been generally
+followed in England by the greater landlords with much success. As may
+be imagined, these schemes or others similar to them were put into
+effect by the conscientious and energetic, but not by the apathetic
+and careless. Further, an Act was passed in the fifty-ninth year of
+George III, which enabled parishes to lease or buy 20 acres of land
+for the employment of their poor.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>In many cases, it must be allowed, the grazing of the commons was
+often worth very little. Let one man, it was said in 1795, put a cow
+on a common in spring for nothing, and let another pay a farmer 1<i>s.</i>
+6<i>d.</i> a week to keep a cow of equal value on enclosed land. When both
+are driven to market at Michaelmas the extra weight of the latter will
+more than repay the cost of the keep, while her flow of milk meanwhile
+has been much superior.</p>
+
+<p>The Committee on Waste Lands of 1795 attributed the great increase in
+the weight of cattle not only to the improved methods of breeding, but
+to their being fed on good enclosed lands instead of wastes and
+commons.<a name="FNanchor_573_574" id="FNanchor_573_574"></a><a href="#Footnote_573_574" class="fnanchor">[573]</a> Even when commons were stinted they were in general
+overstocked, while disease was always being spread with enormous loss
+to the commoners. The larger holders, too, who had common rights,
+often crowded out the smaller.</p>
+
+<p>There were often, as we have seen, a large number of 'squatters' on
+commons who had seized and occupied land without any legal title. As a
+rule, if these people had been in possession twenty-one years their
+title was respected; if not, no regard was very justly paid to them on
+enclosure, and they were deprived of what they had seized.</p>
+
+<p>Eden wrote when enclosure was at its height; he was a competent and
+accurate observer, and this is his picture of the 'commoner':<a name="FNanchor_574_575" id="FNanchor_574_575"></a><a href="#Footnote_574_575" class="fnanchor">[574]</a>
+'The advantages which cottagers and poor people derive from commons
+and wastes are rather apparent than real; instead of sticking
+regularly to labour they waste their time in picking up a few dry
+sticks or in grubbing on some bleak moor. Their starved pig or two,
+together with a few wandering goslings, besides involving them in
+perpetual altercations with their neighbours, are dearly paid for in
+care, time, and bought food. There are thousands and thousands of
+acres in the kingdom, now the <a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>sorry pastures of geese, hogs, asses,
+half-grown horses, and half-starved cattle, which want but to be
+enclosed to be as rich as any land now in tillage.'</p>
+
+<p>Enclosure worked an important social revolution. Before it the
+entirely landless labourer was rare: he nearly always had some holding
+in the common field or a right on the common pasture. With enclosure
+his holding or right had generally disappeared, and he deteriorated
+socially. It was very unfortunate, too, that when enclosure was most
+active domestic industries, such as weaving, decayed, and deprived the
+labourer and his family of a badly needed addition to his scanty
+income.</p>
+
+<p>In its physical and moral effects the system of domestic manufactures
+was immensely preferable to that of the crowded factory, while
+economically it enabled the tillers of the soil to exist on farms
+which could not support them by agriculture alone.</p>
+
+<p>This uprooting of a great part of the agricultural population from the
+soil by irresistible economic causes brought with it grave moral
+evils, and created divisions and antagonisms of interest from which we
+are suffering to-day.<a name="FNanchor_575_576" id="FNanchor_575_576"></a><a href="#Footnote_575_576" class="fnanchor">[575]</a> If some such scheme as that of Arthur Young
+or Lord Winchelsea had been universally adopted, this blot on an
+inevitable movement might have been removed, and a healthy rural
+population planted on English soil. Another result followed, the
+labourer no longer boarded as a rule in his employer's house, where
+the farmer worked and lived with his men; the tie of mutual interest
+was loosened, and he worked for this or that master indifferently. One
+advantage, however, arose, in that, having to find a home of his own,
+he married early, but this was vitiated by his knowledge that the
+parish would support his children, on which knowledge he was induced
+to rely.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the farmer often rose in the social scale. <a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>With
+the abandonment of the handicaps and restrictions of the common-field
+system the efficient came more speedily to the front. It was they who
+had amassed capital, and capital was now needed more than ever, so
+they added field to field, and consolidated holdings.</p>
+
+<p>The Act of 1845 did away with the necessity for private Enclosure
+Acts, still further reducing the expense; and since that date there
+have been 80,000 or 90,000 acres of common arable fields and meadows
+enclosed without parliamentary sanction, and 139,517 acres of the same
+have been enclosed with it,<a name="FNanchor_576_577" id="FNanchor_576_577"></a><a href="#Footnote_576_577" class="fnanchor">[576]</a> besides many acres of commons and
+waste.</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Report of the Committee of Enclosures</i> of 1844,<a name="FNanchor_577_578" id="FNanchor_577_578"></a><a href="#Footnote_577_578" class="fnanchor">[577]</a> there is
+a curious description of the way in which common fields were sometimes
+allotted. There were in some open fields, lands called 'panes',
+containing forty or sixty different lands, and on a certain day the
+best man of the parish appeared to take possession of any lot he
+thought fit. If his right was called in question there was a fight for
+it, and the survivor took the first lot, and so they went on through
+the parish. There was also the old 'lot meadow' in which the owners
+drew lots for choice of portions. On some of the grazing lands the
+right of grazing sheep belonged to a man called a 'flockmaster', who
+during certain months of the year had the exclusive right of turning
+his sheep on all the lands of the parish.</p>
+
+<p>Closely connected with the subject of enclosure is that of the partial
+disappearance of the small owner, both the yeoman who farmed his own
+little estate and the peasant proprietor. We have noticed above<a name="FNanchor_578_579" id="FNanchor_578_579"></a><a href="#Footnote_578_579" class="fnanchor">[578]</a>
+Gregory King's statement as to the number of small freeholders in
+England in 1688, no less than 160,000, or with their families about
+one-seventh of the population of the country. This date, that <a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>of the
+Revolution, marks an epoch in their history, for from that time they
+began to diminish in proportion to the population. Their number in
+1688 is a sufficient answer to the exaggerated statement of
+contemporaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as to the
+depopulation caused by enclosures. Chamberlayne, in his <i>State of
+Great Britain</i>, published at about the same time as Gregory King's
+figures, says there were more freeholders in England than in any
+country of like extent in Europe: '<i>&pound;</i>40 or <i>&pound;</i>50 a year is very ordinary,
+<i>&pound;</i>100 or <i>&pound;</i>200 in some counties is not rare, sometimes in Kent and in
+the Weald of Sussex <i>&pound;</i>500 or <i>&pound;</i>600 per annum, and <i>&pound;</i>3,000 or <i>&pound;</i>4,000 of
+stock.' In the first quarter of the eighteenth century he was a
+prominent figure. Defoe<a name="FNanchor_579_580" id="FNanchor_579_580"></a><a href="#Footnote_579_580" class="fnanchor">[579]</a> describes the number and prosperity of
+the Greycoats of Kent (as they were called from their homespun
+garments), 'whose interest is so considerable that whoever they vote
+for is always sure to carry it.'</p>
+
+<p>Why has this sturdy class so dwindled in numbers, and left England
+infinitely the weaker for their decrease? The causes are several;
+social, economic, and political. The chief, perhaps, is the peculiar
+form of Government which came in with the Revolution. The landed
+gentry by that event became supreme, the national and local
+administration was entirely in their hands, and land being the
+foundation of social and political influence was eagerly sought by
+them where it was not already in their hands.<a name="FNanchor_580_581" id="FNanchor_580_581"></a><a href="#Footnote_580_581" class="fnanchor">[580]</a> At the same time
+the successful business men, whose numbers now increased rapidly from
+the development of trade, bought land to 'make themselves gentlemen'.
+Both these classes bought out the yeomen, who do not seem to have been
+very loath to part with their land. The recently devised system of
+strict family settlements enabled the old and the new <a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>gentlemen to
+keep this land in their families. The complicated title to land made
+its transfer difficult and costly, so that there was little breaking
+up of estates to correspond with the constant buying up of small
+owners. To the smaller freeholder, as has been noticed, the enclosure
+of waste land did much harm, for it was necessary to his holding.
+Again, smaller arable farms did not pay as well as large ones, so they
+tended to disappear. The decay of home industries was also a heavy
+blow to the smaller yeoman and the peasant proprietor.</p>
+
+<p>Under this combination of circumstances many of the yeomen left the
+land. Yet though Young, less than a century after King and Davenant,
+said that the small freeholder had practically disappeared, there were
+at the end of the eighteenth century many left all over England, who
+however largely disappeared during the war and in the bad times after
+the war.<a name="FNanchor_581_582" id="FNanchor_581_582"></a><a href="#Footnote_581_582" class="fnanchor">[581]</a> But a contrary tendency was at work which helped to
+replenish the class. The desire of the Englishman for land is not
+confined to the wealthy classes. At the end of the eighteenth century
+men who had made small fortunes in trade were buying small properties
+and taking the place of the yeomen.<a name="FNanchor_582_583" id="FNanchor_582_583"></a><a href="#Footnote_582_583" class="fnanchor">[582]</a> In the great French War of
+1793-1815, many yeomen, attracted by the high prices of land, sold
+their properties, but at the same time many farmers, attracted by the
+high prices of produce, which had often enriched them, bought
+land.<a name="FNanchor_583_584" id="FNanchor_583_584"></a><a href="#Footnote_583_584" class="fnanchor">[583]</a> During the 'good times' of 1853-75 many small holders, like
+those of Axholme, noticed in the <i>Report</i> of the Agricultural
+Commission of 1893, bought land.</p>
+
+<p>A new class of small owners also has sprung up, who, dwelling in or
+near towns and railway stations, have bought small freeholds. The
+return of the owners of land of 1872-6 <a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>gave the following numbers of
+those owning land in England and Wales<a name="FNanchor_584_585" id="FNanchor_584_585"></a><a href="#Footnote_584_585" class="fnanchor">[584]</a>:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3" align='left'>Total number of owners of:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Number.</i></td><td align='right'><i>Acreage.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>less than one acre</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>703,289</td><td align='right'>151,171</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>1</td><td align='center'>acre and under</td><td align='left'>10</td>
+  <td align='right'>121,983</td><td align='right'>478,679</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>10</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'> 50</td>
+  <td align='right'> 72,640</td><td align='right'>1,750,079</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>50</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>100</td>
+  <td align='right'>25,839</td><td align='right'>1,791,605</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>100</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>500</td>
+  <td align='right'> 32,317</td><td align='right'>6,827,346</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The great majority of the first class here enumerated, those owning
+less than one acre, do not concern us, as they were evidently merely
+houses and gardens not of an agricultural character, but a large
+number of the second class and most of the other three must have been
+agricultural, though unfortunately no distinction is made. It will be
+seen, therefore, that there were a considerable number of small
+owners in England in 1872, and their numbers have probably increased
+since. Many of them, however, are of the new class mentioned above,
+and there appears to be no doubt that the number of the peasant
+proprietors and of the yeomen of the old sort has much diminished,
+especially in proportion to the growth of population.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_269" id="Footnotes_269"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_562_563" id="Footnote_562_563"></a><a href="#FNanchor_562_563"><span class="label">[562]</span></a> Cf. supra, p. 163.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_563_564" id="Footnote_563_564"></a><a href="#FNanchor_563_564"><span class="label">[563]</span></a> R. Marshall, <i>Rural Economy of Yorkshire</i>, p. 17 et
+seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_564_565" id="Footnote_564_565"></a><a href="#FNanchor_564_565"><span class="label">[564]</span></a> Slater, <i>English Peasantry and Enclosure</i>, p. 7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_565_566" id="Footnote_565_566"></a><a href="#FNanchor_565_566"><span class="label">[565]</span></a> It was stated in the <i>Report of the Committee on
+Enclosures</i> (1844), p. 31, that the ordinary expense of obtaining an
+Enclosure Act was from <i>&pound;</i>1,000 to <i>&pound;</i>1,500. In 1814 the enclosure of
+three farms, amounting to 570 acres, including subdivision fences and
+money paid to a tenant for relinquishing his agreement, cost the
+landlord nearly <i>&pound;</i>4,000.&mdash;<i>Agricultural State of the Kingdom</i> (1816),
+p. 116.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_566_567" id="Footnote_566_567"></a><a href="#FNanchor_566_567"><span class="label">[566]</span></a> <i>Enquiry into the Propriety of Supplying Wastes to the
+better Support of the Poor</i>, p. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_567_568" id="Footnote_567_568"></a><a href="#FNanchor_567_568"><span class="label">[567]</span></a> The usual clause in Enclosure Acts stated that the land
+should be 'allotted according to the several and respective rights of
+<i>all</i> who had rights and interests' in the enclosed property, and
+expenses were to be borne 'in proportion to the respective shares of
+the people interested'.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_568_569" id="Footnote_568_569"></a><a href="#FNanchor_568_569"><span class="label">[568]</span></a> pp. 8 et seq. Slater, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 113.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_569_570" id="Footnote_569_570"></a><a href="#FNanchor_569_570"><span class="label">[569]</span></a> Cf. Marshall's account of the common-field townships in
+Hampshire at the end of the eighteenth century. Each occupier of land
+in the common fields contributed to the town flock a number of sheep
+in proportion to his holding, which were placed under a shepherd who
+fed them and folded them on all parts of the township. A similar
+practice was observed with the common herd of cows, which were placed
+under one cowherd who tended them by day and brought them back at
+night to be milked, distributing them among their respective owners,
+and in the morning they were collected by the sound of the
+horn.&mdash;<i>Rural Economy of Southern Counties</i>, ii. 351.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_570_571" id="Footnote_570_571"></a><a href="#FNanchor_570_571"><span class="label">[570]</span></a> <i>Report of Committee on Waste Lands</i> (1795), p. 204.
+Ground was frequently left by the Acts for the erection of cottages
+for the poor, and special allotments were made to Guardians for the
+use of the poor, in addition to the land allotted to all according to
+their respective claims. Can any one doubt that if there had been a
+systematic robbery of the smaller holders on enclosure they would not
+have risen 'en masse'?</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_571_572" id="Footnote_571_572"></a><a href="#FNanchor_571_572"><span class="label">[571]</span></a> Slater, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 133.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_572_573" id="Footnote_572_573"></a><a href="#FNanchor_572_573"><span class="label">[572]</span></a> <i>Agricultural State of the Kingdom</i> (1816), p. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_573_574" id="Footnote_573_574"></a><a href="#FNanchor_573_574"><span class="label">[573]</span></a> <i>Report</i>, p. 204.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_574_575" id="Footnote_574_575"></a><a href="#FNanchor_574_575"><span class="label">[574]</span></a> <i>State of the Poor</i>, pp. i, xviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_575_576" id="Footnote_575_576"></a><a href="#FNanchor_575_576"><span class="label">[575]</span></a> Lecky, <i>England in the Eighteenth Century</i>, vi. 191.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_576_577" id="Footnote_576_577"></a><a href="#FNanchor_576_577"><span class="label">[576]</span></a> Slater, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 191.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_577_578" id="Footnote_577_578"></a><a href="#FNanchor_577_578"><span class="label">[577]</span></a> <i>Report</i>, p. 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_578_579" id="Footnote_578_579"></a><a href="#FNanchor_578_579"><span class="label">[578]</span></a> <i>See</i> above. Another estimate puts them at 180,000.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_579_580" id="Footnote_579_580"></a><a href="#FNanchor_579_580"><span class="label">[579]</span></a> <i>Tour</i>, i. (2), 37, 38.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_580_581" id="Footnote_580_581"></a><a href="#FNanchor_580_581"><span class="label">[580]</span></a> Toynbee, <i>Industrial Revolution</i>, p. 62.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_581_582" id="Footnote_581_582"></a><a href="#FNanchor_581_582"><span class="label">[581]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 71.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_582_583" id="Footnote_582_583"></a><a href="#FNanchor_582_583"><span class="label">[582]</span></a> Marshall, <i>Review of Agriculture, Reports Western
+Department</i>, p. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_583_584" id="Footnote_583_584"></a><a href="#FNanchor_583_584"><span class="label">[583]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1897), xv. 32.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_584_585" id="Footnote_584_585"></a><a href="#FNanchor_584_585"><span class="label">[584]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Accounts and Papers</i>, lxxx. 21. The
+number of those owning over 500 acres does not concern the small owner
+or the yeoman class, but they were: from 500 acres to 1,000, 4,799;
+from 1,000 to 2,000, 2,719; from 2,000 to 5,000, 1,815; from 5,000 to
+10,000, 581; from 10,000 to 20,000, 223; from 20,000 to 50,000, 66;
+from 50,000 to 100,000, 3; over 100,000, 1. For the numbers of the
+'holdings' of various sizes in 1875 and 1907 see below, p. 334. The
+term 'holdings', however, includes freeholds and leaseholds.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>1816-1837</h3>
+
+<h3>DEPRESSION</h3>
+
+
+<p>The summer of 1816 was wretched; the distress, aggravated by the bad
+season, caused riots everywhere. At Bideford the mob interfered to
+prevent the export of a cargo of potatoes; at Bridport they broke
+into the bakers' shops. Incendiary fires broke out night after night
+in the eastern counties. At Swanage six people out of seven were
+paupers, and in one parish in Cambridgeshire every person but one was
+a pauper or a bankrupt.<a name="FNanchor_585_586" id="FNanchor_585_586"></a><a href="#Footnote_585_586" class="fnanchor">[585]</a> Corn rose again: by June, 1817, it was 117<i>s.</i>,
+but fell to 77<i>s.</i> in September.</p>
+
+<p>In 1818 occurred a drought of four months, lasting from May till
+September, and great preparations were made to ward off the expected
+famine; immense quantities of wheat came from the Baltic, of maize
+from America, and beans and maize from Italy and Egypt, with hay from
+New York, as it was selling at <i>&pound;</i>10 a ton. However, rain fell in
+September, brown fields suddenly became green, turnips sprang up
+where none had appeared, and even spring corn that had lain in the
+parched ground began to grow, so the fear of scarcity passed.</p>
+
+<p>In 1822 came a good season, which produced a great crop of wheat; in
+the lifetime of the existing generation old men declared that such a
+harvest had been known only once before; imports also came from
+Ireland to the amount of nearly a million quarters, so that the price
+at the end of the year was 38<i>s.</i>, and the average price for the year
+was 44<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i> Beef went down to 2<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i> a stone and mutton to 2<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i>
+The cry of agricultural distress again rose loudly. Farmers were
+<a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>still, though some of the war taxes had been remitted, heavily taxed;
+for the taxes on malt, soap, salt, candles, leather, all pressed
+heavily.<a name="FNanchor_586_587" id="FNanchor_586_587"></a><a href="#Footnote_586_587" class="fnanchor">[586]</a> The chief cause of the distress was the long-felt
+reaction after the war, but it was aggravated by the return to cash
+payments in 1819. Gold had fallen to its real value, and the fall in
+gold had been followed by a fall in the prices of every other
+article.<a name="FNanchor_587_588" id="FNanchor_587_588"></a><a href="#Footnote_587_588" class="fnanchor">[587]</a> The produce of many thousand acres in England did not
+sell that year for as much money as was expended in growing it,
+without reckoning rent, taxes, and interest on capital.<a name="FNanchor_588_589" id="FNanchor_588_589"></a><a href="#Footnote_588_589" class="fnanchor">[588]</a> Estates
+worth <i>&pound;</i>3,000 a year, says the same writer, some years since, were now
+worth <i>&pound;</i>1,000. Bacon had gone down from 6<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to 2<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> a stone;
+Southdown ewes from 50<i>s.</i> to 15<i>s.</i>, and lambs from 42<i>s.</i> to 5<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>A Dorset farmer told the Parliamentary committee that since 1815 he
+knew of fifty farmers, farming 24,000 acres, who had failed
+entirely.<a name="FNanchor_589_590" id="FNanchor_589_590"></a><a href="#Footnote_589_590" class="fnanchor">[589]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Tyne Mercury</i> of October 30, 1821, it was recorded that Mr.
+Thos. Cooper of Bow purchased 3 milch cows and 40 sheep for <i>&pound;</i>18 16<i>s.</i>
+6<i>d.</i> which sum four years previously would only have bought their
+skins. Prime beef was sold in Salisbury market at 4<i>d.</i> retail, and good
+joints of mutton at 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_590_591" id="FNanchor_590_591"></a><a href="#Footnote_590_591" class="fnanchor">[590]</a> Everywhere the farmers were
+complaining bitterly, but 'hanging on like sailors to the masts or
+hull of a wreck'. In Sussex labourers were being employed to dig holes
+and fill them in again, proof enough of distress but also of great
+folly. Many thousands of acres were now a mass of thistles and weeds,
+once fair grass land ploughed up during the war for wheat, and
+abandoned at the fall of prices. <a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>There were no less than 475 petitions
+on agricultural distress presented to the House from 1820 to March 31,
+1822. In 1822, it was proposed that the Government should purchase
+wheat grown in England to the value of one million sterling and store
+it; also that when the average price of wheat was under 60<i>s.</i> the
+Government should advance money on such corn grown in the United
+Kingdom as should be deposited in certain warehouses, to an extent not
+exceeding two-thirds the value of the corn.<a name="FNanchor_591_592" id="FNanchor_591_592"></a><a href="#Footnote_591_592" class="fnanchor">[591]</a> There were not
+wanting men, however, who put the other side of the question. In a
+tract called <i>The Refutation of the Arguments used on the Subject of
+the Agricultural Petition</i>, written in 1819, it was said that the
+increase in the farmer's expenditure was the cause of his discontent.
+'He now assumes the manners and demands the equipage of a gentleman,
+keeps a table like his landlord, anticipates seasons in their
+productions, is as choice in his wines, his horses, and his
+furniture.' Let him be more thrifty. 'Let him dismiss his steward, a
+character a few years back only known to the great landowner, and
+cease from degrading the British farmer into a synonym for
+prodigality.' Lord Liverpool, in the House of Lords, in a speech which
+roused great opposition among agriculturists, minimized the distress;
+distress there was, he admitted, but it was not confined to England,
+it was world-wide; neither was it produced by excessive taxation, for
+since 1815 taxation had been reduced 25 per cent., while though rents
+and prices had fallen they were much higher than before the war.
+Another writer said at the time, 'Individuals of all classes have of
+late been as it were inflated above their natural size: let this
+unnatural growth be reduced; let them resume their proper places and
+appearances, and the quantum of substantial enjoyment, real comfort
+and happiness, will not be found lessened.' It was also asserted that
+the taxes on malt, leather, soap, salt, and candles, were not very
+pressing.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>The persistent cries of distress produced a Bill giving still further
+protection to corn-growers, which was fortunately not carried into
+effect. There was no doubt, however, about the reality of the crisis
+through which the landed classes were passing. Many of the landowners
+were heavily in debt. Mortgages had been multiplied during the war,
+and while prices were high payment of interest was easy; but when
+prices fell and the tenant threw up his farm, the landlord could not
+throw over the mortgage, and the interest hung like a dead weight
+round his neck.<a name="FNanchor_592_593" id="FNanchor_592_593"></a><a href="#Footnote_592_593" class="fnanchor">[592]</a></p>
+
+<p>The price to which wheat fell at the end of 1822 was to be the lowest
+for some years; it soon recovered, and until 1834 the average annual
+prices ranged from 53<i>s.</i> to 68<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, while in 1825 beef at Smithfield
+was 5<i>s.</i> and mutton 5<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> a stone.</p>
+
+<p>In 1823 there was a marked improvement, and the king's speech
+congratulated the country on 'the gradual abatement of those
+difficulties under which agriculture has so long suffered.'<a name="FNanchor_593_594" id="FNanchor_593_594"></a><a href="#Footnote_593_594" class="fnanchor">[593]</a> In
+1824 'agriculture was recovering from the depression under which it
+laboured.'<a name="FNanchor_594_595" id="FNanchor_594_595"></a><a href="#Footnote_594_595" class="fnanchor">[594]</a> In 1825 it was said, 'there never was a period in the
+history of this country when all the great interests of the nation
+were in so thriving a condition.'<a name="FNanchor_595_596" id="FNanchor_595_596"></a><a href="#Footnote_595_596" class="fnanchor">[595]</a> In that year over-speculation
+produced a panic and agricultural distress was again evident. In 1826
+Cobbett said, 'the present stock of the farms is not in one-half the
+cases the property of the farmer, it is borrowed stock.'<a name="FNanchor_596_597" id="FNanchor_596_597"></a><a href="#Footnote_596_597" class="fnanchor">[596]</a> In 1828
+all the farmers in Kent were said to be insolvent.<a name="FNanchor_597_598" id="FNanchor_597_598"></a><a href="#Footnote_597_598" class="fnanchor">[597]</a></p>
+
+<p>At the meeting of Parliament in 1830 the king lamented the state of
+affairs, and ascribed it to unfavourable seasons and other causes
+beyond the reach of legislative remedy. Many had learnt that high
+protection was no protection <a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>for farmers, and it was stated more than
+once that the large foreign supply of grain, though only then about
+one-third of the home-grown, depressed our markets. At the same time,
+it must be admitted that agriculture, like all other industries, was
+suffering from the crisis of 1825. In 1830, the country was filled
+with unrest, in which the farm labourer shared. His motives, however,
+were hardly political. He had a rooted belief that machinery was
+injuring him, the threshing machine especially; and he avenged himself
+by burning the ricks of obnoxious farmers. Letters were sent to
+employers demanding higher wages and the disuse of machines, and
+notices signed 'Swing' were affixed to gates and buildings. Night
+after night incendiary fires broke out, and emboldened by impunity the
+rioters proceeded to pillage by day. In Hampshire they moved in bodies
+1,500 strong. A special Commission was appointed, and the disorders
+put down at last with a firm hand. In 1828 there had been a relaxation
+in the duties on corn, the object of the Act passed in that year being
+to secure the farmer a constant price of 8<i>s.</i> a bushel instead of 10<i>s.</i>
+as in 1815, and by a sliding scale to prevent the disastrous
+fluctuations in prices. The best proof of its failure is afforded by
+the appointment of another parliamentary committee in 1833 to inquire
+into the distressed state of agriculture. At this inquiry many
+witnesses asserted that the cultivation of inferior soils and heavy
+clays had diminished from one-fourth to one-fifth.<a name="FNanchor_598_599" id="FNanchor_598_599"></a><a href="#Footnote_598_599" class="fnanchor">[598]</a> It was also
+asserted that farmers were paying rent out of capital.<a name="FNanchor_599_600" id="FNanchor_599_600"></a><a href="#Footnote_599_600" class="fnanchor">[599]</a> Tooke,
+however, thought there was much exaggeration of the distress, which
+was proved by the way the farmers weathered the low prices of 1835,
+when wheat, after a succession of four remarkably good seasons,
+averaged 39<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> for the year. In these abundant years, too, he
+asserts that the home supply was equal to the demand,<a name="FNanchor_600_601" id="FNanchor_600_601"></a><a href="#Footnote_600_601" class="fnanchor">[600]</a> though the
+committee of 1833 had <a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a>stated that this had ceased to be the
+case.<a name="FNanchor_601_602" id="FNanchor_601_602"></a><a href="#Footnote_601_602" class="fnanchor">[601]</a> Another committee, the last for many years, sat in 1835 to
+consider the distress; but although prices were low the whole tenor of
+the evidence established the improvement of farming, the extension of
+cultivation, and the increase of produce, and it was noticed at this
+time that towns dependent on agriculture were uniformly
+prosperous.<a name="FNanchor_602_603" id="FNanchor_602_603"></a><a href="#Footnote_602_603" class="fnanchor">[602]</a></p>
+
+<p>On the whole, in spite of exaggeration from interested motives, the
+distress for the twenty years after the battle of Waterloo was real
+and deep; twenty years of depression succeeded the same period of
+false exaltation. The progress, too, during that time was real, and
+made, as was remarked, <i>because</i> of adversity. From this time
+agriculture slowly revived.</p>
+
+<p>On one point both of the two last committees were agreed, that the
+condition of the labourer was improved, and they said he was better
+off than at any former period, for his wages remained the same, while
+prices of necessaries had fallen. That his wages went further is true,
+but they were still miserably low, and he was often housed worse than
+the animals on the farm. 'Wattle and dab' (or mud and straw) formed
+the walls of his cottage, the floors were often of mud, and all ages
+and both sexes frequently slept in one room. A block of ten cottages
+were put up in the parish of Holmer<a name="FNanchor_603_604" id="FNanchor_603_604"></a><a href="#Footnote_603_604" class="fnanchor">[603]</a> <a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a>at the commencement of the
+nineteenth century, which were said to have combined 'comfort,
+convenience, and economy;' they each contained one room 12 feet by 14
+feet and 6 feet high with a bedroom over, and cost <i>&pound;</i>32 10<i>s.</i> each. They
+were evidently considered quite superior dwellings, far better than
+the ordinary run of labourer's cottages. Cobbett gives us a picture of
+some in Leicestershire in 1826; 'hovels made of mud and straw, bits of
+glass, or of old cast-off windows, without frames or hinges
+frequently, and merely stuck in the mud wall. Enter them and look at
+the bits of chairs or stools, the wretched boards tacked together to
+serve for a table, the floor of pebble, broken brick, or of the bare
+ground; look at the thing called a bed, and survey the rags on the
+backs of the wretched inhabitants.'<a name="FNanchor_604_605" id="FNanchor_604_605"></a><a href="#Footnote_604_605" class="fnanchor">[604]</a> The chief exceptions to this
+state of affairs were the estates of many of the great landlords. On
+that of the Earl of Winchelsea in Rutland, the cottages he had built
+contained a kitchen, parlour, dairy, two bedrooms, and a cow-house,
+and several had small holdings attached of from 5 to 20 acres.<a name="FNanchor_605_606" id="FNanchor_605_606"></a><a href="#Footnote_605_606" class="fnanchor">[605]</a>
+Not long before, wages in Hampshire and Wiltshire were 5<i>s.</i> and 6<i>s.</i> a
+week.<a name="FNanchor_606_607" id="FNanchor_606_607"></a><a href="#Footnote_606_607" class="fnanchor">[606]</a></p>
+
+<p>In 1822 it was stated that 'beef and mutton are things the taste of
+which was unknown to the mass of labourers. No one has lived more in
+cottages than I, and I declare solemnly I never remember once to have
+seen such a thing.'<a name="FNanchor_607_608" id="FNanchor_607_608"></a><a href="#Footnote_607_608" class="fnanchor">[607]</a> A group of women labourers, whom Cobbett saw
+by the roadside in Hampshire, presented 'such an assemblage of rags as
+I never saw before even amongst the hoppers at Farnham.'<a name="FNanchor_608_609" id="FNanchor_608_609"></a><a href="#Footnote_608_609" class="fnanchor">[608]</a></p>
+
+<p>The labourer's wages may have gone a little further, but he <a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a>had lost
+his by-industries, his bit of land and rights of common, and would
+have had a very different tale to tell from that of the framers of the
+reports above quoted.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the complaints made that the improvements of the coaches
+and of the roads drew the countryman to the towns, many stirred hardly
+at all from their native parish, and their lives were now infinitely
+duller than in the Middle Ages. The great event of the year was the
+harvest home, which was usually a scene of great merry-making. In
+Devonshire, when a farmer's wheat was ripe he sent round notice to the
+neighbourhood, and men and women from all sides came to reap the crop.
+As early as eleven or twelve, so much ale and cider had been drunk
+that the shouts and ribald jokes of the company were heard to a
+considerable distance, attracting more helpers, who came from far and
+near, but none were allowed to come after 12 o'clock. Between 12 and 1
+came dinner, with copious libations of ale and cider, which lasted
+till 2, when reaping was resumed and went on without interruption
+except from the squabbles of the company till 5, when what were called
+'drinkings', or more food and drink, were taken into the field and
+consumed. After this the corn reaped was bound into sheaves till
+evening, when after the sport of throwing their reaping hooks at a
+sheaf which had been set up as a mark for a prize, all proceeded to
+supper and more ale and cider till the small hours.<a name="FNanchor_609_610" id="FNanchor_609_610"></a><a href="#Footnote_609_610" class="fnanchor">[609]</a></p>
+
+<p>No wages were paid at these harvestings, but the unlimited amount of
+eating and drinking was very expensive, and about this date the
+practice of using hired labour had largely superseded this old custom.</p>
+
+<p>The close of this period was marked by two Acts of great benefit to
+farmers: the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (4 &amp; 5 Wm. IV, c. 76),
+which reduced the rates,<a name="FNanchor_610_611" id="FNanchor_610_611"></a><a href="#Footnote_610_611" class="fnanchor">[610]</a> and marked <a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a>'the beginning of a period
+of slow recovery in the labourer's standard of life, moral and
+material, though at first it brought him not a little adversity'<a name="FNanchor_611_612" id="FNanchor_611_612"></a><a href="#Footnote_611_612" class="fnanchor">[611]</a>;
+and the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 (6 &amp; 7 Wm. IV, c. 71), which
+substituted for the tithe paid in kind or the fluctuating commuted
+tithe, a tithe rent charge equivalent to the market value, on a
+septennial average, of the exact quantities of wheat, barley, and
+oats, which made up the legal tithes by the estimate in 1836. Thus was
+removed a perpetual source of dispute and antagonism between
+tithe-payer and tithe-owner. The system hitherto pursued, moreover,
+was wasteful. In exceptionally favourable circumstances the clergy did
+not receive more than two-thirds of the value of the tithe in kind.
+The delays were a frequent source of loss. In rainy weather, when the
+farmer desired to get his crops in quickly, he was obliged to shock
+his crops, give the tithe-owners notice to set out their tithes, and
+wait for their arrival; in the meantime the crop, perhaps, being badly
+damaged.<a name="FNanchor_612_613" id="FNanchor_612_613"></a><a href="#Footnote_612_613" class="fnanchor">[612]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_278" id="Footnotes_278"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_585_586" id="Footnote_585_586"></a><a href="#FNanchor_585_586"><span class="label">[585]</span></a> Walpole, <i>History of England</i>, i. 161.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_586_587" id="Footnote_586_587"></a><a href="#FNanchor_586_587"><span class="label">[586]</span></a> <i>Inquiry into Agricultural Distress</i> (1822), p. 40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_587_588" id="Footnote_587_588"></a><a href="#FNanchor_587_588"><span class="label">[587]</span></a> Walpole, <i>op. cit.</i> ii. 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_588_589" id="Footnote_588_589"></a><a href="#FNanchor_588_589"><span class="label">[588]</span></a> <i>A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory</i>,
+1822. The Committee on Agricultural Distress found that farmers were
+paying rent out of capital (<i>Parliamentary Reports. Committees</i>, v.
+71), and that leases fixed on the basis of the high prices of the war
+meant ruin to the farmer if held to his engagement.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_589_590" id="Footnote_589_590"></a><a href="#FNanchor_589_590"><span class="label">[589]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Committees</i>, ix. 138.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_590_591" id="Footnote_590_591"></a><a href="#FNanchor_590_591"><span class="label">[590]</span></a> Cobbett, <i>Rural Rides</i> (ed. 1885), i. 3, 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_591_592" id="Footnote_591_592"></a><a href="#FNanchor_591_592"><span class="label">[591]</span></a> <i>Report of the Committee on Agricultural Depression</i>
+(1822), pp. 3, 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_592_593" id="Footnote_592_593"></a><a href="#FNanchor_592_593"><span class="label">[592]</span></a> Walpole, <i>History of England</i>, ii. 23.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_593_594" id="Footnote_593_594"></a><a href="#FNanchor_593_594"><span class="label">[593]</span></a> <i>Hansard</i>, ix. 1544.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_594_595" id="Footnote_594_595"></a><a href="#FNanchor_594_595"><span class="label">[594]</span></a> Ibid. x. 1, 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_595_596" id="Footnote_595_596"></a><a href="#FNanchor_595_596"><span class="label">[595]</span></a> Ibid. xii. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_596_597" id="Footnote_596_597"></a><a href="#FNanchor_596_597"><span class="label">[596]</span></a> <i>Rural Rides</i>, ii. 199.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_597_598" id="Footnote_597_598"></a><a href="#FNanchor_597_598"><span class="label">[597]</span></a> Walpole, <i>History of England</i>, ii. 526. The distress
+was aggravated by rot among sheep, which is said to have destroyed
+one-fourth of those in the kingdom. See <i>Parliamentary Reports,
+Commissioners</i> (1836), viii (2), p. 198.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_598_599" id="Footnote_598_599"></a><a href="#FNanchor_598_599"><span class="label">[598]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, ii. 227.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_599_600" id="Footnote_599_600"></a><a href="#FNanchor_599_600"><span class="label">[599]</span></a> <i>Report</i> of 1833, p. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_600_601" id="Footnote_600_601"></a><a href="#FNanchor_600_601"><span class="label">[600]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, ii, 238.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_601_602" id="Footnote_601_602"></a><a href="#FNanchor_601_602"><span class="label">[601]</span></a> Imports fell considerably at this date; they were:
+</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>1832&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1,254,351</td><td align='left'>quarters.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1833</td><td align='right'>1,166,457</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1834</td><td align='right'>981,486</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1835</td><td align='right'>750,808</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1836</td><td align='right'>861,156</td><td align='center'> "</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1837</td><td align='right'>1,109,492</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1838</td><td align='right'>1,923,400</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p>
+There were also considerable exports:
+</p>
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>1832&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>289,558</td><td align='left'>quarters.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1833</td><td align='right'>96,212</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1834</td><td align='right'>159,482</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1835</td><td align='right'>134,076</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1836</td><td align='right'>256,978</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1837</td><td align='right'>308,420</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1838</td><td align='right'>158,621</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p>
+McCulloch, <i>Commercial Dictionary</i> (1847), p. 438.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_602_603" id="Footnote_602_603"></a><a href="#FNanchor_602_603"><span class="label">[602]</span></a> Porter, <i>Progress of the Nation</i>, p. 151.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_603_604" id="Footnote_603_604"></a><a href="#FNanchor_603_604"><span class="label">[603]</span></a> See Duncumb, <i>General View of Herefordshire</i>, (1805).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_604_605" id="Footnote_604_605"></a><a href="#FNanchor_604_605"><span class="label">[604]</span></a> Rural Rides, ii. 348.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_605_606" id="Footnote_605_606"></a><a href="#FNanchor_605_606"><span class="label">[605]</span></a> London, <i>Encyclopaedia of Agriculture</i> (1831), p.
+1156.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_606_607" id="Footnote_606_607"></a><a href="#FNanchor_606_607"><span class="label">[606]</span></a> Cobbett, <i>Rural Rides</i>, i. 149. The average, however,
+now was about 9<i>s.</i>; see <i>Parliamentary Reports</i>, v. 72.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_607_608" id="Footnote_607_608"></a><a href="#FNanchor_607_608"><span class="label">[607]</span></a> <i>A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory</i>
+(1822), p. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_608_609" id="Footnote_608_609"></a><a href="#FNanchor_608_609"><span class="label">[608]</span></a> <i>Rural Rides</i>, i. 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_609_610" id="Footnote_609_610"></a><a href="#FNanchor_609_610"><span class="label">[609]</span></a> Moore, <i>History of Devonshire</i>, i. 430.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_610_611" id="Footnote_610_611"></a><a href="#FNanchor_610_611"><span class="label">[610]</span></a> By this Act and the various amending Acts the law of
+settlement, so long a burden on the labourer, is now settled thus: a
+settlement may be acquired by birth, parentage, marriage, renting a
+tenement, by being bound apprentice and inhabiting, by estate, payment
+of taxes, and by residence.&mdash;Stephen, <i>Commentaries on the Laws of
+England</i> (1903), iii. 87.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_611_612" id="Footnote_611_612"></a><a href="#FNanchor_611_612"><span class="label">[611]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 217.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_612_613" id="Footnote_612_613"></a><a href="#FNanchor_612_613"><span class="label">[612]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (1901), p. 9.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>1837-1875</h3>
+
+<h3>REVIVAL OF AGRICULTURE.&mdash;THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.&mdash;CORN LAW
+REPEAL.&mdash;A TEMPORARY SET-BACK.&mdash;THE HALCYON DAYS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The revival of agriculture roughly coincided with the accession of
+Queen Victoria.</p>
+
+<p>It was proved that Scotch farmers who had farmed highly had weathered
+the storm. Instead of repeatedly calling on Parliament to help them
+they had helped themselves, by spending large sums in draining and
+manuring the land; they had adopted the subsoil plough, and the
+drainage system of Smith of Deanston, used machinery to economize
+labour, and improved the breed of stock. This was an object-lesson
+for the English farmer, and he began to profit by it. It was high
+time that he did. In spite of the undoubted progress made, farming
+was still often terribly backward. Little or no machinery was used,
+implements were often bad, teams too large, drilling little
+practised, drainage utterly inefficient; in fact, while one farmer
+used all the improvements made, a hundred had little to do with them.
+But better times were at hand.</p>
+
+<p>About 1835 Elkington's system of drainage, which among the more
+advanced agriculturists, at any rate, had been used for half a
+century, was superseded by that of James Smith of Deanston, a system
+of thorough drainage and deep ploughing, which effected a complete
+revolution in the art of draining, and holds the field to-day.
+Hitherto the draining of land had been done by a few drains where they
+were thought necessary, which was often a failure. Smith initiated a
+complete system of parallel underground drains, near enough to each,
+other to catch all the superfluous water, running into a main drain
+<a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a>which ran along the lowest part of the ground. His system has also
+been called 'furrow or frequent draining', as the drains were
+generally laid in the furrows from two to two-and-a-half feet deep at
+short intervals. Even then the tributary drains were at first filled
+in with stones 12 inches deep, as they had been for centuries, and
+sometimes with thorns, or even turves, as tiles were still expensive;
+and the main was made of stonework. However, the invention of machines
+for making tiles cheapened them, and the substitution of cylindrical
+pipes for horse-shoe tiles laid on flat soles still further lowered
+the cost and increased the efficiency.<a name="FNanchor_613_614" id="FNanchor_613_614"></a><a href="#Footnote_613_614" class="fnanchor">[613]</a> In 1848, Peel introduced
+Government Drainage Loans, repayable by twenty-two instalments of 6
+<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub> per cent. This was consequently an era of extensive drainage works
+all over England, which sorely needed it; but even now the work was
+often badly done. In some cases it was the custom for the tenant to
+put in as many tiles as his landlord gave him, and they were often
+merely buried. At Stratfieldsaye, for instance, where the Iron Duke
+was a generous and capable landlord, the drains were sometimes a foot
+deep, while others were 6 feet deep and 60 feet apart,<a name="FNanchor_614_615" id="FNanchor_614_615"></a><a href="#Footnote_614_615" class="fnanchor">[614]</a> although
+the soil required nothing of the kind.</p>
+
+<p>Vast sums were also spent on farm-buildings, still often old and
+rickety, with deficient and insanitary accommodation; in Devonshire
+the farmer was bound by his lease to repair 'old mud and wooden
+houses', at a cost of 10 per cent. on his rent, and there were many
+such all over England. Farm-buildings were often at the extreme end
+of the holding, the cattle were crowded together in draughty sheds,
+and the farmyard was generally a mass of filth and spoiling manure,
+spoiling because all the liquid was draining away from it into the
+pool where the live stock drank; a picture, alas, often true to-day.
+It was to bring the great mass of landlords and <a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a>farmers into line with
+those who had made the most of what progress there had been, that the
+Royal Society was founded in 1838, in imitation of the Highland
+Society, but also owing to the realization of the great benefits
+conferred on farming during the last half-century by the exertions of
+Agricultural Societies, the Smithfield Club Shows having especially
+aided the breeding of live stock.</p>
+
+<p>Writing on the subject of the Society, Mr. Handley<a name="FNanchor_615_616" id="FNanchor_615_616"></a><a href="#Footnote_615_616" class="fnanchor">[615]</a> spoke of the
+wretched modes of farming still to be seen in the country, especially
+in the case of arable land, though there had been a marked improvement
+in the breeding of stock. Prejudice, as ever, was rampant. Bone
+manure, though in the previous twenty years it had worked wonders, was
+in many parts unused. It was felt that what the English farmer needed
+was 'practice with science'. The first President of the Society was
+Earl Spencer, and it at once set vigorously to work, recommending
+prizes for essays on twenty-four subjects, some of which are in the
+first volume of the Society's Journal. Prizes were also offered for
+the best draining-plough, the best implement for crushing gorse, for a
+ploughing match to be held at the first country meeting of the Society
+fixed at Oxford in 1839, for the best cultivated farm in Oxfordshire
+and the adjacent counties, and for the invention of any new
+agricultural implement.</p>
+
+<p>In 1840 the Society was granted a charter under the title of the Royal
+Agricultural Society of England, and its career since then has been
+one of continued usefulness, and forms a prominent feature in the
+agricultural history of the times.</p>
+
+<p>In 1839<a name="FNanchor_616_617" id="FNanchor_616_617"></a><a href="#Footnote_616_617" class="fnanchor">[616]</a> the first country meeting of the Society was held at
+Oxford, and its 247 entries of live stock and 54 of implements were
+described as constituting a show of unprecedented magnitude. According
+to <i>Bell's Weekly Messenger</i> for July 22, 1839, the show for some time
+had been the all-absorbing topic of conversation not only among
+<a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a>agriculturists, but among the community at large, and the first day
+20,000 people attended the show, many having come great distances by
+road. Everybody and every exhibit had to get to Oxford by road; some
+Shorthorn cattle, belonging to the famous Thomas Bates of
+Kirkleavington, took nearly three weeks on the road, coming from
+London to Aylesbury by canal. But such a journey was not unusual then,
+for cattle were often two or three weeks on the road to great fairs,
+and stood the journey best on hay; it was surprising how fresh and
+sound they finished.<a name="FNanchor_617_618" id="FNanchor_617_618"></a><a href="#Footnote_617_618" class="fnanchor">[617]</a> The show ground covered 7 acres, and among
+the implements tested was a subsoil plough, Biddell's Scarifier, and a
+drill for depositing manure after turnips. There were only six classes
+for cattle&mdash;Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Cattle of any other breed,
+Dairy Cattle, and Oxen; one class for horses, and three for
+sheep&mdash;Leicesters, Southdown or other Short Wool, and Long Woolled;
+with one for pigs.<a name="FNanchor_618_619" id="FNanchor_618_619"></a><a href="#Footnote_618_619" class="fnanchor">[618]</a> The Shorthorns, with the exception of the
+Kirkleavingtons, were bred in the neighbourhood, and many good judges
+said long afterwards that a finer lot had not been seen since. The
+Duchesses especially impressed all who saw them. The rest of the live
+stock was in no way remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>From this small beginning, then thought so much of, the show grew
+fast, and the Warwick meeting<a name="FNanchor_619_620" id="FNanchor_619_620"></a><a href="#Footnote_619_620" class="fnanchor">[619]</a> of 1892, after several years of
+agricultural depression, illustrates the excellent work of the Society
+and the enormous progress made by English agriculture. The show ground
+covered 90 acres; horses were now divided into Thoroughbred Stallions,
+Hunters, Coach Horses, Hackneys, Ponies, Harness Horses and Ponies,
+Shires, Clydesdales, Suffolks, and Agricultural Horses. Cattle were
+classified as Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Sussex, Longhorns
+(described as few in number and of no particular quality, 'a breed
+which has now been many <a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a>years on the wane', but has recently been
+revived),<a name="FNanchor_620_621" id="FNanchor_620_621"></a><a href="#Footnote_620_621" class="fnanchor">[620]</a> Welsh, Red Polled, Jerseys, Guernseys, Kerry and
+Dexter-Kerry.</p>
+
+<p>The increased variety of sheep was also striking; Leicesters,
+Cotswolds, Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Shropshires, Southdowns, Hampshire
+Downs, Suffolks, Border Leicesters, Clun Forest, and Welsh Mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Pigs were divided into Large, Middle, and Small white Berkshires, any
+other black breed, and Tamworths.</p>
+
+<p>Altogether the total number of stock exhibited was 1,858, and the
+number of implements was 5,430.</p>
+
+<p>In 1840 appeared Liebig's <i>Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture
+and Physiology</i>, tracing the relations between the nutrition of plants
+and the composition of the soil, a book which was received with
+enthusiasm, and completely changed the attitude which agriculturists
+generally had maintained towards chemistry; one of contempt, founded
+on ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>But, as Mr. Prothero has said,<a name="FNanchor_621_622" id="FNanchor_621_622"></a><a href="#Footnote_621_622" class="fnanchor">[621]</a> 'if the new agriculture was born
+in the laboratory of Glissen, it grew into strength at the
+experimental station of Rothamsted.' There, for more than half a
+century, Lawes and Gilbert conducted experiments, of vast benefit to
+agriculture, in the objects, method, and effect of manuring; the
+scientific bases for the rotation of crops, and the results of various
+foods on animals in the production of meat, milk, and manure.</p>
+
+<p>The use of artificial manures now spread rapidly; bones, used long
+before uncrushed, are said to have been first crushed in 1772, and
+their value was realized by Coke of Holkham, but for long they were
+crushed by hammer or horse mill, and their use was consequently
+limited. Then iron rollers worked by steam ground them cheaply and
+effectively, and their use soon spread, though it was not till about
+1840 that it can be said to have become general. Its effects were
+often described <a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a>as wonderful. In Cheshire, cheese-making had
+exhausted the soil, and it was said that by boning and draining an
+additional cow could be kept for every 4 acres, and tenants readily
+paid 7 per cent. to their landlords for expenditure in bone manure.
+Its use had indeed raised many struggling farmers to comparative
+independence.<a name="FNanchor_622_623" id="FNanchor_622_623"></a><a href="#Footnote_622_623" class="fnanchor">[622]</a> A very large quantity of the bones used came from
+South America.<a name="FNanchor_623_624" id="FNanchor_623_624"></a><a href="#Footnote_623_624" class="fnanchor">[623]</a> Porter also noticed that 'since 1840 an extensive
+trade has been carried on in an article called Guano', the guana of
+Davy, 'from the islands of the Pacific and off the coast of Africa'.
+Nitrate of soda was just coming in, but was not much used till some
+years later. In 1840 Liebig suggested the treatment of bones with
+sulphuric acid, and in 1843 Lawes patented the process and set up his
+works at Deptford.<a name="FNanchor_624_625" id="FNanchor_624_625"></a><a href="#Footnote_624_625" class="fnanchor">[624]</a></p>
+
+<p>Italian rye grass, not to be confounded with the old English ray
+grass, had been introduced by Thomson of Banchory, in 1834, from
+Munich;<a name="FNanchor_625_626" id="FNanchor_625_626"></a><a href="#Footnote_625_626" class="fnanchor">[625]</a> and though the swede was known at the end of the
+eighteenth century, in many parts it had only just become common. In
+Notts it was in 1844 described as having recently become 'the
+sheet-anchor of the farmer'.<a name="FNanchor_626_627" id="FNanchor_626_627"></a><a href="#Footnote_626_627" class="fnanchor">[626]</a> In Cheshire a writer at the same
+date said, 'in the year 1814 there were not 5 acres of Swedish turnips
+grown in the parish where I reside; now there are from 60 to 80, and
+in many parts of the county the increase has been in a much greater
+ratio.'<a name="FNanchor_627_628" id="FNanchor_627_628"></a><a href="#Footnote_627_628" class="fnanchor">[627]</a></p>
+
+<p>About this time a remedy was found in the south for leaving the land
+idle during the nine months between harvesting the corn crop in
+August, and sowing the turnip crop in the following June, by sowing
+rye, which was eaten green by the sheep in May, a good preparation for
+the succeeding winter crop. Turnip cutters were at last being used,
+and corn and cake crushers soon followed.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"></a>The seasons from 1838 to 1841 were bad, and must be characterized as
+a period of dearth, wheat keeping at a good price.<a name="FNanchor_628_629" id="FNanchor_628_629"></a><a href="#Footnote_628_629" class="fnanchor">[628]</a> That of 1844-5
+was remarkable for the first general appearance of the potato disease,
+not only in these islands but on the continent of Europe.<a name="FNanchor_629_630" id="FNanchor_629_630"></a><a href="#Footnote_629_630" class="fnanchor">[629]</a> In
+August, 1846, the worst apprehensions of the failure of the crop were
+more than realized, and the terrible results in Ireland are well
+known. In the early part of 1847 there was a fear of scarcity in corn,
+and the price of wheat rose to 102<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i> in spite of an importation of
+4,500,000 quarters, but this was largely owing to the absence of any
+reliable agricultural statistics, which were not furnished till 1866,
+and the price soon fell.<a name="FNanchor_630_631" id="FNanchor_630_631"></a><a href="#Footnote_630_631" class="fnanchor">[630]</a></p>
+
+<p>We have now reached the period of free trade, when the Corn Laws,
+which had protected agriculture more or less effectually for so long,
+were definitely abandoned. That they had failed to prevent great
+fluctuations in the price of corn is abundantly evident, it is also
+equally evident that they kept up the average price; in the ten years
+from 1837 to 1846, the average price of wheat was 58<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i> a quarter,
+in the seven years from 1848 to 1853, the average price was 48<i>s.</i>
+2<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_631_632" id="FNanchor_631_632"></a><a href="#Footnote_631_632" class="fnanchor">[631]</a></p>
+
+<p>The average imports of wheat and flour for the same period were
+2,161,813 and 4,401,000 quarters <a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"></a>respectively. But to obtain the real
+effect of free trade on prices, the prices for the period between 1815
+and 1846 must be compared with those between 1846 and the present day,
+when the fall is enormous.</p>
+
+<p>The Act of 1815, which Tooke said had failed to secure any one of the
+objects aimed at by its promoters, had received two important
+alterations. In 1828 (9 Geo. IV, c. 60) a duty of 36<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> was imposed
+when the price was 50<i>s.</i>, decreasing to 1<i>s.</i> when it was 73<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>In 1843 (5 Vict. c. 14) a duty of 20<i>s.</i> was imposed when the price was
+50<i>s.</i>, and the duty became 7<i>s.</i> when the price reached 65<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>A contemporary writer denies that these duties benefited the farmer at
+all: 'if the present shifting scale of duty was intended to protect
+the farmer, keep the prices of corn steady, insure a supply to the
+consumer at a moderate price, and benefit the revenue, it has signally
+failed. During the continuation of the Corn Laws the farmers have
+suffered the greatest privations. The variations in price have been
+extreme, and when a supply of foreign corn has been required it has
+only reached the consumer at a high price, and benefited the revenue
+little.'<a name="FNanchor_632_633" id="FNanchor_632_633"></a><a href="#Footnote_632_633" class="fnanchor">[632]</a> Rents of farms were often calculated not on the market
+price of wheat, but on the price thought to be fixed by the duties,
+which was occasionally much higher.<a name="FNanchor_633_634" id="FNanchor_633_634"></a><a href="#Footnote_633_634" class="fnanchor">[633]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was also said that but for the restrictions that had been imposed
+in the supposed interests of agriculture, the skill and enterprise of
+farmers would have been better directed than it had been. By means of
+these restrictions and the consequent enhancement of the cost of
+living, the cultivation of the land had been injuriously restricted,
+for the energies of farmers had been limited to producing certain
+descriptions of food, and they had neglected others which would have
+been <a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></a>far<a name="FNanchor_634_635" id="FNanchor_634_635"></a><a href="#Footnote_634_635" class="fnanchor">[634]</a> more profitable. The landlord had profited by higher
+rents, but, according to Caird, a most competent observer, had
+generally speaking been induced by a reliance on protection to neglect
+his duty to his estates, so that buildings were poor, and drainage
+neglected. The labourer was little if any better off than eighty years
+before. It was a mystery even to farmers how they lived in many parts
+of the country; 'our common drink,' said one, 'is burnt crust tea, we
+never know what it is to get enough to eat.'<a name="FNanchor_635_636" id="FNanchor_635_636"></a><a href="#Footnote_635_636" class="fnanchor">[635]</a> Against these
+disadvantages can only be put the fact that protection had kept up the
+price of corn, a calamity for the mass of the people.</p>
+
+<p>The amount of wheat imported into England before the era of Corn Law
+repeal was inconsiderable. Mr. Porter has shown<a name="FNanchor_636_637" id="FNanchor_636_637"></a><a href="#Footnote_636_637" class="fnanchor">[636]</a> how very small a
+proportion of wheat used in this country was imported from 1801-44.
+From 1801 to 1810 the average annual import of wheat into the kingdom
+was 600,946 quarters, or a little over a peck annually per head, the
+average annual consumption per head being about eight bushels. Between
+1811 and 1820 the average importation was 458,578 quarters, or for the
+increased population a gallon-and-a-half per head, and the same share
+for each person was imported in the next decade 1821-30. From 1831-40
+the average imports arose to 607,638 quarters, or two-and-a-quarter
+gallons per head, and in 1841-4 an average import of 1,901,495
+quarters raised the average supply to four-and-a-half gallons per
+person, still a very small proportion of the amount consumed.</p>
+
+<p>In 1836 a small association had been formed in London for advocating
+the repeal of the Corn Laws, and in 1838 a similar association was
+formed in Manchester.<a name="FNanchor_637_638" id="FNanchor_637_638"></a><a href="#Footnote_637_638" class="fnanchor">[637]</a> At one <a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a>of its earliest meetings appeared
+Richard Cobden, under whose guidance the association became the
+Anti-Corn Law League, and at whose invitation John Bright joined the
+League. Under these two men the Anti-Corn Law League commenced its
+great agitation, its object being 'to convince the manufacturer that
+the Corn Laws were interfering with the growth of trade, to persuade
+the people that they were raising the price of food, to teach the
+agriculturist that they had not even the solitary merit of securing a
+fixed price for corn'. The country was deluged with pamphlets, backed
+up by constant public meetings; and these efforts, aided by
+unfavourable seasons, convinced many of the errors of protection. In
+1840 the League spent <i>&pound;</i>5,700 in distributing 160,000 circulars and
+150,000 pamphlets, and in delivering 400 lectures to 800,000 people.
+Bakers were persuaded to bake taxed and untaxed shilling loaves, and,
+on the purchaser choosing the larger, to demand the tax from the
+landlord; in 1843 the League collected <i>&pound;</i>50,000, next year <i>&pound;</i>100,000,
+and in 1845 <i>&pound;</i>250,000 in support of their agitation.</p>
+
+<p>Yet for some years they had little success in Parliament; even in 1842
+Peel only amended the laws; and it was not until 1846 that, convinced
+by the League's arguments, as he himself confessed, and stimulated by
+the famine in Ireland, he introduced the famous Act, 9 &amp; 10 Vict. c.
+22.</p>
+
+<p>By this the maximum duty on imported wheat was at once to be reduced
+to 10<i>s.</i> a quarter when the price was under 48<i>s.</i>, to 5<i>s.</i> on barley when
+the price was under 26<i>s.</i>, and to 4<i>s.</i> on oats when the price was under
+18<i>s.</i>, with lower duties as prices rose above these figures, but the
+most important part of the Act was that on February 1, 1849, these
+duties were to cease, and only a nominal duty of 1<i>s.</i> a quarter on
+foreign corn be retained, which was abolished in 1860.</p>
+
+<p>By 9 and 10 Vict. c. 23 the duties on live stock were also abolished
+entirely. Down to 1842 the importation of horned cattle, sheep, hogs,
+and other animals used as food was <a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></a>strictly prohibited,<a name="FNanchor_638_639" id="FNanchor_638_639"></a><a href="#Footnote_638_639" class="fnanchor">[638]</a> but in
+that year the prohibition was withdrawn and they were allowed to enter
+the country on a payment of 20<i>s.</i> a head on oxen and bulls, 15<i>s.</i> on
+cows, 3<i>s.</i> on sheep, 5<i>s.</i> on hogs; which duties continued till 1846.</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to find that so shrewd an observer as McCulloch did
+not expect any great increase in the imports of live animals from the
+reduction of the duties, but he anticipated a great increase in salted
+meat from abroad; cold storage being then undreamt of.</p>
+
+<p>The full effect of this momentous change was not to be felt for a
+generation, but the immediate effect was an agricultural panic
+apparently justified by falling prices. In 1850 wheat averaged 40<i>s.</i>
+3<i>d.</i> and in 1851 38<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> On the other hand, stock farmers were doing
+well. But on the corn lands the prices of the protection era had to
+come down; many farms were thrown up, some arable turned into pasture;
+distress was widespread. Owing to the depressed state of agriculture
+in 1850, the <i>Times</i> sent James Caird on a tour through England, and
+one of the most important conclusions arrived at in his account of his
+tour is, that owing to protection, the majority of landowners had
+neglected their land; but another cause of neglect was that the great
+body of English landlords knew nothing of the management of their
+estates, and committed it to agents who knew little more and merely
+received the rents. The important business of being a landowner is the
+only one for which no special training is provided. Many of the
+landlords, however, then, as now, were unable to improve their estates
+if they desired to do so, as they were hopelessly encumbered, and the
+expense of sale was almost prohibitive. The contrast between good and
+bad farmers was more marked in 1850 than to-day, the efforts of the
+Royal Agricultural Society to raise the general standard of farming
+had not yet borne much fruit. In many counties, side by side, were
+farmers who used every modern improvement, and those <a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></a>who still
+employed the methods of the eighteenth century: on one farm wheat
+producing 40 bushels an acre, threshed by steam at a cost of 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>,
+on the next 20 bushels to the acre threshed by the flail at a cost of
+9<i>s.</i><a name="FNanchor_639_640" id="FNanchor_639_640"></a><a href="#Footnote_639_640" class="fnanchor">[639]</a></p>
+
+<p>Drainage in the counties where it was needed had made considerable
+progress, the removal of useless hedgerows often crowded with timber,
+that kept the sun from the crops and whose roots absorbed much of the
+nourishment of the soil, was slowly extending, but farm-buildings
+almost everywhere were defective. 'The inconvenient ill-arranged
+hovels, the rickety wood and thatch barns and sheds devoid of every
+known improvement for economizing labour, food, and manure, which are
+to be met with in every county in England, are a reproach to the
+landlords in the eyes of all good farmers.'<a name="FNanchor_640_641" id="FNanchor_640_641"></a><a href="#Footnote_640_641" class="fnanchor">[640]</a> The farm-buildings of
+Belgium, Holland, France, and the Rhenish Provinces were much
+superior. In parts of England indeed no progress seems to have been
+made for generations at this date. Thousands of acres of peat moss in
+Lancashire were unreclaimed, and many parts of the Fylde district were
+difficult even to traverse. Even in Warwickshire, in the heart of
+England, between Knowle and Tamworth, instead of signs of industry and
+improvement were narrow winding lanes leading to nothing, traversed by
+lean pigs and rough cattle, broad copse-like hedges, small and
+irregular fields of couch, amidst which straggled the stalks of some
+smothered cereal; these with gipsy encampments and the occasional
+sound of the poacher's gun from woods and thickets around were the
+characteristics of the district.<a name="FNanchor_641_642" id="FNanchor_641_642"></a><a href="#Footnote_641_642" class="fnanchor">[641]</a></p>
+
+<p>Leases were the exception throughout England, though more prevalent in
+the west.<a name="FNanchor_642_643" id="FNanchor_642_643"></a><a href="#Footnote_642_643" class="fnanchor">[642]</a> The greater proportion of farms were held on yearly
+agreements terminable by six months' notice on either side, a system
+preferred by the landlord as enabling him to retain a greater hold
+over his land, and <a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a>acquiesced in by the tenant because of easy rents.
+In spite of this insecurity of tenure and the absence of Agricultural
+Holdings Acts, the tenants invested their capital largely with no
+other security than the landlord's character, 'for in no country of
+the world does the character of any class of men stand so high for
+fair and generous dealing as that of the great body of the English
+landlords.'</p>
+
+<p>The custom of tenant-right was unknown except in certain counties,
+Surrey, Sussex, the Weald of Kent, Lincoln, North Notts, and in part
+of the West Riding of Yorkshire.<a name="FNanchor_643_644" id="FNanchor_643_644"></a><a href="#Footnote_643_644" class="fnanchor">[643]</a> Where it existed, the
+agriculture was on the whole inferior to that of the districts where
+it did not, and it had frequently led to fraud in a greater or less
+degree. Many farmers were in the practice of 'working up to a
+quitting', or making a profit by the difference which their ingenuity
+and that of their valuer enabled them to demand at leaving as compared
+with what they paid on entry. The best farmers as well as the
+landlords were said to be disgusted with the system. The dislike for
+leases in the days immediately before the repeal of the Corn Laws was
+partly due to the uncertainty how long protection would last; but
+chiefly then, as afterwards, to the fact that if a man improved his
+farm under a lease he had nearly always to pay an increased rent on
+renewal, but if he held from year to year his improvement, if any, was
+so gradual and imperceptible that it was hardly noticed and the rent
+was not raised. It may also be attributable to the modern
+disinclination to be bound down to a particular spot for a long
+period. At all events, the general dislike of farmers for leases is a
+curious commentary on the assertions of those writers who said that
+leases were his chief necessity.</p>
+
+<p>The disparity of the labourer's wages in 1850 was most remarkable,
+ranging from 15<i>s.</i> a week in parts of Lancashire to 6<i>s.</i> in South Wilts,
+the average of the northern counties being 11<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, and of the
+southern 8<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i> a difference due <a name="Page_284" id="Page_284"></a>wholly to the influence of
+manufactures, which is still further proved by the fact that in
+Lancashire in 1770 wages were below the average for England. In fact
+since Young's time wages in the north had increased 66 per cent., in
+the south only 14 per cent. In Berkshire and Wiltshire there had been
+no increase in that period, and in Suffolk an actual decrease. It is
+not surprising to learn that in some southern counties wages were not
+sufficient for healthy sustenance, and the consequence was, that
+there, the average amount of poor relief per head of population was
+8<i>s.</i> 8<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>, but in the north 4<i>s.</i> 7<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i>, and the percentage of
+paupers was twice as great in the former as in the latter. This was
+mainly due to two causes: (1) the ratepayers of parishes in the south
+were accustomed to divide among themselves the surplus labour, not
+according to their requirements but in proportion to the size of their
+farms, so that a farmer who was a good economist of labour was reduced
+by this system to the same level as his unskilful neighbours, and the
+labourer himself had no motive to do his best, as every one, good and
+bad, was employed at the same rate. (2) To the system of close and
+open parishes, by which large proprietors could drive the labourer
+from the parish where he worked to live in some distant village in
+case he should become chargeable to the rates, so that it was a common
+thing to see labourers walking three or four miles each day to their
+work and back, and in one county farmers provided donkeys for them.
+Between 1840 and 1850 the labourer had, however, already benefited by
+free trade, for the price of many articles he consumed fell 30%; on
+the other hand the rent of his cottage in eighty years had increased
+100%, and meat 70%, which however did not, unfortunately, affect him
+much. The great development of railway construction also helped him by
+absorbing much surplus labour, and the work of his wife and children
+was more freely exploited at this date to swell the family
+budget.<a name="FNanchor_644_645" id="FNanchor_644_645"></a><a href="#Footnote_644_645" class="fnanchor">[644]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285"></a>The great difference between the wages of the north and the south is
+a clear proof that the wages of the agricultural labourer are not
+dependent on the prices of agricultural produce, for those were the
+same in both regions. It was unmistakably due to the greater demand
+for labour in the north.</p>
+
+<p>The housing of the labourer was, especially in the south, often a
+black blot on English civilization. From many instances collected by
+an inquirer in 1844 the following may be taken. At Stourpaine in
+Dorset, one bedroom in a cottage contained three beds occupied by
+eleven people of all ages and both sexes, with no curtain or partition
+whatever. At Milton Abbas, on the average of the last census there
+were thirty-six persons in each house, and so crowded were they that
+cottagers with a desire for decency would combine and place all the
+males in one cottage, and all the females in another. But this was
+rare, and licentiousness and immorality of the worst kind were
+frequent.<a name="FNanchor_645_646" id="FNanchor_645_646"></a><a href="#Footnote_645_646" class="fnanchor">[645]</a></p>
+
+<p>As for the farmer, the stock raiser was doing better than the corn
+grower. The following table shows the rent of cultivated land per
+acre, the produce of wheat per acre in bushels, the price of
+provisions, wages of labour, and rent of cottages in England at the
+date of Young's tours, about 1770, and of Caird's in 1850<a name="FNanchor_647_648" id="FNanchor_647_648"></a><a href="#Footnote_647_648" class="fnanchor">[647]</a>:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Rent of</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'><i>cultivated land</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Produce of</i></td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='center'><i>Price per lb. of</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'><i>per acre.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Wheat per acre.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Bread.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Meat.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Butter.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align='left'>1770&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+ <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;13<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i></td>
+ <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;23</td>
+ <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+ <td align='left'>3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+ <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;6<i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1850</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;26<i>s.</i>10<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;26<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><a name="FNanchor_646_647" id="FNanchor_646_647"></a><a href="#Footnote_646_647" class="fnanchor">[646]</a></td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>5<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;1<i>s.</i></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'><br /><i>Price of Wool<br />per lb.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><br /><i>Cottage<br />rents.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><br /><i>Labourer's wages<br />per week.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1770&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;34<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;7<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1850</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;74<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;9<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Thus in eighty years the average rent of arable land rose <a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"></a>100%, the
+average wheat crop 14%, while the price of bread had decreased 16%.
+But meat had increased 70%, wool over 100%, butter 100%. The chief
+benefit to the farmer therefore lay in the increased value of live
+stock and its products, and it was found then, as in the present
+depression, that the holders of strong wheat land suffered most, which
+was further illustrated by the fact that the rent of the corn-growing
+counties of the east coast averaged 23<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> per acre; that of the
+mixed corn and grass counties in the midlands and west, 31<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p>Writing in 1847, Porter said rents had doubled since 1790.<a name="FNanchor_648_649" id="FNanchor_648_649"></a><a href="#Footnote_648_649" class="fnanchor">[648]</a> In
+Essex farms could be pointed out which were let in 1790 at less than
+10<i>s.</i> an acre, but during the war at from 45<i>s.</i> to 50<i>s.</i> In 1818 the rent
+went down to 35<i>s.</i>, and in 1847 was 20<i>s.</i></p>
+
+<p>In Berks. and Wilts. farms let at 14<i>s.</i> per acre in 1790, rose by 1810
+to 70<i>s.</i>, or fivefold; sank in 1820 to 50<i>s.</i>, and in 1847 to 30<i>s.</i> In
+Staffordshire farms on one estate let for 8<i>s.</i> an acre in 1790, rose
+during the war to 35<i>s.</i>, and at the peace were lowered to 20<i>s.</i>, at
+which price they remained. Owing to better farming light soils had
+been applied to uses for which heavy lands alone had formerly been
+considered fit, with a considerable increase of rent.</p>
+
+<p>On the Duke of Rutland's<a name="FNanchor_649_650" id="FNanchor_649_650"></a><a href="#Footnote_649_650" class="fnanchor">[649]</a> Belvoir estate, of from 18,000 to 20,000
+acres of above average quality, rents were in&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>1799&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>19<i>s.</i> 3<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td><td align='left'>an acre.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1812</td>
+  <td align='left'>25<i>s.</i> 8<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1830</td>
+  <td align='left'>25<i>s.</i> 1<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1850</td>
+  <td align='left'>36<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i></td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>But the Dukes of Rutland were indulgent landlords and evidently took
+no undue advantage of the high prices during the war, a policy whose
+wisdom was fully justified afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>It was the opinion of most competent judges, even after the abolition
+of the Corn Laws, that English land would continue <a name="Page_287" id="Page_287"></a>to rise in value.
+Porter stated that the United Kingdom could never be habitually
+dependent on the soil of other countries for the food of its people,
+there was not enough shipping to transport it if it could.<a name="FNanchor_650_651" id="FNanchor_650_651"></a><a href="#Footnote_650_651" class="fnanchor">[650]</a></p>
+
+<p>Caird prophesied that in the next eighty years the value of land in
+England would more than double. The wellnigh universal opinion was
+that as the land of England could not increase, and the population was
+constantly increasing, land must become dearer. Men failed to foresee
+the opening of millions of acres of virgin soil in other parts of the
+world, and the improvement of transport to such an extent that wheat
+has occasionally been carried as ballast. About twenty-five or thirty
+years after these prophecies their fallacy began to be cruelly
+exposed.<a name="FNanchor_651_652" id="FNanchor_651_652"></a><a href="#Footnote_651_652" class="fnanchor">[651]</a></p>
+
+<p>About 1853<a name="FNanchor_652_653" id="FNanchor_652_653"></a><a href="#Footnote_652_653" class="fnanchor">[652]</a> matters began to mend, chiefly owing to the great
+expansion in trade that followed the great gold discoveries in America
+and Australia. Then, came the Crimean War, with the closing of the
+Baltic to the export of Russian corn, wheat in 1855 averaging 74<i>s.</i>
+8<i>d.</i>, and in the next decade the American War crippled another
+competitor, the imports of wheat from the United States sinking from
+16,140,000 cwt in 1862, to 635,000 cwt. in 1866. From 1853 until 1875
+English agriculture prospered exceedingly, assisted largely by good
+seasons. Between 1854 and 1865 there were ten good harvests, and only
+two below the average. Prices of produce rose almost continuously, and
+the price and rent of land with them. The trade of the country was
+good, and the demand for the farmer's products steadily grew; the
+capital value of the land, live stock, and crops upon it, increased in
+this period by <i>&pound;</i>445,000,000.<a name="FNanchor_653_654" id="FNanchor_653_654"></a><a href="#Footnote_653_654" class="fnanchor">[653]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a>It appeared as if the abolition of the Corn Laws was not to have any
+great effect after all.</p>
+
+<p>Now at last the great body of farmers began to approach the standard
+set them long before by the more energetic and enterprising. Early
+maturity in finishing live stock for the market by scientific feeding
+probably added a fourth to their weight The produce of crops per acre
+grew, and drainage and improvements were carried out on all sides, the
+greatest improvement being made in the cultivation and management of
+strong lands, of which drainage was the foundation, and enabled the
+occupier to add swedes to his course of cropping.<a name="FNanchor_654_655" id="FNanchor_654_655"></a><a href="#Footnote_654_655" class="fnanchor">[654]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was in this period that Shorthorns, Herefords, and Devons attained
+a standard of excellence which has made them sought after by the whole
+world; and other breeds were perfected, the Sussex and Aberdeen Angus
+especially; while in sheep the improvement was perhaps even
+greater.<a name="FNanchor_655_656" id="FNanchor_655_656"></a><a href="#Footnote_655_656" class="fnanchor">[655]</a> The improved Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Hampshire Downs,
+and Shropshires took their place as standard breeds at this period. In
+1866, after many years of expectation and disappointment,
+agriculturists were furnished with statistics which are trustworthy
+for practical purpose, but are somewhat vitiated by the fact that the
+live stock census was taken on March 5, which obviously omitted a
+large number of young stock; so that those for 1867, when the census
+was taken on June 25, are better for purposes of comparison with those
+of subsequent years, when the census has been taken on June 4 or 5.
+Between 1867 and 1878 the cattle in England and Wales had increased
+from 4,013,564 to 4,642,641, though sheep had diminished from
+22,025,498 to 21,369,810.<a name="FNanchor_656_657" id="FNanchor_656_657"></a><a href="#Footnote_656_657" class="fnanchor">[656]</a> The total acreage under cultivation had
+increased from 25,451,526 acres to 27,164,326 acres in the same
+period.</p>
+
+<p>There was, however, one black shadow in this fair picture: <a name="Page_289" id="Page_289"></a>in 1865
+England was invaded by the rinderpest, which spread with alarming
+rapidity, killing 2,000 cows in a month from its first appearance, and
+within six months infecting thirty-six counties.<a name="FNanchor_657_658" id="FNanchor_657_658"></a><a href="#Footnote_657_658" class="fnanchor">[657]</a> The alarm was
+general, and town and country meetings were held in the various
+districts where the disease appeared to concert measures of defence.
+The Privy Council issued an order empowering Justices to appoint
+inspectors authorized to seize and slaughter any animal labouring
+under such diseases; but, in spite of this, the plague raged with
+redoubled fury throughout September. There was gross mismanagement in
+combating it, for the inspectors were often ignorant men, and no
+compensation was paid for slaughter, so that farmers often sold off
+most of their diseased stock before hoisting the black flag. The
+ravages of the disease in the London cow-houses was fearful, as might
+be expected, and they are said to have been left empty; by no means an
+unmixed evil, as the keeping of cow-houses in towns was a glaring
+defiance of the most obvious sanitary laws. In October a Commission
+was appointed to investigate the origin and nature of the disease, and
+the first return showed a total of 17,673 animals attacked. By March
+9, 1866, 117,664 animals had died from the plague, and 26,135 been
+killed in the attempt to stay it. By the end of August the disease had
+been brought within very narrow limits, and was eventually stamped out
+by the resolute slaughter of all infected animals. By November 24 the
+number of diseased animals that had died or been killed was
+209,332,<a name="FNanchor_658_659" id="FNanchor_658_659"></a><a href="#Footnote_658_659" class="fnanchor">[658]</a> and the loss to the nation was reckoned at <i>&pound;</i>3,000,000.
+The disease was brought by animals exported from Russia, who came from
+Revel, via the Baltic, to Hull. In 1872, cattle brought to the same
+port infected the cattle of the East Riding of Yorkshire, but this
+outbreak was checked before much damage had been done, and since 1877
+there has been no trace of this dreaded disease in the kingdom. The
+cattle plague, <a name="Page_290" id="Page_290"></a>rinderpest, or steppe murrain, is said<a name="FNanchor_659_660" id="FNanchor_659_660"></a><a href="#Footnote_659_660" class="fnanchor">[659]</a> to have
+first appeared in England in 1665, the year of the Great Plague, and
+reappeared in 1714, when it came from Holland, but did little damage,
+being chiefly confined to the neighbourhood of London. The next
+outbreak was in 1745, and lasted for twelve years, undoubtedly coming
+from Holland; it is said to have caused such destruction among the
+cattle, that much of the grass land in England was ploughed up and
+planted with corn, so that the exports of grain increased largely. In
+1769 it came again, but only affected a few localities, and
+disappeared in 1771, not to return till 1865.</p>
+
+<p>Foot and mouth disease was first observed in England in 1839,<a name="FNanchor_660_661" id="FNanchor_660_661"></a><a href="#Footnote_660_661" class="fnanchor">[660]</a>
+and it was malignant in 1840-1, when cattle, sheep, and pigs were
+attacked as they were during the serious outbreak of 1871-2. In 1883
+no less than 219,289 cattle were attacked, besides 217,492 sheep, and
+24,332 pigs, when the disease was worse than it has ever been in
+England. Since then, though there have been occasional outbreaks, it
+has much abated. Another dread scourge of cattle, pleuro-pneumonia,
+was at its worst in 1872, a most calamitous year in this respect, when
+7,983 cattle were attacked. In 1890 the Board of Agriculture assumed
+powers with respect to it under the Diseases of Animals Act of that
+year, and their consequent action has been attended with great success
+in getting rid of the disease.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of this halcyon period farmers had to contend with a new
+difficulty, the demand for higher wages by their labourers at the
+instigation of Joseph Arch.<a name="FNanchor_661_662" id="FNanchor_661_662"></a><a href="#Footnote_661_662" class="fnanchor">[661]</a> This famous agitator was born at
+Barford in Warwickshire in 1826, and as a boy worked for neighbouring
+farmers, educating himself in his spare time. The miserable state of
+the labourer which he saw all around him entered into his soul, meat
+was rarely seen on his table, even bacon was a luxury in many
+cottages. <a name="Page_291" id="Page_291"></a>Tea was 6<i>s.</i> to 7<i>s.</i> a lb., sugar 8<i>d.</i>, and other prices in
+proportion; the labourers stole turnips for food, and every other man
+was a poacher. Arch made himself master of everything he undertook,
+became famous as a hedger, mower, and ploughman, and being
+consequently employed all over the Midlands and South Wales, began to
+gauge the discontent of the labourer who was then voiceless, voteless,
+and hopeless. His wages by 1872 had increased to 12<i>s.</i> a week, but had
+not kept pace with the rise in prices. Bread was 7<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> a loaf; the
+labourer had lost the benefit of his children's labour, for they had
+now all gone to school; his food was 'usually potatoes, dry bread,
+greens, herbs, "kettle broth" made by putting bread in the kettle,
+weak tea, bacon sometimes, fresh meat hardly ever.'<a name="FNanchor_662_663" id="FNanchor_662_663"></a><a href="#Footnote_662_663" class="fnanchor">[662]</a> It is
+difficult to realize that at the end of the third quarter of the
+nineteenth century, when Gladstone said the prosperity of the country
+was advancing 'by leaps and bounds', that any class of the community
+<i>in full work</i> could live under such wretched conditions. Arch came to
+the conclusion that labour could only improve its position when
+organized, and the Agricultural Labourers' Union was initiated in
+1872. Not that the idea of obtaining better conditions by combination
+was new to the rural labourer. It was attempted in 1832 in Dorset, but
+speedily crushed, and not till 1865 was a new union founded in
+Scotland, which was followed by a strike in Buckinghamshire in 1867,
+and the foundation of a union in Herefordshire in 1871.<a name="FNanchor_663_664" id="FNanchor_663_664"></a><a href="#Footnote_663_664" class="fnanchor">[663]</a> It was
+determined to ask for 16<i>s.</i> a week and a 9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;hours' working day,
+which the farmers refused to grant, and the men struck. The agitation
+spread all over England, and was often conducted unwisely and with a
+bitter spirit, but the labourer was embittered by generations of
+sordid misery. Very reluctantly the farmers gave way, and generally
+speaking wages went up during the agitation to 14<i>s.</i> or 15<i>s.</i> a week,
+though Arch <a name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></a>himself admits that even during the height of it they were
+often only 11<i>s.</i> and 12<i>s.</i> With the bad times, about 1879, wages began
+to fall again, and men were leaving the Agricultural Union; by 1882
+Arch says many were again taking what the farmer chose to give. From
+1884 the Union steadily declined, and after a temporary revival about
+1890, practically collapsed in 1894. Other unions had been started,
+but were then going down hill, and in 1906 only two remained in a
+moribund condition. Their main object, to raise the labourer's wages,
+was largely counteracted by the acute depression in agriculture, and
+though there has since been considerable recovery, there are districts
+in England to-day where he only gets 11<i>s.</i> and 12<i>s.</i> a week.</p>
+
+<p>The Labourers' Union helped to deal a severe blow to the 'gang
+system', which had grown up at the beginning of the century (when the
+high corn prices led to the breaking up of land where there were no
+labourers, so that 'gangs' were collected to cultivate it<a name="FNanchor_664_665" id="FNanchor_664_665"></a><a href="#Footnote_664_665" class="fnanchor">[664]</a>), by
+which overseers, often coarse bullies, employed and sweated gangs
+sometimes numbering 60 or 70 persons, including small children, and
+women, the latter frequently very bad specimens of their sex. These
+gangs went turnip-singling, bean-dropping, weeding &amp;c., while
+pea-picking gangs ran to 400 or 500. Though some of these gangs were
+properly managed, the system was a bad one, and the Union and the
+Education Acts helped its disappearance.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_300" id="Footnotes_300"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_613_614" id="Footnote_613_614"></a><a href="#FNanchor_613_614"><span class="label">[613]</span></a> Cylindrical pipes came in about 1843, though they had
+been recommended in 1727 by Switzer.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_614_615" id="Footnote_614_615"></a><a href="#FNanchor_614_615"><span class="label">[614]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (1<i>s.</i> series), xxii. 260.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_615_616" id="Footnote_615_616"></a><a href="#FNanchor_615_616"><span class="label">[615]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1890, pp. 1 sq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_616_617" id="Footnote_616_617"></a><a href="#FNanchor_616_617"><span class="label">[616]</span></a> Ibid., 1894, pp. 205 sq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_617_618" id="Footnote_617_618"></a><a href="#FNanchor_617_618"><span class="label">[617]</span></a> McCombie, <i>Cattle and Cattle Breeders</i>, p. 33.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_618_619" id="Footnote_618_619"></a><a href="#FNanchor_618_619"><span class="label">[618]</span></a> These classes, however, did not comprise all the then
+known breeds of live stock.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_619_620" id="Footnote_619_620"></a><a href="#FNanchor_619_620"><span class="label">[619]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1892, pp. 479 sq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_620_621" id="Footnote_620_621"></a><a href="#FNanchor_620_621"><span class="label">[620]</span></a> At the show at Birmingham In 1898 there were 22 entries
+of Longhorns; in 1899 a Longhorn Cattle Society was established, and
+the herd-book resuscitated. More than twenty herds of the breed are
+now well established.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_621_622" id="Footnote_621_622"></a><a href="#FNanchor_621_622"><span class="label">[621]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1901, p. 24.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_622_623" id="Footnote_622_623"></a><a href="#FNanchor_622_623"><span class="label">[622]</span></a> Caird, <i>English Agriculture in 1850-1</i>, pp. 252 sq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_623_624" id="Footnote_623_624"></a><a href="#FNanchor_623_624"><span class="label">[623]</span></a> Porter, <i>Progress of the Nation</i>, p. 142.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_624_625" id="Footnote_624_625"></a><a href="#FNanchor_624_625"><span class="label">[624]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1901, p. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_625_626" id="Footnote_625_626"></a><a href="#FNanchor_625_626"><span class="label">[625]</span></a> Ibid. 1896, p. 96.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_626_627" id="Footnote_626_627"></a><a href="#FNanchor_626_627"><span class="label">[626]</span></a> Ibid. (1<i>s.</i> ser.), vi. 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_627_628" id="Footnote_627_628"></a><a href="#FNanchor_627_628"><span class="label">[627]</span></a> Ibid. (1<i>s.</i> ser.), v. 102.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_628_629" id="Footnote_628_629"></a><a href="#FNanchor_628_629"><span class="label">[628]</span></a> 1838, 64<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i> 1839, 70<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>; 1840, 66<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i>; 1841,
+64<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_629_630" id="Footnote_629_630"></a><a href="#FNanchor_629_630"><span class="label">[629]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, iv. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_630_631" id="Footnote_630_631"></a><a href="#FNanchor_630_631"><span class="label">[630]</span></a> C. Wren Hoskyns, <i>Agricultural Statistics</i>, p. 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_631_632" id="Footnote_631_632"></a><a href="#FNanchor_631_632"><span class="label">[631]</span></a> The abnormal prices during the Crimean War cannot
+fairly be taken into account. The home and foreign supplies of wheat
+and flour from 1839-46 were:&mdash;
+</p>
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>Home Supplies.</i></td><td align='right'><i>Foreign Supplies.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='center'><i>qrs.</i></td><td align='center'><i>qrs.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1839-40</td>
+  <td align='right'>4,022,000&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1,762,482&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1840-1</td>
+  <td align='right'>3,870,648&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1,925,241&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1841-2</td>
+  <td align='right'>3,626,173&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>2,985,422&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1842-3</td>
+  <td align='right'>5,078,989&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>2,405,217&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1843-4</td>
+  <td align='right'>5,213,454&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1,606,912&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1844-5</td>
+  <td align='right'>6,664,368&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>476,190&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1845-6</td>
+  <td align='right'>5,699,969&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>2,732,134&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align="right">(Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, iv. 414.)</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p>
+1844-5 was a very abundant crop, and the threatened repeal of the
+Corn Laws induced farmers to send all the corn possible to market.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_632_633" id="Footnote_632_633"></a><a href="#FNanchor_632_633"><span class="label">[632]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, iv. 32.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_633_634" id="Footnote_633_634"></a><a href="#FNanchor_633_634"><span class="label">[633]</span></a> Cobden's Speech, March 12, 1844.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_634_635" id="Footnote_634_635"></a><a href="#FNanchor_634_635"><span class="label">[634]</span></a> Tooke, <i>History of Prices</i>, iv. 142.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_635_636" id="Footnote_635_636"></a><a href="#FNanchor_635_636"><span class="label">[635]</span></a> From evidence collected by Mr. Austin in the southern
+counties.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_636_637" id="Footnote_636_637"></a><a href="#FNanchor_636_637"><span class="label">[636]</span></a> <i>Progress of Nation</i>, pp. 137 sq. For the amount
+imported before that date, see Appendix 2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_637_638" id="Footnote_637_638"></a><a href="#FNanchor_637_638"><span class="label">[637]</span></a> Walpole, <i>History of England</i>, iv. 63 sq. Cobden
+apparently never contemplated such low prices for corn as have
+prevailed since 1883. In his speech of March 12, 1844, he mentioned
+50<i>s.</i> a quarter as a probable price under free trade, and he died
+before the full effect of foreign competition was felt by the English
+farmer.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_638_639" id="Footnote_638_639"></a><a href="#FNanchor_638_639"><span class="label">[638]</span></a> McCulloch, <i>Commercial Dictionary</i>, 1847, p. 274. See
+below, pp. 325 sq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_639_640" id="Footnote_639_640"></a><a href="#FNanchor_639_640"><span class="label">[639]</span></a> Caird, <i>English Agriculture in 1850-1</i>, p. 498.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_640_641" id="Footnote_640_641"></a><a href="#FNanchor_640_641"><span class="label">[640]</span></a> Ibid. p. 490.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_641_642" id="Footnote_641_642"></a><a href="#FNanchor_641_642"><span class="label">[641]</span></a> <i>Victoria County History: Warwickshire</i>, ii. 277.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_642_643" id="Footnote_642_643"></a><a href="#FNanchor_642_643"><span class="label">[642]</span></a> Caird, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 481.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_643_644" id="Footnote_643_644"></a><a href="#FNanchor_643_644"><span class="label">[643]</span></a> Caird, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 507.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_644_645" id="Footnote_644_645"></a><a href="#FNanchor_644_645"><span class="label">[644]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. 220, 226.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_645_646" id="Footnote_645_646"></a><a href="#FNanchor_645_646"><span class="label">[645]</span></a> Cobden's Speech, March 12, 1844.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_646_647" id="Footnote_646_647"></a><a href="#FNanchor_646_647"><span class="label">[646]</span></a> Mr. Pusey, one of the best informed agriculturists of
+the day, estimated the produce of wheat per acre in 1840 at 26
+bushels.&mdash;<i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1890, p. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_647_648" id="Footnote_647_648"></a><a href="#FNanchor_647_648"><span class="label">[647]</span></a> Caird, <i>English Farming in 1850-1</i>, p. 474.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_648_649" id="Footnote_648_649"></a><a href="#FNanchor_648_649"><span class="label">[648]</span></a> <i>Progress of the Nation</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_649_650" id="Footnote_649_650"></a><a href="#FNanchor_649_650"><span class="label">[649]</span></a> Thorold Rogers, <i>History of Agriculture and Prices</i>, v.
+29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_650_651" id="Footnote_650_651"></a><a href="#FNanchor_650_651"><span class="label">[650]</span></a> <i>Progress of the Nation</i>, pp. 137-9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_651_652" id="Footnote_651_652"></a><a href="#FNanchor_651_652"><span class="label">[651]</span></a> Yet as the growth of population overtakes the corn and
+meat supply, these prophets may in the end prove correct.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_652_653" id="Footnote_652_653"></a><a href="#FNanchor_652_653"><span class="label">[652]</span></a> The Great Exhibition of 1851 was said to have widely
+diffused the use of improved implements.&mdash;<i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1856, p.
+54.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_653_654" id="Footnote_653_654"></a><a href="#FNanchor_653_654"><span class="label">[653]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1890, p. 34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_654_655" id="Footnote_654_655"></a><a href="#FNanchor_654_655"><span class="label">[654]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1856, p. 60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_655_656" id="Footnote_655_656"></a><a href="#FNanchor_655_656"><span class="label">[655]</span></a> Ibid. 1901, p. 30. See below, p. 343.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_656_657" id="Footnote_656_657"></a><a href="#FNanchor_656_657"><span class="label">[656]</span></a> <i>Board of Agriculture Returns</i>, 1878, and <i>R.A.S.E.
+Journal</i>, 1868, p. 239. Young estimated the number of cattle in
+England in 1770 at 2,852,048, including 684,491 draught
+cattle.&mdash;<i>Eastern Tour</i>, iv. 456.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_657_658" id="Footnote_657_658"></a><a href="#FNanchor_657_658"><span class="label">[657]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, (2nd ser.), ii. 230.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_658_659" id="Footnote_658_659"></a><a href="#FNanchor_658_659"><span class="label">[658]</span></a> Ibid. iii. 430.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_659_660" id="Footnote_659_660"></a><a href="#FNanchor_659_660"><span class="label">[659]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (2nd ser.), ii. 270.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_660_661" id="Footnote_660_661"></a><a href="#FNanchor_660_661"><span class="label">[660]</span></a> See <i>Autobiography of Joseph Arch</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_661_662" id="Footnote_661_662"></a><a href="#FNanchor_661_662"><span class="label">[661]</span></a> Ibid. ix. 274.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_662_663" id="Footnote_662_663"></a><a href="#FNanchor_662_663"><span class="label">[662]</span></a> In many districts, however, his food was better than
+this.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_663_664" id="Footnote_663_664"></a><a href="#FNanchor_663_664"><span class="label">[663]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 276-7.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_664_665" id="Footnote_664_665"></a><a href="#FNanchor_664_665"><span class="label">[664]</span></a> Hasbach, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 193, et seq. The Gangs Act (30
+&amp; 31 Vict. c. 130) had already brought the system under control.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>1875-1908</h3>
+
+<h3>AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS AGAIN.&mdash;FOREIGN COMPETITION.&mdash;AGRICULTURAL
+HOLDINGS ACTS.&mdash;NEW IMPLEMENTS.&mdash;AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS.&mdash;THE
+SITUATION IN 1908</h3>
+
+
+<p>About the year 1875 the good times came to an end. The full force of
+free trade was at last felt. The seasons assisted the decline, and
+there was now no compensation in the shape of higher prices. In the
+eight years between 1874 and 1882 there were only two good crops. A
+new and formidable competitor had entered the field; between 1860 and
+1880 the produce of wheat in the United States had trebled. Vast
+stretches of virgin soil were opened up with the most astonishing
+rapidity by railroads, and European immigrants poured in. The cost of
+transport fell greatly, and England was flooded with foreign corn and
+meat. English land which had to support the landlord, the tithe-owner,
+the land agent, the farmer, the labourer, and a large army of
+paupers,<a name="FNanchor_665_666" id="FNanchor_665_666"></a><a href="#Footnote_665_666" class="fnanchor">[665]</a> had to compete with land where often one man was owner,
+farmer, and labourer, with no tithe and no poor rates. Yet prices held
+up fairly well until 1884, when there was a collapse from which they
+have not yet recovered. In 1877 wheat was 56<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i>, in 1883 41<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i>,
+and in 1884 35<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>; by 1894 the average price for the year was 22<i>s.</i>
+10<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_666_667" id="FNanchor_666_667"></a><a href="#Footnote_666_667" class="fnanchor">[666]</a></p>
+
+<p>Farmers' capital was reduced from 30 to 50 per cent., and rents and
+the purchase value of land in a similar proportion. Poor clays only
+fit for wheat and beans went out of cultivation, though much has since
+been laid down to grass, and much has 'tumbled down'. In fact most of
+the increased value of the good period between 1853-75 disappeared.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></a>The year 1879 will long be remembered as 'the Black Year'. It was the
+worst of a succession of wet seasons in the midland, western and
+southern counties of England, the average rainfall being one-fourth
+above the average, and 1880 was little better. The land, saturated and
+chilled, produced coarser herbage, the finer grasses languished or
+were destroyed, fodder and grain were imperfectly matured. Mould and
+ergot were prevalent among plants, and flukes producing liver-rot
+among live stock, especially sheep. In 1879 in England and Wales
+3,000,000 sheep died or were sacrificed from rot,<a name="FNanchor_667_668" id="FNanchor_667_668"></a><a href="#Footnote_667_668" class="fnanchor">[667]</a> by 1881
+5,000,000 had perished at an estimated loss of <i>&pound;</i>10,000,000, and many,
+alas! were sent to market full of disease. Cattle also were infected,
+and hares, rabbits, and deer suffered. In some cases entire flocks of
+sheep disappeared. The disease was naturally worst on low-lying and
+ill-drained pastures, but occurred even on the drier uplands hitherto
+perfectly free from liver-rot, carried thither no doubt by the
+droppings of infected sheep, hares, and rabbits, and perhaps by the
+feet of men and animals. Apart from medicine, concentrated dry food
+given systematically, the regular use of common salt, and of course
+removal from low-lying and damp lands, were found the best
+preventives.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this great calamity, this year was distinguished by one of the
+worst harvests of the century, outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, of
+pleuro-pneumonia, and a disastrous attack of foot-rot. The misfortunes
+of the landed interest produced a Commission in 1879 under the Duke of
+Richmond, which conducted a most laborious and comprehensive inquiry.
+Their report, issued in 1882, stated that they were unanimously
+convinced of the great intensity and extent of the distress that had
+fallen upon the agricultural community. Owner and occupier had alike
+been involved. Yet, though agricultural distress had prevailed over
+the whole country, the degree had varied in different counties, and in
+some cases in different <a name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></a>parts of the same counties. Cheshire, for
+instance, had not suffered to anything like the same extent as other
+counties, nor was the depression so severe in Cumberland,
+Westmoreland, Northumberland, and parts of Yorkshire. The rainfall had
+been less in the northern counties. In the midlands, the eastern, and
+most of the southern counties the distress was severe, in Essex the
+state of agriculture was deplorable, but Kent, Devon, and Cornwall
+were not hardly hit.<a name="FNanchor_668_669" id="FNanchor_668_669"></a><a href="#Footnote_668_669" class="fnanchor">[668]</a></p>
+
+<p>The chief causes of the depression were said to be these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<ol>
+<li>The succession of unfavourable seasons, causing crops
+deficient in quantity and quality, and losses of live stock.</li>
+
+<li>Low prices, partly due to foreign imports and partly to
+the inferior quality of the home production.</li>
+
+<li>Increased cost of production.</li>
+
+<li>Increased pressure of local taxation by the imposition
+of new rates, viz. the education rate and the sanitary rate;
+and the increase of old rates, especially the highway rate, in
+consequence of the abolition of turnpikes. Some exceptionally
+bad instances of this were given. In the parish of
+Didmarton, Gloucestershire, the average amount of rates paid
+for the five years ending March 31, 1858, was <i>&pound;</i>26 6<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i>,
+for the five years ending March 31, 1878, <i>&pound;</i>118 11<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i> In
+the Northleach Union the rates had increased thus in decennial
+periods from 1850:&mdash;<br />
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>1850-1</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i>5,471</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1860-1</td><td align='right'>5,534</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1870-1</td><td align='right'>8,525</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1878-9</td><td align='right'>10,089</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<br />
+
+On one small property in Staffordshire the increase of rates,
+other than poor rates, amounted to 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> in the <i>&pound;</i> on the
+rateable value.</li>
+
+<li>Excessive rates charged by railway companies for the
+conveyance of produce, and preferential rates given to foreign
+agricultural produce; the railway companies alleging, in defence
+of this, that foreign produce was consigned in much greater<a name="Page_296" id="Page_296"></a>
+bulk, by few consignors, than home grown, and could be conveyed
+much more economically than if picked up at different
+stations in small quantities.</li>
+</ol>
+
+
+<p>As to the effect of restrictive covenants on the depression, the
+balance of evidence did not incline either way.<a name="FNanchor_669_670" id="FNanchor_669_670"></a><a href="#Footnote_669_670" class="fnanchor">[669]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875 was stated to have done much
+good in the matter of compensation to tenants for improvements,
+notwithstanding its merely permissive character, as it had reversed
+the presumption of law in relation to improvements effected by the
+tenant, prescribed the amount of compensation, and the mode in which
+it should be given.</p>
+
+<p>As to the important subject of freedom of cropping and sale of
+produce, there were diverse opinions, some advocating it wholly,
+others not believing in it at all, others saying each landlord and
+each tenant should make their own bargains since each farm stands on
+its own footing, others again favouring modified restrictions. The
+preponderance of opinion was in favour of a modification of the law of
+distress.</p>
+
+<p>The Commission further said that the pressure of foreign competition
+was greatly in excess of the anticipations of the supporters and of
+the apprehensions of the opponents of Corn Law Repeal; if it had not
+been for this, English farmers would have been partly compensated for
+the deficient yield by higher prices. On the other hand, the farmer
+had had the advantage of an increased and cheapened supply of feeding
+stuffs, such as maize, linseed and cotton cakes, and of artificial
+manures imported from abroad. At the same time the benefit to the
+community from cheap food was immense. It seemed just, however, that
+as agriculture was suffering from low prices, by which the country
+gained as a whole, that the proportion of taxation imposed on the land
+should be lessened; it was especially unjust that personal property
+was exempted from local rates, contrary to the Act of 43 Eliz. c. 2,
+and the whole <a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></a>burden thrown on real property. The difficulties of
+farmers were aggravated by the high price of labour, which had
+increased 25 per cent. in twenty years, largely owing to the
+competition of other industries, and at the same time become less
+efficient. As provisions were cheap, and employment abundant, the
+labourer had been scarcely affected by the distress. His cottage,
+however, especially if in the hands of a small owner, with neither the
+means nor the will to expend money on improvements, was often still
+very defective.</p>
+
+<p>Farmers were already complaining of the results of the new system of
+education, for which they had to pay, while it deprived them of the
+labour of boys, and drained from the land the sources of future labour
+by making the young discontented with farm work. The Commission denied
+that rents had been unduly raised previous to 1875<a name="FNanchor_670_671" id="FNanchor_670_671"></a><a href="#Footnote_670_671" class="fnanchor">[670]</a>; and in the
+exceptional cases where they had been, it was due to the imprudent
+competition of tenant farmers encouraged by advances made by country
+bankers, the sudden withdrawal of which had greatly contributed to the
+present distress. Districts where dairying was carried on had suffered
+least, yet the yield of milk was much diminished, and the quality
+deteriorated, owing to the inferiority of grass from a continuance of
+wet seasons. The production and sale of milk was increasing largely,
+so that the attention of farmers and landlords was being drawn to this
+important branch of farming, milk-sellers necessarily suffering less
+from foreign competition than any other farmers.</p>
+
+<p>Let us turn once more to the hop yards: in 1878 the acreage of hops in
+England reached its maximum. We have seen that in the first half of
+the eighteenth century hop yards covered 12,000 acres; which between
+1750 and 1780 increased to 25,000, and by 1800 to 32,000. In 1878,
+71,789 acres were grown. The great increase prior to that year was due
+to the abolition of the excise duty in 1862, which on an average <a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></a>was
+equal to an annual charge of nearly <i>&pound;</i>7 an acre.<a name="FNanchor_671_672" id="FNanchor_671_672"></a><a href="#Footnote_671_672" class="fnanchor">[671]</a> This encouraged
+hop-growing more than the taking off of the import duty in the same
+year discouraged it. In 1882 there was a very small crop in England,
+which raised the average price to <i>&pound;</i>18 10<i>s.</i> a cwt.; some choice samples
+fetching <i>&pound;</i>30 a cwt.; growers who had good crops realizing much more
+than the freehold value of the hop yards. This, however, was most
+unfortunate for them, as it led to a great increase in the use of hop
+substitutes, such as quassia, chiretta, colombo, gentian, &amp;c., which,
+with the decreasing consumption of beer and the demand for lighter
+beer, has done more than foreign competition to lower the price and
+thereby cause so large an area to be grubbed up as unprofitable, that
+in 1907 it was reduced to 44,938 acres. Yet the quality of the hops
+has in the last generation greatly improved in condition, quality, and
+appearance. Growers also have in the same period often incurred great
+expense in substituting various methods of wire-work for poles; and
+washing, generally with quassia chips and soft soap and water, has
+become wellnigh universal, so that the expense of growing the crop has
+increased, while the price has been falling.<a name="FNanchor_672_673" id="FNanchor_672_673"></a><a href="#Footnote_672_673" class="fnanchor">[672]</a> The crop has always
+been an expensive one to grow; Marshall in 1798 put it at <i>&pound;</i>20 an acre,
+exclusive of picking, drying, and marketing<a name="FNanchor_673_674" id="FNanchor_673_674"></a><a href="#Footnote_673_674" class="fnanchor">[673]</a>; and Young estimated
+the total cost at the same date at <i>&pound;</i>31 10<i>s.</i> an acre<a name="FNanchor_674_675" id="FNanchor_674_675"></a><a href="#Footnote_674_675" class="fnanchor">[674]</a>; to-day <i>&pound;</i>40
+an acre is by no means an outside price. It may be some encouragement
+to growers to remember that hops have always been subject to great
+fluctuations in price; between 1693 and 1700, for instance, they
+varied from 40<i>s.</i> to 240<i>s.</i> a cwt., so that they may yet see them at a
+remunerative figure. 'Upon the whole', says an eighteenth-century
+writer, 'though many have acquired large estates by hops, their real
+advantage is perhaps questionable. By engrossing the <a name="Page_299" id="Page_299"></a>attention of the
+farmer they withdraw him from slower and more certain sources of
+wealth, and encourage him to rely too much upon chance for his rent,
+rather than the honest labour of the plough. To the landlord the
+cultivation of hops is an evil, defrauding the arable land of its
+proper quantity of manure and thereby impoverishing his estate.'</p>
+
+<p>It was by this time the general opinion of men with a thorough
+experience of farming, that in many parts of Great Britain no
+sufficient compensation was secured to the tenant for his unexhausted
+improvements. In some counties and districts this compensation was
+given by established customs, in others customs existed which were
+insufficient, in many they did not exist at all. It must be confessed
+that often when a tenant leaves his farm there is more compensation
+due to the landlord than to the tenant. Human nature being what it is,
+the temptation to get as much out of the land just before leaving it
+is wellnigh irresistible to many farmers.</p>
+
+<p>In these days, when the landlord is often called upon by the tenant to
+do what the tenant used to do himself, the question of compensation to
+the tenant must on many estates appear to the landlord extremely
+ironical. It is, in the greater number of cases, the landlord who
+should receive compensation, and not the tenant; and though he has
+power to demand it, such power is over and over again not put in
+force.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time there are bad men in the landlord class as in any
+other, and from them the tenant required protection. By the
+Agricultural Holdings (England) Act of 1875, 38 &amp; 39 Vict. c. 92,
+improvements for which compensation could be claimed by the tenant
+were divided into three classes. First class improvements, such as
+drainage of land, erection or enlargement of buildings, laying down of
+permanent pasture, &amp;c., required the previous consent in writing of
+the landlord to entitle the tenant to compensation. Second class
+improvements, such as boning of land with undissolved bones, chalking,
+<a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></a>claying, liming, and marling the land, the latter now hardly ever
+practised, required notice in writing by the tenant to the landlord of
+his intention, and if notice to quit had been given or received, the
+consent in writing of the landlord was necessary. For third class
+improvements, such as the application to the land of purchased manure,
+and consumption on the holding by cattle, sheep, or pigs, of cake or
+other feeding stuff not produced on the holding, no consent or notice
+was required. Improvements in the first class were deemed to be
+exhausted in twenty years, in the second in seven, and in the third in
+two. It was the opinion of the Richmond Commission of 1879 that,
+notwithstanding the beneficial effects of this Act, no sufficient
+compensation for his unexhausted improvements was secured to the
+tenant.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord and tenant also might agree in writing that the Act
+should not apply to their contract of tenancy, so in 1883 when the
+Agricultural Holdings Act of that year (46 &amp; 47 Vict. c. 61)<a name="FNanchor_675_676" id="FNanchor_675_676"></a><a href="#Footnote_675_676" class="fnanchor">[675]</a> was
+passed, it was made compulsory as far as regarded compensation, and
+the time limit as regards the tenant's claims for improvements was
+abolished, the basis for compensation for all improvements recognized
+by the Act being laid down as 'the value of the improvement to an
+incoming tenant'. Improvements for which compensation could be claimed
+were again divided into three classes as before, but the drainage of
+land was placed in the second class instead of the first, and so only
+required notice to the landlord. This was the only improvement in the
+second class; the other improvements which had been in the second
+class in the Act of 1875 were now placed in the third, where no
+consent or notice was required.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301"></a>The Act also effected three other important alterations in the law;
+first, as to 'Notices to Quit', a year's notice being necessary where
+half a year's notice had been sufficient, though this section might be
+excluded by agreement; secondly, after January 1, 1885, the landlord
+could only distrain for one year's rent instead of six years as
+formerly; and thirdly, as to fixtures. These formerly became the
+property of the landlord on the determination of the tenancy, but by
+14 &amp; 15 Vict. c. 25 an agricultural tenant was enabled to remove
+fixtures put up by him with the consent of his landlord for
+agricultural purposes. Now all fixtures erected after the commencement
+of the Act were the property of and removable by the tenant, but the
+landlord might elect to purchase them.</p>
+
+<p>This Act was amended by the Act of 1900 (63 &amp; 64 Vict. 50), and has
+been much altered by the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1906 (6 Edw.
+VII, c. 56), which has treated the landlord with a degree of severity,
+which considering the excellent relations that have for the most part
+existed between English landlords and tenants for generations, is
+utterly unwarranted. In several respects indeed he has been treated by
+the Act as if the land did not belong to him, while freedom of
+contract, until recent years one of the most cherished principles of
+our law, is arbitrarily interfered with. The chief alterations made by
+the Act of 1906 were:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. <i>Improvements.</i>&mdash;By the Act of 1883, in the valuation for
+improvements under the first schedule, such part of the improvement as
+is justly due to the inherent capabilities of the soil was not
+credited to the tenant This provision is repealed by the Act of 1906,
+in reference to which it must be said that the latent fertility of the
+soil, sometimes very considerable, may be developed by a small outlay
+on the part of the tenant for which outlay he is certainly entitled to
+compensation. But the greater part of the improvement may be due to
+the soil which belongs to the landlord, yet the Act credits <a name="Page_302" id="Page_302"></a>the tenant
+with the whole of this improvement. An addition is made to the list of
+improvements which a tenant may make without his landlord's consent
+and for which he is entitled on quitting to compensation, viz. repairs
+to buildings, being buildings necessary for the proper working of the
+holding, other than repairs which the tenant is obliged to execute.</p>
+
+<p>2. <i>Damage by Game.</i> A tenant may now claim compensation for damage to
+crops by deer, pheasants, partridges, grouse, and black game.</p>
+
+<p>3. <i>Freedom of Cropping and Disposal of Produce.</i> Prior to this Act it
+had been the custom for generations to insert covenants in agreements
+providing for the proper cultivation of the farm; as, for instance,
+forbidding the removal from the holding of hay, straw, roots, green
+crops, and manure made on the farm. These and other covenants were
+merely in the interests of good farming, and to prevent the soil
+deteriorating. In recent times vexatious covenants formerly inserted
+had practically disappeared, and where still existing were seldom
+enforced. By this Act, notwithstanding any custom of the country or
+any contract or agreement, the tenant may follow any system of
+cropping, and dispose of any of his produce as he pleases, but after
+so doing he must make suitable and adequate provision to protect the
+farm from injury thereby: a proviso vague and difficult to enforce,
+and not sufficient to prevent an unscrupulous tenant greatly injuring
+his farm.</p>
+
+<p>4. <i>Compensation for unreasonable disturbance.</i> If a landlord without
+good cause, and for reasons inconsistent with good estate management,
+terminates a tenancy by notice to quit; or refuses to grant a renewal
+of the tenancy if so requested at least one year before the expiration
+thereof; or if a tenant quits his holding in consequence of a demand
+by the landlord for an increased rent, such demand being due to an
+increased value in the holding owing to improvements done by <a name="Page_303" id="Page_303"></a>the
+tenant; in either of such events the tenant is entitled to
+compensation.</p>
+
+<p>This compensation for disturbance is in direct opposition to the
+recommendation of the Commission of 1894,<a name="FNanchor_676_677" id="FNanchor_676_677"></a><a href="#Footnote_676_677" class="fnanchor">[676]</a> and seems to be an
+unwarrantable interference with the owner's management of his own
+land.</p>
+
+<p>Another benefit, and one long needed, was conferred on farmers by the
+Ground Game Act of 1880, 43 &amp; 44 Vict., c. 47. Before the Act the
+tenant had by common law the exclusive right to the game, including
+hares and rabbits, unless it was reserved to the landlord, which was
+usually the case. By this Act the right to kill ground game, which
+often worked terrible havoc in the tenant's crops, was rendered
+inseparable from the occupation of the land, though the owner may
+reserve to himself a concurrent right. One consequence of this Act has
+been that the hare has disappeared from many parts of England.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest improvement in implements during this period was in the
+direction of reaping and mowing machines, which have now attained a
+high degree of perfection. As early as 1780 the Society of Arts
+offered a gold medal for a reaping machine, but it was not till 1812
+that John Common of Denwick, Northumberland, invented a machine which
+embodied all the essential principles of the modern reaper. Popular
+hostility to the machine was so great that Common made his early
+trials by moonlight, and he ceased from working on them.<a name="FNanchor_677_678" id="FNanchor_677_678"></a><a href="#Footnote_677_678" class="fnanchor">[677]</a> His
+machine was improved by the Browns of Alnwick, who sold some numbers
+in 1822, and shortly afterwards emigrated to Canada taking with them
+models of Common's reapers. McCormick, the reputed inventor of the
+reaping machine, knew the Browns, and obtained from them a model of
+Common's machine which was almost certainly the father of the famous
+machine exhibited by him at the Great <a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"></a>Exhibition of 1851. Various
+other inventors have assisted in improving this implement, and in 1873
+the first wire binder was exhibited in Europe by the American, W.A.
+Wood, wire soon giving place to string owing to the outcry of farmers
+and millers. The self-binding reaper is the most ingenious of
+agricultural machines, and has been of enormous benefit to farmers in
+saving labour. Though the hay-tedding machine was invented in 1814 it
+is only during the last thirty years that its use has become common,
+the spread of the mowing machine making it a necessity, cutting the
+grass so fast that only a very large number of men with the old forks
+could keep up with it. The tedder also rendered raking by hand too
+slow, and the horse-rake, patented first in 1841, has immensely
+improved in the last thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>Another enormous labour saver is the hay and straw elevator, having
+endless chains furnished with carrying forks at intervals of a few
+feet, driven by horse gear. The steam cultivator invented by John
+Fowler is much used, but cannot be said to have superseded the
+ordinary working stock of the farm, though for deep ploughing on large
+farms of heavy land it is invaluable. Improvements in dairying
+appliances have also been great, but the English farmer has generally
+fought shy of factories or creameries, so that his butter still lacks
+the uniform quality of his foreign rivals.</p>
+
+<p>In manures the most important innovation in the last generation has
+been the constantly growing use of basic slag, formerly left neglected
+at the pit mouth and now generally recognized as a wonderful producer
+of clover.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the suggestions of the Commission of 1879 were carried into
+effect. Rents were largely reduced, so that between 1880 and 1884 the
+annual value of agricultural land in England sank <i>&pound;</i>5,750,000.<a name="FNanchor_678_679" id="FNanchor_678_679"></a><a href="#Footnote_678_679" class="fnanchor">[678]</a>
+Grants were made by the Government in aid of local burdens, cottages
+were improved although the landowners' capital was constantly
+dwindling, <a name="Page_305" id="Page_305"></a>Settled Land Acts assisted the transfer of limited estates,
+a Minister of Agriculture was appointed in 1889, and in 1891 the
+payment of the tithe was transferred from the tenant to the landlord,
+which generally meant that the whole burden was now borne by the
+latter.</p>
+
+<p>Still foreign imports continued to pour in and prices to fall. Wheat
+land, which was subject to the fiercest competition, began to be
+converted to other uses, and between 1878 and 1907 had fallen in
+England from 3,041,214 acres to 1,537,208, most of it being converted
+to pasture or 'tumbling down' to grass, while a large quantity was
+used for oats. The price of live stock was now falling greatly before
+increasing imports of live animals and dead meat, while cheese,
+butter, wool, and fruit were also pouring in. Farming, too, was now
+suffering from a new enemy, gambling in farm produce, which began to
+show itself about 1880 and has since materially contributed to
+lowering prices.<a name="FNanchor_679_680" id="FNanchor_679_680"></a><a href="#Footnote_679_680" class="fnanchor">[679]</a> The enormous gold premium in the Argentine
+Republic, with the steady fall in silver, was another factor. As Mr.
+Prothero says, 'Enterprise gradually weakened, landlords lost their
+ability to help, and farmers their recuperative power. The capital
+both of landlords and tenants was so reduced that neither could afford
+to spend an unnecessary penny. Land deteriorated in condition,
+drainage was practically discontinued ... less cake and less manure
+were bought, labour bills were reduced, and the number of males
+employed in farming dwindled as the wheat area contracted.'<a name="FNanchor_680_681" id="FNanchor_680_681"></a><a href="#Footnote_680_681" class="fnanchor">[680]</a> The
+year 1893 was remarkable for a prolonged drought in the spring; from
+March 2 to May 14 hardly any rain fell, and live stock were much
+reduced in quality from the parching of the herbage, while in many
+parts the difficulty of supplying them with water was immense.</p>
+
+<p>In the same year another Commission on Agriculture was appointed,
+whose description of the condition of agriculture <a name="Page_306" id="Page_306"></a>was a lamentable
+one. The Commission in their final report<a name="FNanchor_681_682" id="FNanchor_681_682"></a><a href="#Footnote_681_682" class="fnanchor">[681]</a> stated that the seasons
+since 1882 had on the whole been satisfactory from an agricultural
+point of view, and the evidence brought forward showed that the
+existing depression was to be mainly attributed to the fall in prices
+of farm produce. This fall had been most marked in the case of grain,
+particularly wheat, and wool also had fallen heavily. It was not
+surprising therefore to find that the arable counties<a name="FNanchor_682_683" id="FNanchor_682_683"></a><a href="#Footnote_682_683" class="fnanchor">[682]</a> had
+suffered most; in counties where dairying, market gardening, poultry
+farming, and other special industries prevailed the distress was less
+acute, but no part of the country could be said to have escaped. In
+north Devon, noted for stock rearing, rents had only fallen 10 to 15
+per cent. since 1881, and in many cases there had been no reduction at
+all. In Herefordshire and Worcestershire good grass lands, hop lands,
+and dairy farms had maintained their rents in many instances, and the
+reductions had apparently seldom exceeded 15 per cent.; on the heavy
+arable lands, however, the reduction was from 20 to 40 per cent.</p>
+
+<p>In Cheshire, devoted mainly to dairying, there had been no general
+reduction of rent, though there had been remissions, and in some cases
+reductions, of 10 per cent.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, grazing and dairy lands, which comprise so large an area of
+the northern and western counties, were not badly affected, though the
+depreciation in the value of live stock and the fall in wool had
+considerably diminished farm profits and rents. But of the eastern
+counties, those in which there are still large quantities of arable
+land, a different tale was told. In Essex much of the clay land was
+going out of cultivation; <a name="Page_307" id="Page_307"></a>many farms, after lying derelict for a few
+years, were let as grass runs for stock at a nominal rent The rent of
+an estate near Chelmsford of 1,418 acres had fallen from <i>&pound;</i>1,314 in
+1879 to <i>&pound;</i>415 in 1892, or from 18<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> an acre to 5<i>s.</i> 10<i>d.</i><a name="FNanchor_683_684" id="FNanchor_683_684"></a><a href="#Footnote_683_684" class="fnanchor">[683]</a> The
+net rental of another had fallen from <i>&pound;</i>7,682 in 1881 to <i>&pound;</i>2,224 in
+1892, and the landlord's income from his estate of 13,009 acres in
+1892-3 was 1<i>s.</i> an acre. The balance sheet of the estate for the same
+year is an eloquent example of the landowner's profits in these
+depressed times<a name="FNanchor_684_685" id="FNanchor_684_685"></a><a href="#Footnote_684_685" class="fnanchor">[684]</a>:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='center'>RECEIPTS.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='center'>PAYMENTS.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='center'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='center'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Tithe received</td><td align='right'>798</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>9</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Tithe, rates and taxes</td><td align='right'>2,964</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Cottage rents</td><td align='right'>495</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Rent-charge and fee farm rents</td><td align='right'>179</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Garden &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td><td align='right'>213</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>10</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Gates and fencing</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>8</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Estate &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td><td align='right'>7,452</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='right'>8</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Estate repairs and buildings</td><td align='right'>4,350</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>8</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Tithes refunded by tenants</td><td align='right'>530</td><td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>2</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Draining</td><td align='right'>170</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Brickyard</td><td align='right'>170</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>8</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Management</td><td align='right'>936</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='right'>7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Insurances</td><td align='right'>58</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>5</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Balance profit</td><td align='right'>652</td><td align='right'>13</td><td align='right'>9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td colspan="3" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td colspan="3" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>9,490</td><td align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>11</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>9,490</td><td align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>11</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>===========</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'>===========</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>In the great agricultural county of Lincoln rents had fallen from 30
+to 75 per cent.<a name="FNanchor_685_686" id="FNanchor_685_686"></a><a href="#Footnote_685_686" class="fnanchor">[685]</a> The average amount realized on an acre of wheat
+had fallen from <i>&pound;</i>10 6<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> in 1873-7 to <i>&pound;</i>2 18<i>s.</i> 11<i>d.</i> in 1892<a name="FNanchor_686_687" id="FNanchor_686_687"></a><a href="#Footnote_686_687" class="fnanchor">[686]</a>;
+and the fall in the price of cattle between 1882 and 1893 was a little
+over 30 per cent. Many of the large farmers in Lincolnshire before
+1875 had lived in considerable comfort and even luxury, as became men
+who had invested large sums, sometimes <i>&pound;</i>20,000, in their business.
+They had carriages, hunters, and servants, and gave their children an
+excellent start in life. But all this was changed; a day's hunting
+<a name="Page_308" id="Page_308"></a>occasionally was the utmost they could afford, and wives and daughters
+took the work from the servants. The small farmers had suffered more
+than the large ones, and the condition of the small freeholders was
+said to be deplorable; a fact to be noted by those who think small
+holdings a panacea for distress.<a name="FNanchor_687_688" id="FNanchor_687_688"></a><a href="#Footnote_687_688" class="fnanchor">[687]</a></p>
+
+<p>Even near Boston, where the soil is favourable for market gardening,
+the evidence of the small holder was 'singularly unanimous' as to
+their unfortunate condition. The small occupiers were better off than
+the freeholders, because their rents had been reduced and they could
+leave their farms if they did not pay; but their position was very
+unsatisfactory. From the evidence given to the assistant commissioner
+it is clear that the small occupier and freeholder could only get on
+by working harder and living harder than the labourer. 'We all live
+hard and never see fresh meat,' said one. 'We can't afford butcher's
+meat,' said another. Another said, 'In the summer I work from 4 a.m.
+to 8 p.m., and often do not take more than an hour off for meals. That
+is penal servitude, except you have your liberty. A foreman who earns
+<i>&pound;</i>1 a week is better off than I am. He has no anxiety, and not half the
+work.' These instances could be multiplied many times, so that it is
+not surprising that the children of these men have flocked to the
+towns.</p>
+
+<p>In Norfolk, 'twenty or thirty years ago, no class connected with the
+land held their heads higher' than the farmers. Many of them owned the
+whole or a part of the land they farmed, and lived in good style. All
+this was now largely changed. 'The typical Norfolk farmer of to-day is
+a harassed and hardworking man,' engaged in the struggle to make both
+ends meet. Many were ruined.</p>
+
+<p>However, there were farmers who, by skill, enterprise, and careful
+management, made their business pay even in these times, such as the
+tenant of the farm at Papplewick in Nottinghamshire who gained the
+first prize in the Royal Agricultural <a name="Page_309" id="Page_309"></a>Society's farm competition in
+1888.<a name="FNanchor_688_689" id="FNanchor_688_689"></a><a href="#Footnote_688_689" class="fnanchor">[688]</a>. This farm consisted of 522 acres, of which only 61 were
+grass, but chiefly owing to the trouble taken in growing fine root
+crops, a large number of live stock were annually purchased and sold
+off, the following balance sheet showing a profit of <i>&pound;</i>3 1<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i> per
+acre:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>DR.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>CR.</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Rent, tithes, rates, taxes, &amp;c.</td><td align='right'>278</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Corn, hay, potatoes, and like product sold</td><td align='right'>655</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Wages</td><td align='right'>387</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Live stock, poultry, dairy produce, and wool sold</td><td align='right'>4,941</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Purchase of cake, corn, seeds, manure, &amp;c.</td><td align='right'>688</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Purchase of live stock</td><td align='right'>2,654</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>4,007</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Profit</td><td align='right'>1,589</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>5,596</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'><i>&pound;</i>5,596</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>======</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>======</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The reductions of rents in various counties were estimated thus<a name="FNanchor_689_690" id="FNanchor_689_690"></a><a href="#Footnote_689_690" class="fnanchor">[689]</a>:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td colspan="3" align='right'><i>Per cent.</i></td>
+  <td colspan="5" align='right'><i>Per cent.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Northumberland&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>20</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>25</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Hereford</td><td align='right'>20</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>30</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Cumberland</td><td align='right'>20</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>40</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Somerset&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>20</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>40</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>York</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>50</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Oxford</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>50</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Lancaster</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>30</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Suffolk</td><td align='right'>up</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>70</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Stafford</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>25</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Essex</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>100</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Leicester</td><td colspan="3" align='center'>40</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Kent</td><td align='right'>15</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>100</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Nottingham</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>50</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Hants</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>100</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Warwick</td><td align='right'>25</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>60</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Wilts</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>75</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Huntington</td><td align='right'>40</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>50</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Devon</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>25</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Derby</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>25</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Cornwall</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='right'>100</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>This large reduction in the rent rolls of landowners has materially
+affected their position and weakened their power. Many, indeed, have
+been driven from their estates, while others can only live on them by
+letting the mansion house and the shooting, and occupying some small
+house on the lands they are reluctant to leave. The agricultural
+depression, which set <a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"></a>in about 1875, may in short be said to have
+effected a minor social revolution, and to have completed the ruin of
+the old landed aristocracy as a class. The depreciation of their
+rents may be judged from the following figures<a name="FNanchor_690_691" id="FNanchor_690_691"></a><a href="#Footnote_690_691" class="fnanchor">[690]</a>:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'><i>Gross annual value of lands, including tithes,</i></td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'><i>Decrease.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'><i>under Schedule A in England.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Amount.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Per cent.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>1879-80</td>
+  <td align='center'>1893-4</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'><i>&pound;</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>&pound;</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>&pound;</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>48,533,340</td>
+  <td align='center'>36,999,846</td>
+  <td align='center'>11,533,494</td>
+  <td align='center'>23.7</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>These figures, however, are far from indicating the full extent of
+the decline in the rental value of purely agricultural land, as they
+include ornamental grounds, gardens, and other properties, and do not
+take into account temporary remissions of rent. Sir James Caird, as
+early as 1886, estimated the average reduction on agricultural rents
+at 30 per cent.</p>
+
+<p>The loss in the capital value of land has inevitably been great from
+this reduction in rents, and has been aggravated by the fact that the
+confidence of the public in agricultural land as an investment has
+been much shaken. In 1875 thirty years' purchase on the gross annual
+value of land was the capital value, in 1894 only eighteen years'
+purchase; and whereas the capital value of land in the United Kingdom
+was in 1875 <i>&pound;</i>2,007,330,000, in 1894 it was <i>&pound;</i>1,001,829,212, a decrease
+of 49.6 per cent. Moreover, landlords have incurred increased
+expenditure on repairs, drainage, and buildings, and taxation has
+grown enormously. On the occupiers of land the effect of the
+depression was no less serious, their profits having fallen on an
+average 40 per cent.<a name="FNanchor_691_692" id="FNanchor_691_692"></a><a href="#Footnote_691_692" class="fnanchor">[691]</a> Occupying owners had suffered as much as any
+other class, both yeomen who farmed considerable farms and small
+freeholders. Many of the former had bought land in the good times when
+land was dear and left a large portion of the purchase money on
+mortgage, with the <a name="Page_311" id="Page_311"></a>result that the interest on the mortgage was now
+more than the rent of the land.<a name="FNanchor_692_693" id="FNanchor_692_693"></a><a href="#Footnote_692_693" class="fnanchor">[692]</a></p>
+
+<p>They were thus worse off than the tenant farmer, for they paid a
+higher rent in the shape of interest; moreover, they could not leave
+their land, for it could only be sold at a ruinous loss. The
+'statesmen' of Cumberland were weighed down by the same burdens and
+their disappearance furthered; for instance, in the parish of Abbey
+Quarter, between 1780 and 1812 their number decreased from 51 to 38.
+By 1837 it was 30; by 1864, 21; and in 1894 only 9 remained.</p>
+
+<p>The small freeholders were also largely burdened with mortgages, and
+even in the Isle of Axholme were said to have suffered more than any
+other class; largely because of their passion for acquiring land at
+high prices, leaving most of the purchase money on mortgage, and
+starting with insufficient capital.</p>
+
+<p>As regards the agricultural labourer, the chief effect of the
+depression had been a reduction of the number employed and a
+consequent decrease in the regularity of employment. <a name="FNanchor_693_694" id="FNanchor_693_694"></a><a href="#Footnote_693_694" class="fnanchor">[693]</a></p>
+
+<p>Their material condition had everywhere improved, though there were
+still striking differences in the wages paid in different parts; and
+the improvement, though partly due to increased earnings, was mainly
+attributable to the cheapening of the necessaries of life.<a name="FNanchor_694_695" id="FNanchor_694_695"></a><a href="#Footnote_694_695" class="fnanchor">[694]</a> The
+great majority of ordinary labourers were hired by the <a name="Page_312" id="Page_312"></a>week, except
+those boarded in the farm-house, who were generally hired by the year.
+Men, also, who looked after the live stock were hired by the year.
+Weekly wages ranged from 10<i>s.</i> in Wilts, and Dorset to 18<i>s.</i> in
+Lancashire, and averaged 13<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> for the whole country.</p>
+
+<p>The fall in the prices of agricultural produce is best represented in
+tabular form:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="9" align='center'>TRIENNIAL AVERAGE OF BRITISH<br />
+  WHEAT, BARLEY, AND OATS PER QUARTER.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>&nbsp;<i>Wheat.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>&nbsp;<i>Barley.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>&nbsp;<i>Oats.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1876-8</td>
+  <td align='right'>49</td><td align='right'>9</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>38</td><td align='right'>4</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>25</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1893-5</td>
+  <td align='right'>24</td><td align='right'>1</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>24</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>9</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Thus wheat had fallen 53 per cent., barley 37, and oats 34.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="12" align='center'>TRIENNIAL AVERAGE PRICES OF BRITISH CATTLE,<br />
+  PER STONE OF 8 LB.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'><i>Inferior quality.</i></td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'><i>Second quality.</i></td>
+  <td colspan="4" align='right'><i>First quality.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1876-8</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>5</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1893-5</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>8</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>7</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Or a fall of 24 per cent. in the best quality, and 40 per cent. in
+inferior grades.</p>
+
+<p>The decline in the prices of all classes of sheep amounted on the
+average to from so to 30 per cent., and in the price of wool of from
+40 to 50 per cent.; that is, from an average of 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a lb. in
+1874-6, to a little over 9<i>d.</i> in 1893-5.</p>
+
+<p>Milk, butter, and cheese were stated to have fallen from 25 to 33 per
+cent. between 1874 and 1891, and there had been a further fall since.
+In districts, however, near large towns there had been much less
+reduction in the price of milk.</p>
+
+<p>This general fall in prices seems to have been directly connected with
+the increase of foreign competition.<a name="FNanchor_695_696" id="FNanchor_695_696"></a><a href="#Footnote_695_696" class="fnanchor">[695]</a> Wheat <a name="Page_313" id="Page_313"></a>has been most affected
+by this development, and at the date of the Commission the home
+production had sunk to 25 per cent. of the total quantity needed for
+consumption. Other home-grown cereals had not been similarly
+displaced, but the large consumption of maize had affected the price
+of feeding barley and oats. As regards meat, while foreign beef and
+mutton had seriously affected the price of inferior British grades,
+the influence on superior qualities had been much less marked. Foreign
+competition had been, on the whole, perhaps more severe in pork than
+in other classes of meat, but had been confined mainly to bacon and
+hams.</p>
+
+<p>The successful competition of the foreigner in our butter and cheese
+markets was attributed mainly to the fact that the dairy industry is
+better organized abroad than in Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>The Commission found that another cause of the depression was the
+increased cost of production, not so much from the increase of wages,
+as from the smaller amount of work done for a given sum. Where wages
+in the previous twenty years had remained stationary, the cost of work
+had increased because the labourer did not work so hard or so well as
+his forefathers.</p>
+
+<p>The following table<a name="FNanchor_696_697" id="FNanchor_696_697"></a><a href="#Footnote_696_697" class="fnanchor">[696]</a> is a striking proof of the increased ratio of
+the cost of labour to gross profits:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'><i>County.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Acreage<br />of<br />farm.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Period<br />of<br />account.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='center'><i>Average<br />gross<br />profit.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='center'><i>Average<br />annual<br />cost of<br />labour.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'><i>Average<br />cost per<br />acre.<br /><br /></i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Ratio of<br />cost of<br />labour<br />to gross<br />profits.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;<i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;<i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><i>Per cent.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Suffolk</td>
+  <td align='center'>590</td>
+  <td align='left'>1839-43</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>1,577</td><td align='right'>13</td><td align='right'>3</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>773</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>26</td><td align='right'>2</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>49.03</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>1863-67</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>1,545</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>9</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>836</td><td align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>28</td><td align='right'>4</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>54.07</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>1871-75</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>1,725</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>1</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>1,026</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='right'>8</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>35</td><td align='right'>2</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>59.48</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>1890-94</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>728</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>5</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>973</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>5</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>33</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>133.50</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>On a farm in Wilts., between 1858 and 1893, the ratio of the cost of
+labour to gross profits had increased from <a name="Page_314" id="Page_314"></a>47.0 per cent. to 88.3 per
+cent.; on one in Hampshire, between 1873 and 1890, from 44.4 per
+cent. to 184.3 per cent.; and many similar instances are given,
+illustrating very forcibly the economic revolution which has led to
+the transfer of a larger share of the produce of the land to the
+labourer.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, this Commission found, like the last, that the
+farmer had derived considerable benefit from the decrease in cost of
+cake and artificial manure, while the low price of corn had led to
+its being largely used in place of linseed and cotton cakes.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving the subject of this famous Commission it is well to
+state the answer of Sir John Lawes, than whom there was no higher
+authority, to the oft-repeated assertion that high farming would
+counteract low prices. 'The result of all our experiments,' he said,
+'is that the reverse is the case. As you increase your crops so each
+bushel after a certain amount costs you more and more ... the last
+bushel always costs you more than all the others.' As prices went
+lower 'we must contract our farming to what I should call the average
+of the seasons'; and in the corn districts, the higher the farmer had
+farmed his land by adding manure the worse had been the financial
+results.<a name="FNanchor_697_698" id="FNanchor_697_698"></a><a href="#Footnote_697_698" class="fnanchor">[697]</a></p>
+
+<p>In 1896 the injustice of the incidence of rates on agricultural land
+was partly remedied, the occupier being relieved of half the rates on
+the land apart from the buildings, which Act was continued in
+1901.<a name="FNanchor_698_699" id="FNanchor_698_699"></a><a href="#Footnote_698_699" class="fnanchor">[698]</a> But the system is still inequitable, for a farmer who pays
+a rent of <i>&pound;</i>240 a year even now probably pays more rates than the
+occupier of a house rated at <i>&pound;</i>120 a year. Yet the farmer's income
+would very likely not be more than <i>&pound;</i>200 a year, whereas the occupier
+of the house rated at <i>&pound;</i>120 might have an income of <i>&pound;</i>2,000 a year.</p>
+
+<p>In 1901 and 1902 Mr. Rider Haggard, following in the footsteps of
+Young, Marshall, and Caird, made an agricultural tour <a name="Page_315" id="Page_315"></a>through England.
+He considered that, after foreign competition, the great danger to
+English farming was the lack of labour,<a name="FNanchor_699_700" id="FNanchor_699_700"></a><a href="#Footnote_699_700" class="fnanchor">[699]</a> for young men and women
+were everywhere leaving the country for the towns, attracted by the
+nominally high wages, often delusive, and by the glamour of the
+pavement. Yet the labourer has come better out of the depression of
+the last generation than either landowner or farmer: he is better
+housed, better fed, better clothed, better paid, but filled with
+discontent. Since Mr. Haggard wrote, however, there seems to be a
+reaction, small indeed but still marked, against the townward
+movement, and in most places the supply of labour is sufficient. The
+quality, however, is almost universally described as inferior; the
+labourer takes no pride in his work, and good hedgers, thatchers,
+milkers, and men who understand live stock are hard to obtain<a name="FNanchor_700_701" id="FNanchor_700_701"></a><a href="#Footnote_700_701" class="fnanchor">[700]</a>;
+and the reason for this is in large measure due to the modern system
+of education which keeps a boy from farm work until he is too old to
+take to it. His wages to-day in most parts are good; near
+manufacturing towns the ordinary farm hand is paid from 18<i>s.</i> to 20<i>s.</i> a
+week with extras in harvest, and in purely agricultural districts from
+13<i>s.</i> to 15<i>s.</i> a week, often with a cottage rent free at the lower
+figure. His cottage has improved vastly, especially on large estates,
+though often leaving much to be desired, and the rent usually paid is
+<i>&pound;</i>4 or <i>&pound;</i>5 a year, rising to <i>&pound;</i>7 and <i>&pound;</i>8 near large towns. The wise custom
+of giving him a garden has spread, and is nearly always found to be
+much more helpful than an allotment. The superior or more skilled
+workmen,<a name="FNanchor_701_702" id="FNanchor_701_702"></a><a href="#Footnote_701_702" class="fnanchor">[701]</a> such as <a name="Page_316" id="Page_316"></a>the wagoner, stockman, or shepherd, earns in
+agricultural counties like Herefordshire from 14<i>s.</i> to 18<i>s.</i> a week, and
+in manufacturing counties like Lancashire from 20<i>s.</i> to 22<i>s.</i> a week,
+with extras such as 3<i>d.</i> a lamb in lambing time. At the lower wages he
+often has a cottage and garden rent free.</p>
+
+<p>The improved methods of cutting and harvesting crops have so enabled
+the farmer to economize labour that the once familiar figure of the
+Irish labourer with his knee-breeches and tall hat, who came over for
+the harvest, has almost disappeared. Women, who formerly shared with
+the men most of the farm work, now are little seen in most parts of
+England at work in the fields, and are better occupied in attending to
+their homes.</p>
+
+<p>The divorce of the labourer from the land by enclosure had early
+exercised men's minds, and many efforts were made to remedy this.
+About 1836 especially, several landowners in various parts of England
+introduced allotments, and the movement spread rapidly, so that in
+1893 the Royal Commission on Labour stated that in most places the
+supply was equal to or in excess of the demand.<a name="FNanchor_702_703" id="FNanchor_702_703"></a><a href="#Footnote_702_703" class="fnanchor">[702]</a> However, previous
+Allotments and Small Holdings Acts not being considered so successful
+as was desired, in 1907 an effort was made to give more effect to the
+cry of 'back to the land' by a Small Holdings and Allotments Act<a name="FNanchor_703_704" id="FNanchor_703_704"></a><a href="#Footnote_703_704" class="fnanchor">[703]</a>
+which enables County Councils to purchase land by agreement or take it
+on lease, and, if unable to acquire it by agreement, to do so
+compulsorily, in order to provide small holdings for persons desiring
+to lease them. The County Council may also <a name="Page_317" id="Page_317"></a>arrange with any Borough
+Council or Urban District Council to act as its agent in providing and
+managing small holdings. The duty of supplying allotments rests in the
+first instance with the Rural Parish Councils, though if they do not
+take proper steps to provide allotments, the County Council may itself
+provide them.</p>
+
+<p>It is a praiseworthy effort, though marked by arbitrary methods and
+that contempt for the rights of property, provided it belongs to some
+one else, that is a characteristic of to-day. That it will succeed
+where the small holder has some other trade, and in exceptionally
+favoured situations, is very probable; most of the small holders who
+were successful before the Act had something to fall back upon: they
+were dealers, hawkers, butchers, small tradesmen, &amp;c. There is no
+doubt, too, that an allotment helps both the town artisan and the
+country labourer to tide over slack times. Whether it will succeed in
+planting a rural population on English soil is another matter. It is a
+consummation devoutly to be wished, for a country without a sound
+reserve of healthy country-people is bound to deteriorate. The small
+holder, pure and simple, without any by-industry, has hitherto only
+been able to keep his head above water by a life which without
+exaggeration may be called one of incessant toil and frequent
+privation, such a life as the great mass of our 'febrile factory
+element' could not endure. And if there is one tendency more marked
+than another in the history of English agriculture, it is the
+disappearance of the small holding. In the Middle Ages it is probable
+that the average size of a man's farm was 30 acres, with its attendant
+waste and wood; since then amalgamation has been almost constant.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that the occupier of a few acres often brings to bear on it
+an amount of industry which is greater in proportion than that
+bestowed on a large farm; but the large farmer has, as Young pointed
+out long ago, very great advantages. He is nearly always a man of
+superior intelligence and training. <a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"></a>He has more capital, and can buy
+and sell in the best markets; he can purchase better stock, and save
+labour and the cost of production by using the best machinery. By
+buying in large quantities he gets manures, cakes, seeds, &amp;c., better
+and cheaper than the small holder.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the small holders who have outside industries to fall back
+upon, those who are aided by some exceptionally favourable element in
+the soil or climate, or proximity to good markets, should do well. Yet
+in the Isle of Axholme, the paradise of small holders, we have seen
+that the Commission of 1894 reported that distress was severe. This,
+however, seems to have been largely due to the exaggerated land-hunger
+in the good times, which induced the tenants to buy lands at too high
+a price; and under normal conditions, such as they are now returning
+to, the tenants seem to thrive. In this district the preference for
+ownership as opposed to tenancy is, in spite of recent experiences,
+unqualified, though it is admitted that the best way is to begin by
+renting and save enough to buy.<a name="FNanchor_704_705" id="FNanchor_704_705"></a><a href="#Footnote_704_705" class="fnanchor">[704]</a> The soil is peculiarly favourable
+to the production of celery and early potatoes; and large tracts of
+land are divided into unfenced strips locally known as 'selions' of
+from a quarter of an acre to 3 acres each, cultivated by men who live
+in the villages, each having one or more strips, some as much as 20
+acres, and it is considered that 10 acres is the smallest area on
+which a man can support a family without any other industry to help
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in the fen districts and on the marsh lands between Boston and the
+east coast of Lincolnshire, where the land is naturally very
+productive, many people are making livings out of 5 or 6 acres, mainly
+by celery and early potatoes.<a name="FNanchor_705_706" id="FNanchor_705_706"></a><a href="#Footnote_705_706" class="fnanchor">[705]</a> Other districts adapted naturally
+to small holdings are those of Rock and Far Forest, the famous Vale of
+Evesham, the Sandy and Biggleswade district of Bedfordshire; Upwey,
+Dorset; Calstock and St. Dominick, Cornwall; Wisbech, Cambridgeshire;
+<a name="Page_319" id="Page_319"></a>and Tiptree, Essex. Apart, however, from by-industries, and
+exceptional climate, soil, and situation, the small holding for the
+purpose of raising corn and meat, as distinguished from that which is
+devoted to dairying, fruit-growing, and market gardening, does not
+seem to-day to have much chance of success. If farms were still
+self-sufficing, and simply provided food and clothing for the farmer,
+the small producer even of corn and meat might do as well as the
+larger farmer on a lower scale, but such conditions have gone; all
+holdings now are chiefly manufactories of food, and the smaller
+manufactory has little chance in competition with the greater.</p>
+
+<p>The example of foreign countries is usually held up to Englishmen in
+this connexion, and the argument naturally used is that 'if small
+holdings answer in France and Belgium, why can they not do so in
+England?' On this point the testimony of Sir John Lawes is worth
+quoting.<a name="FNanchor_706_707" id="FNanchor_706_707"></a><a href="#Footnote_706_707" class="fnanchor">[706]</a> 'In most, if not in all continental countries' he says,
+'the success of small holdings depends very materially on whether or
+not the soil and the climate are suitable for what may be called
+industrial crops: such as tobacco, hops, sugar beet, colza, flax,
+hemp, grapes, and other fruit and vegetables; where these conditions
+do not exist the condition of the cultivators is such <i>as would not be
+tolerated in this country</i>.' That is the reason probably why small
+holdings, apart from exceptional conditions, do not answer in England;
+the Englishman of to-day is not anxious to face the hard and grinding
+conditions under which the continental small holder lives.</p>
+
+<p>Since Mr. Haggard's tour the black clouds which have so long lowered
+over agriculture have shown signs of lifting. Rents have been adjusted
+to a figure at which the farmer has some chance of competing with the
+foreigner,<a name="FNanchor_707_708" id="FNanchor_707_708"></a><a href="#Footnote_707_708" class="fnanchor">[707]</a> though the <a name="Page_320" id="Page_320"></a>price of grain keeps wretchedly low; stock
+has improved, and there is undoubtedly to-day (1908) a brisker demand
+for farms, and in some localities rents have even advanced slightly.
+The yeoman&mdash;that is, the man who owns and farms his own land, perhaps
+the most sound and independent class in the community&mdash;has,
+unfortunately for England, largely disappeared. Even of those who
+remain, some prefer to let their property and rent holdings from
+others! It has been noticed that the labourer's lot has improved in
+this generation of adversity; and well it might, for his previous
+condition was miserable in the extreme. The farmers have suffered
+severely, many losing all their capital and becoming farm labourers.
+The landlords have suffered most; they have not been able to throw up
+their land like the farmer, and until quite recently have watched it
+becoming poorer and poorer. The depression, in short, has driven from
+their estates many who had owned them for generations. Those who have
+survived have usually been men with incomes from other sources than
+land, and they have generally deserved well of their country by
+keeping their estates in good condition in spite of falling rents and
+increasing taxation.</p>
+
+<p>No class of men, indeed, have been more virulently and consistently
+abused than the landlords of England, and none with less justice.
+There have been many who have forgotten that property has its duties
+as well as its rights; they have erred like other men, but as a rule
+they play their part well. Even the worst are to some extent obliged
+by their very position to be public spirited, for the mere possession
+of an estate involves the employment of a number of people in healthy
+outdoor occupations which Englishmen to-day so especially need to
+counteract the degenerating influences of town life. Many of the great
+estates<a name="FNanchor_708_709" id="FNanchor_708_709"></a><a href="#Footnote_708_709" class="fnanchor">[708]</a> are carried on at a <a name="Page_321" id="Page_321"></a>positive loss to their owners, and it
+may be doubted whether agricultural property pays the possessor a
+return of 2 per cent. per annum; which is as much as to say that the
+landlord furnishes the tenant with capital in the form of land at that
+rate for the purpose of his business. What other class is content with
+such a scanty return? They are often charged with not managing their
+estates on business principles, and no charge is worse founded. It
+would be a sad day for the tenants on many an estate if they were
+managed on commercial lines. One of the first results would be that
+many properties would be given up as a dead loss. They could only be
+made to pay by raising the rents or cutting down the ever-recurring
+expenditure on repairs and buildings which are necessary for the
+welfare of the tenants. The Duke of Bedford, in his <i>Story of a Great
+Estate</i>, has said that the rent has completely disappeared from three
+of his estates. On the Thorney and Woburn estates over <i>&pound;</i>750,000 was
+spent on new works and permanent improvements alone between 1816 and
+1895, and the result, owing to agricultural depression and increased
+burdens on the land, was a net loss of <i>&pound;</i>7,000 a year; and every one
+with any knowledge of the management of land knows that this is no
+isolated case, though it may be on an exceptionally large scale. Where
+would many tenants be if commercial principles ruled on rent audit
+days? The larger English landlords of to-day are as a rule not
+dependent on their rent rolls. To their great advantage, and to the
+advantage of their tenants, they generally own other property, so that
+they need not regard the land as a commercial investment. They can
+therefore support the necessary outlay on a large estate, the capital
+expenditure on improvements of all kinds, and thus relieve the tenant
+of any expense of this kind. The farms are let at moderate, not rack
+<a name="Page_322" id="Page_322"></a>rents, such as the tenants can easily pay. Also the landlord can make
+large reductions of rent in years of exceptional distress.<a name="FNanchor_709_710" id="FNanchor_709_710"></a><a href="#Footnote_709_710" class="fnanchor">[709]</a> Rents
+are generally collected three months after they are due, a
+considerable concession; and even then arrears are numerous, for any
+reasonable excuse for being behind with the rent is generously
+listened to. It is owing to forbearance in this and other matters that
+the relations between landlord and tenant are generally excellent.
+Where are the best farm buildings, where the best cottages, where does
+the owner carry on a home farm often for the assistance of the tenant
+by letting him have the use of entire horses, well-bred bulls, and
+rams, if not on the larger estates? The restrictions in leases, so
+much decried of late years, were nearly always in the interest of good
+farming, and their abolition will lead to the deterioration of many a
+holding.</p>
+
+<p>Bacon said, 'Where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it
+multiplieth riches exceedingly' and wiser words were never uttered.
+Yet these are the men who are singled out for attack by agitators, who
+are only listened to because the greater number of modern Englishmen
+are ignorant of the land and everything connected with it. At a time
+when rents have dwindled, in some cases almost to vanishing point,
+taxation has increased, and confiscatory schemes and meddlesome
+restrictions have frightened away capital from the land. Many of the
+landlords of England would clearly gain by casting off the burden of
+their heavily weighted property, but they nearly all stick nobly to
+their duty, and hope for that restoration of confidence in the
+sanctity of property and of respect for freedom of contract which
+would do so much towards the rehabilitation of what is still the
+greatest and most important industry in the country.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_330" id="Footnotes_330"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_665_666" id="Footnote_665_666"></a><a href="#FNanchor_665_666"><span class="label">[665]</span></a> And an ever increasing burden of taxation.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_666_667" id="Footnote_666_667"></a><a href="#FNanchor_666_667"><span class="label">[666]</span></a> See Appendix III.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_667_668" id="Footnote_667_668"></a><a href="#FNanchor_667_668"><span class="label">[667]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1881, pp. 142, 199.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_668_669" id="Footnote_668_669"></a><a href="#FNanchor_668_669"><span class="label">[668]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners</i>, 1882, xiv.
+pp. 9 sq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_669_670" id="Footnote_669_670"></a><a href="#FNanchor_669_670"><span class="label">[669]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners</i>, 1882, xiv.
+14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_670_671" id="Footnote_670_671"></a><a href="#FNanchor_670_671"><span class="label">[670]</span></a> The rise between 1857 and 1878 has been estimated at 20
+per cent., and between 1867 and 1877 at 11<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;per cent. Hasbach, <i>op.
+cit.</i>, p. 291.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_671_672" id="Footnote_671_672"></a><a href="#FNanchor_671_672"><span class="label">[671]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i>, 1890, p. 324.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_672_673" id="Footnote_672_673"></a><a href="#FNanchor_672_673"><span class="label">[672]</span></a> See infra, p. 330.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_673_674" id="Footnote_673_674"></a><a href="#FNanchor_673_674"><span class="label">[673]</span></a> <i>Rural Economy of Southern Counties</i>, i. 285-6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_674_675" id="Footnote_674_675"></a><a href="#FNanchor_674_675"><span class="label">[674]</span></a> <i>Victoria County History: Hereford, Agriculture</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_675_676" id="Footnote_675_676"></a><a href="#FNanchor_675_676"><span class="label">[675]</span></a> In one respect the Act of 1883 restricted the rights of
+tenants to compensation, for while the Act of 1875 had expressly
+reserved the rights of the parties under 'custom of the country', the
+Act of 1883 provided that a tenant 'shall not claim compensation by
+custom or otherwise than in manner authorized by this Act for any
+improvement for which he is entitled to compensation under this Act'
+(&sect; 57).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_676_677" id="Footnote_676_677"></a><a href="#FNanchor_676_677"><span class="label">[676]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1897), xv. 96.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_677_678" id="Footnote_677_678"></a><a href="#FNanchor_677_678"><span class="label">[677]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (1892), p. 63.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_678_679" id="Footnote_678_679"></a><a href="#FNanchor_678_679"><span class="label">[678]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (1901), p. 33. Cf. infra, p. 310.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_679_680" id="Footnote_679_680"></a><a href="#FNanchor_679_680"><span class="label">[679]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (1893), p. 286; (1894), p. 677.
+Sometimes to artificially raising them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_680_681" id="Footnote_680_681"></a><a href="#FNanchor_680_681"><span class="label">[680]</span></a> Ibid. (1901), p. 34.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_681_682" id="Footnote_681_682"></a><a href="#FNanchor_681_682"><span class="label">[681]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1897), xv.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_682_683" id="Footnote_682_683"></a><a href="#FNanchor_682_683"><span class="label">[682]</span></a> Broadly speaking, the arable section, or eastern group,
+included the counties of Bedford, Berks., Bucks, Cambridge, Essex,
+Hants, Hertford, Huntingdon, Kent, Leicester, Lincoln, Middlesex,
+Norfolk, Northampton, Notts, Oxford, Rutland, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex,
+Warwick, and the East Riding of York; the grass section, or western
+group, included the remaining counties.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_683_684" id="Footnote_683_684"></a><a href="#FNanchor_683_684"><span class="label">[683]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1894), xvi.
+(1), App. B. ii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_684_685" id="Footnote_684_685"></a><a href="#FNanchor_684_685"><span class="label">[684]</span></a> Ibid. App. B. iii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_685_686" id="Footnote_685_686"></a><a href="#FNanchor_685_686"><span class="label">[685]</span></a> Ibid. (1895), xvi. 169.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_686_687" id="Footnote_686_687"></a><a href="#FNanchor_686_687"><span class="label">[686]</span></a> Ibid. p. 164.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_687_688" id="Footnote_687_688"></a><a href="#FNanchor_687_688"><span class="label">[687]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1895), xvi.
+187-8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_688_689" id="Footnote_688_689"></a><a href="#FNanchor_688_689"><span class="label">[688]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (2nd ser.), xxiv. 538</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_689_690" id="Footnote_689_690"></a><a href="#FNanchor_689_690"><span class="label">[689]</span></a> Ibid. (1894), p. 681.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_690_691" id="Footnote_690_691"></a><a href="#FNanchor_690_691"><span class="label">[690]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1897), xv. 22.
+Cf. p. 319 n.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_691_692" id="Footnote_691_692"></a><a href="#FNanchor_691_692"><span class="label">[691]</span></a> Ibid. pp. 30-1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_692_693" id="Footnote_692_693"></a><a href="#FNanchor_692_693"><span class="label">[692]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1897), xv. 31.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_693_694" id="Footnote_693_694"></a><a href="#FNanchor_693_694"><span class="label">[693]</span></a> Ibid. p. 37:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='center'>NUMBER OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS IN ENGLAND AND WALES.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>1871.</td><td align='center'>1881.</td><td align='center'>1891.</td><td align='center'>1901.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>996,642</td><td align='center'>890,174</td><td align='center'>798,912</td><td align='center'>595,702</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+<p>
+The figures for 1901 are from Summary Tables, <i>Parliamentary Blue
+Book</i> (C, <i>d.</i> 1, 523), p. 202, Table xxxvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_694_695" id="Footnote_694_695"></a><a href="#FNanchor_694_695"><span class="label">[694]</span></a> According to the Report of the Royal Commission on
+Labour, 1893-4, the labourer was 'better fed, better dressed, his
+education and language improved, his amusements less gross, his
+cottage generally improved, though generally on small estates there
+were many bad ones still'.&mdash;<i>Parliamentary Reports</i>, 1893, xxxv. Index
+5 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_695_696" id="Footnote_695_696"></a><a href="#FNanchor_695_696"><span class="label">[695]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1897), xv. 53,
+85. Sir Robert Giffen suggested that the decline in the price of wheat
+pay be partly attributed to the great increase in the supply and
+consumption of meat.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_696_697" id="Footnote_696_697"></a><a href="#FNanchor_696_697"><span class="label">[696]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1897), xv. App.
+iii. Table viii. From an examination of the accounts of seventy-seven
+farms, the average expenditure on labour was found to be 31.4 per
+cent. of the total outlay.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_697_698" id="Footnote_697_698"></a><a href="#FNanchor_697_698"><span class="label">[697]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1897), xv. 106.
+But see above, p. 271.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_698_699" id="Footnote_698_699"></a><a href="#FNanchor_698_699"><span class="label">[698]</span></a> 59 &amp; 60 Vict., c. 16; I Edw. VII, c. 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_699_700" id="Footnote_699_700"></a><a href="#FNanchor_699_700"><span class="label">[699]</span></a> <i>Rural England</i>, ii. 539. Yet the census returns of
+1871, 1881, and 1891 gave no support to the idea that <i>young</i> men were
+leaving agriculture for the towns. See <i>Parl. Reports</i> (1893),
+xxxviii. (2) 33.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_700_701" id="Footnote_700_701"></a><a href="#FNanchor_700_701"><span class="label">[700]</span></a> The author speaks from information derived from answers
+to questions addressed to landowners, farmers, and agents in many
+parts of England, to whom he is greatly indebted.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_701_702" id="Footnote_701_702"></a><a href="#FNanchor_701_702"><span class="label">[701]</span></a> It is, however, a fallacy to assume, as is nearly
+always done, that the ordinary farm labourer, at all events of the old
+type, is unskilled. A good man, who can plough well, thatch, hedge,
+ditch, and do the innumerable tasks required on a farm efficiently, is
+a much more skilled worker than many who are so called in the towns.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_702_703" id="Footnote_702_703"></a><a href="#FNanchor_702_703"><span class="label">[702]</span></a> <i>Parl. Reports</i> (1893), xxxv. Index.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_703_704" id="Footnote_703_704"></a><a href="#FNanchor_703_704"><span class="label">[703]</span></a> 7 Edw. VII, c. 54, amending the Allotments Acts of 1887
+and 1890 and the Small Holdings Act of 1892. The Allotments Act of
+1887 defined an 'allotment' as any parcel of land of not more than 2
+acres held by a tenant under a landlord; but for the purposes of the
+Acts of 1892 and 1907 a 'small holding' means an agricultural holding
+which exceeds one acre and either does not exceed 50 acres or, if
+exceeding 50 acres, is of an annual value not exceeding <i>&pound;</i>50. At the
+same time the Act defines an allotment as a holding of any size up to
+5 acres, so that up to that size a parcel of land may be treated as a
+small holding or an allotment.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_704_705" id="Footnote_704_705"></a><a href="#FNanchor_704_705"><span class="label">[704]</span></a> Jebb, <i>Small Holdings</i>, p. 25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_705_706" id="Footnote_705_706"></a><a href="#FNanchor_705_706"><span class="label">[705]</span></a> Jebb, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 28.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_706_707" id="Footnote_706_707"></a><a href="#FNanchor_706_707"><span class="label">[706]</span></a> <i>Allotments and Small Holdings</i> (1892), p. 19 et seq.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_707_708" id="Footnote_707_708"></a><a href="#FNanchor_707_708"><span class="label">[707]</span></a> The gross income derived from the ownership of lands in
+Great Britain, as returned under Schedule A of the Income Tax,
+decreased from <i>&pound;</i>51,811,234 in 1876-7 to <i>&pound;</i>36,609,884 in 1905-6. In 1850
+Caird estimated the rental of English land, exclusive of Middlesex, at
+<i>&pound;</i>37,412,000. Cf. above, p. 310.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_708_709" id="Footnote_708_709"></a><a href="#FNanchor_708_709"><span class="label">[708]</span></a> According to the Commission of 1894, the amount
+expended on improvements and repairs alone on some great estates was:
+On Lord Derby's, in Lancashire, of 43,217 acres, <i>&pound;</i>200,000 in twelve
+years, or <i>&pound;</i>16,500, or 7<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> an acre, each year. On Lord Sefton's, of
+18,000 acres, <i>&pound;</i>286,000 in twenty-two years, or about <i>&pound;</i>13,000, or 14<i>s.</i>
+an acre, each year. On the Earl of Ancaster's estates in Lincolnshire,
+of 53,993 acres, <i>&pound;</i>689,000 was spent in twelve years, or 11<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i> an
+acre each year; and many similar instances are given.&mdash;<i>Parliamentary
+Reports, Commissioners</i> (1897), xv. 287-9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_709_710" id="Footnote_709_710"></a><a href="#FNanchor_709_710"><span class="label">[709]</span></a> Shaw Lefevre, <i>Agrarian Tenures</i>, p. 19.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.&mdash;LIVE STOCK</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is a curious fact that the barriers which protected the British
+farmer were thrown down shortly before he became by unforeseen causes
+exposed to the competition of the whole world. Down to 1846 Germany
+supplied more than half the wheat that was imported into England,
+Denmark sent more than Russia, and the United States hardly any.
+Other competitors who have since arisen were then unknown. By the end
+of the next decade Russia and the United States sent large
+quantities, as may be gathered from the following table <a name="FNanchor_710_711" id="FNanchor_710_711"></a><a href="#Footnote_710_711" class="fnanchor">[710]</a>:</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>ANNUAL AVERAGE IMPORTS OF WHEAT AND FLOUR FOR<br />
+  THE SEVEN YEARS 1859-1865.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>Cwt.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Russia</td><td align='right'>5,350,861</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Denmark and the Duchies</td><td align='right'>969,890</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Germany</td><td align='right'>6,358,229</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>France</td><td align='right'>3,828,691</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Spain</td><td align='right'>331,463</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Wallachia and Moldavia</td><td align='right'>295,475</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Turkish dominions, not otherwise specified</td><td align='right'>528,568</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Egypt</td><td align='right'>1,423,193</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Canada</td><td align='right'>2,223,809</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>United States</td><td align='right'>10,080,911</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Other countries</td><td align='right'>1,036,968</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>In the years 1871-5 the United States held the first place, Russia
+came next, and Germany third with only about one-sixth of the
+American imports, and Canada was running <a name="Page_324" id="Page_324"></a>Germany close. Other
+formidable competitors were now arising, and by 1901 the chief
+importing countries<a name="FNanchor_711_712" id="FNanchor_711_712"></a><a href="#Footnote_711_712" class="fnanchor">[711]</a> were:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>Cwt.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Argentina</td>
+  <td align='right'>8,309,706</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Russia<a name="FNanchor_712_713" id="FNanchor_712_713"></a><a href="#Footnote_712_713" class="fnanchor">[712]</a></td>
+  <td align='right'>2,580,805</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>United States of America&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>66,855,025</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Australia</td>
+  <td align='right'>6,197,019</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Canada</td>
+  <td align='right'>8,577,960</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>India</td>
+  <td align='right'>3,341,500</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Since then the imports of wheat and flour from the United States have
+decreased, and in 1904 India took the first place, Russia the second,
+Argentina the third, and the United States the fourth. However, in
+1907 the United States sent more than any other country, followed by
+Argentina, India, Canada, Russia, and Australia, in the order named.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable in the near future that the imports from the United
+States will decline considerably, for in the last quarter of a
+century its population has increased 68 per cent. and its wheat area
+only 25 per cent. On the other hand, the population of Canada
+increased 33 per cent. and her wheat area 158 per cent. in the same
+time; while in Argentina an addition of 70 per cent. to the
+population has been accompanied by an increase of the wheat area from
+half a million to fourteen million acres. It is probable also that
+India and Australia will continue to send large supplies, and there
+are said to be vast wheat-growing tracts opened up by the Siberian
+Railway, so that there seems little chance of wheat rising very much
+in price for many years to come, apart from exceptional causes such
+as bad seasons and 'corners'.</p>
+
+<p>McCulloch, writing in 1843,<a name="FNanchor_713_714" id="FNanchor_713_714"></a><a href="#Footnote_713_714" class="fnanchor">[713]</a> says that, except Denmark and
+Ireland, no country of Western Europe 'has been in the habit of
+exporting cattle'. Danish cattle, however, could rarely be <a name="Page_325" id="Page_325"></a>sold in
+London at a profit, and Irish cattle alone disturbed the equanimity
+of the English farmer.</p>
+
+<p>For a few years after the repeal of the corn laws and of the
+prohibition of imports of live stock, the imports of live stock, meat,
+and dairy produce were, except from Ireland, almost nil<a name="FNanchor_714_715" id="FNanchor_714_715"></a><a href="#Footnote_714_715" class="fnanchor">[714]</a>; since
+then they have increased enormously, and in 1907 the value of live
+cattle, sheep, and pigs imported was <i>&pound;</i>8,273,640, not so great,
+however, as some years before, owing to restrictions imposed; but this
+decrease has been made up by the increase in the imports of meat,
+which in 1907 touched their highest figure of 18.751,555 cwt, valued
+at the large sum of <i>&pound;</i>41,697,905.<a name="FNanchor_715_716" id="FNanchor_715_716"></a><a href="#Footnote_715_716" class="fnanchor">[715]</a></p>
+
+<p>Forty years ago hardly any foreign butter or cheese was imported;
+to-day it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that not one hundredth
+part of the butter eaten in London is British; in 1907 the amount of
+butter imported was 4,310,156 cwt., and of cheese, 2,372,233 cwt. The
+increase in the imports was largely assisted by the fact that in the
+last half of the nineteenth century English farmers had directed their
+attention chiefly to meat-producing animals and neglected the milch
+cow. However, of late years great efforts have been made to recover
+lost ground, and in England the number of cows and heifers in milk or
+in calf has increased from 1,567,789 in 1878 to 2,020,340 in 1906.</p>
+
+<p>The regulation of the imports and exports of live stock did not
+concern the legislature so early as those of corn. One of the earliest
+statutes on the subject is II Hen. VII, c. 13, which forbade the
+export of horses and of mares worth more than 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>, because many
+had been conveyed out of the land, so that there were few left for its
+defence and the price of horses had been thereby increased. A
+subsequent statute, 22 Hen. VIII, c. 7, says this law was disobeyed by
+many who secretly exported <a name="Page_326" id="Page_326"></a>horses, so it was enacted that no one
+should export a horse without a licence; and 1 Edw. VI, c. 5,
+continued this. But after this date the export of horses does not seem
+to have occupied the attention of Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>22 Hen. VIII, c. 7, also forbade the export of cattle and sheep
+without a licence because so many had been carried out of the realm
+that victual was scarce and cattle dear. By 22 Car. II, c. 13, oxen
+might be exported on payment of a duty of 1<i>s.</i> each, the last statute
+on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>As for sheep, their export without the king's licence had been
+forbidden by 3 Hen. VI, c. 2, because men had been in the habit of
+taking them to Flanders and other countries, where they sheared them
+and sold the wool and the mutton. 8 Eliz., c. 3, forbade their export,
+and 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18, declared the export of sheep and wool a
+felony.</p>
+
+<p>The importation of cattle was forbidden by 15 Car. II, c. 7, which
+stated that the 'comeing in of late of vast numbers of cattle already
+fatted' had caused 'a very great part of the land of this kingdom to
+be much fallen and like dayly to fall more in their rents and values';
+therefore every head of great cattle imported was to pay 20<i>s.</i> to the
+king, 10<i>s.</i> to the informer, and 10<i>s.</i> to the poor after July 1, 1664.
+By 18 Car. II, c. 2, the importation of cattle was declared a common
+nuisance, and if any cattle, sheep, or swine were imported they were
+to be seized and forfeited. By 32 Car. II, c. 2, this was made
+perpetual and continued in force till 1842, though it was repealed as
+to Ireland, as we have seen.<a name="FNanchor_716_717" id="FNanchor_716_717"></a><a href="#Footnote_716_717" class="fnanchor">[716]</a></p>
+
+<p>It appears from the laws dealing with the matter that in the time of
+the Plantagenets England exported butter and cheese. In the reign of
+Edward III they were merchandise of the staple, and therefore when
+exported had to go to Calais when the staple was fixed there. This
+caused great damage, it is said, to divers persons in England, for the
+butter and cheese would not keep until buyers came; therefore 3 Hen.
+<a name="Page_327" id="Page_327"></a>VI, c 4, enacted that the chancellor might grant licence to export
+butter and cheese to other places than to the staple.</p>
+
+<p>The regulation of the export of wool frequently occupied the attention
+of Parliament It has been noticed<a name="FNanchor_717_718" id="FNanchor_717_718"></a><a href="#Footnote_717_718" class="fnanchor">[717]</a> that the laws of Edgar fixed
+its price for export, and Henry of Huntingdon mentions its export in
+the twelfth century, while during the reign of Edward I it was for
+some time forbidden except by licence, which led to its being smuggled
+out in wine casks.<a name="FNanchor_718_719" id="FNanchor_718_719"></a><a href="#Footnote_718_719" class="fnanchor">[718]</a> The <i>Hundred Rolls</i> give the names of several
+Italian merchants who were engaged in buying wool for export, the
+ecclesiastical houses, especially the Cistercians, furnishing a great
+quantity, and the chief port then for the wool trade was Boston, The
+export was again prohibited in 1337, the great object being to make
+the foreigner pay dearly for our staple product: an object which was
+certainly effected, for when Queen Philippa redeemed her crown from
+pawn at Cologne in 1342 by a quantity of English wool, 1<i>s.</i> 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> a
+lb. was the price, and it was even said to sell in Flanders at 3<i>s.</i> a
+lb., a price which, expressed in modern money, seems fabulous.<a name="FNanchor_719_720" id="FNanchor_719_720"></a><a href="#Footnote_719_720" class="fnanchor">[719]</a>
+However, in the next reign English wool began to decline in price,
+owing probably to changes in fashion, but the long wools maintained
+their superiority and their export was forbidden by Henry VI and
+Elizabeth.<a name="FNanchor_720_721" id="FNanchor_720_721"></a><a href="#Footnote_720_721" class="fnanchor">[720]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the reign of James I it was confessed 'that the cloth of this
+kingdom hath wanted both estimation and vent in foreign parts, and
+that the wools are fallen from their stated values', so that export
+was prohibited entirely; and 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18, declared the
+export of wool a felony, though 7 and 8 Will. III, c. 28, says this
+did not deter people from exporting it, so that the law was made more
+stringent on the subject, and export continued to be forbidden until
+1825.<a name="FNanchor_721_722" id="FNanchor_721_722"></a><a href="#Footnote_721_722" class="fnanchor">[721]</a> In <a name="Page_328" id="Page_328"></a>a letter written in 1677 the fall of rents in England,
+which had caused the value of estates to sink from twenty-one to
+sixteen or seventeen years' purchase, is ascribed mainly to the low
+price of wool,<a name="FNanchor_722_723" id="FNanchor_722_723"></a><a href="#Footnote_722_723" class="fnanchor">[722]</a> owing to the prohibition of export and increased
+imports from Ireland and Spain. It was now, said the writer, worth 7<i>d.</i>
+instead of 12<i>d.</i>, and a great quantity of Spanish wool was being sold
+in England at low rates. These 'low rates' were 2<i>s.</i> and 2<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> a lb.
+for the best wool, whereas in 1660 the best Spanish wool was 4<i>s.</i> and
+4<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> a lb.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen<a name="FNanchor_723_724" id="FNanchor_723_724"></a><a href="#Footnote_723_724" class="fnanchor">[723]</a> that Spanish wool was imported into England in the
+Middle Ages. In 1677, according to Smith,<a name="FNanchor_724_725" id="FNanchor_724_725"></a><a href="#Footnote_724_725" class="fnanchor">[724]</a> England imported 2,000
+bags of 200 lb. each from Spain<a name="FNanchor_725_726" id="FNanchor_725_726"></a><a href="#Footnote_725_726" class="fnanchor">[725]</a>; in the three years 1709-11,
+14,000 bags; in the three years 1713-14, 20,000 bags; and about 1730
+some came from Jamaica, Maryland, and Virginia, and down to 1802
+imports were free.<a name="FNanchor_726_727" id="FNanchor_726_727"></a><a href="#Footnote_726_727" class="fnanchor">[726]</a> In that year a duty of 5<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> a cwt. was
+imposed, which in 1819 was raised to 56<i>s.</i> a cwt., which, however, was
+reduced to 1<i>d.</i> a lb. on 1<i>s.</i> wool and <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> a lb. on wool under 1<i>s.</i> in
+1824. In 1825 colonial wool was admitted free, and in 1844 the duty
+taken off altogether, and imports from our colonies and foreign
+countries soon assumed enormous proportions. Down to 1814 nearly all
+our imports of wool came from Spain; after that the greater part came
+from Germany and the East Indies; but Russia and India soon began to
+send large quantities, and in recent times Australasia has been our
+chief importer, in 1907 sending 321,470,554 lb., while New Zealand
+sent 158,406,255 lb. out of a total import of 764,286,625 lb. About
+1800 our imports of wool were 8,609,368 lb.!<a name="FNanchor_727_728" id="FNanchor_727_728"></a><a href="#Footnote_727_728" class="fnanchor">[727]</a> Of our enormous
+imports of wool, however, a very large quantity is re-exported.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329"></a>In 1828 it was stated before the House of Lords that English wool had
+deteriorated considerably during the previous thirty years, owing
+chiefly to the farmer increasing the weight of the carcase and the
+quantity of wool, so that fineness of fleece was injured. The great
+extension of turnips and the introduction of a large breed of sheep
+also appeared to have lessened the value of the fleece, yet English
+wool to-day still commands a high price in comparison with that of
+other countries, though the price in recent years has declined
+greatly; in 1871 it was 1<i>s.</i> 5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i> a lb., in 1872 1<i>s.</i> 9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>, in
+1873 1<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i> In 1907 Leicester wool was 12<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>, Southdown 14<i>d.</i> to
+15<i>d.</i>, and Lincoln 12<i>d.</i> a lb.; Australian at the same date being 11<i>d.</i>,
+and New Zealand 11<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p>The fruit-grower has also had to contend with an enormous foreign
+supply, which nearly always has a better appearance than that grown in
+these islands, though the quality is often inferior. In 1860 apples
+were included with other raw fruits in the returns, so that the exact
+figures are not given, but apparently about 500,000 cwt. came in; by
+1903 this had increased to 4,569,546 bushels, and in 1907 3,526,232
+bushels arrived. Enormous foreign supplies of grapes, pears, plums,
+cherries, and even strawberries have also combined to keep the home
+price down.</p>
+
+<p>The decrease in the acreage of hops, from its maximum of 71,789 acres
+in 1878 to 44,938 in 1907, was ascribed by the recent Commission to
+the lessening demand for beer in England, the demand for lighter kinds
+of beer, and the use of hop substitutes, and not to increase in
+foreign competition; which the following figures seem to bear out:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='center'>IMPORTS OF HOPS.</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>Cwt.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1861</td><td align='right'>149,176</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1867</td><td align='right'>296,117</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1869</td><td align='right'>322,515</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1870</td><td align='right'>127,853</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1875</td><td align='right'>256,444</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1877 (the year before the record acreage planted)</td><td align='right'>250,039</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1879</td><td align='right'>262,765<a name="Page_330" id="Page_330"></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1903</td><td align='right'>113,998</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1904</td><td align='right'>313,667</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1905</td><td align='right'>108,953</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1906</td><td align='right'>232,619</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1907</td><td align='right'>202,324</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>In recent years they have been a loss to the grower; as the average
+crop is a little under 9 cwt. per acre, and the total cost of growing
+and marketing from <i>&pound;</i>35 to <i>&pound;</i>45 an acre, it is obvious that prices of
+about <i>&pound;</i>3 per cwt., which have ruled lately, are unremunerative.</p>
+
+<p>However disastrous to the farmer and landowner, the increased
+quantities and low prices of food thus obtained have been of
+inestimable benefit to the crowded population of England. In 1851 the
+whole corn supply, both English and foreign, afforded 317 lb. per
+annum per head of the population of 27 millions. In 1889 the total
+supply gave 400 lb. per head to a population of 37<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;millions at a
+greatly reduced cost.<a name="FNanchor_728_729" id="FNanchor_728_729"></a><a href="#Footnote_728_729" class="fnanchor">[728]</a> The supply of animal food presents similar
+contrasts; in 1851 each person obtained 90 lb., in 1889 115 lb. The
+average value of the imports of food per head in the period 1859-65
+was about 25<i>s.</i>; in the period 1901-7, 65<i>s.</i><a name="FNanchor_729_730" id="FNanchor_729_730"></a><a href="#Footnote_729_730" class="fnanchor">[729]</a> The products which
+have stood best against foreign competition are fresh milk, hay and
+straw, the softer kinds of fruit that will not bear carriage well, and
+stock of the finest quality. These islands still maintain their great
+reputation for the excellent quality of their live stock, and exports,
+chiefly of pedigree animals, touched their highest figure in 1906:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'><i>No.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'><i>Total value.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'><i>Average per<br />head.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>&pound;</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Cattle</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>5,616</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>327,335</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>58</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Sheep</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>12,716</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'> 204,061</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>16</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Pigs</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>2,221</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>20,292</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'> 9</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>1877.<a name="FNanchor_730_731" id="FNanchor_730_731"></a><a href="#Footnote_730_731" class="fnanchor">[730]</a><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331"></a></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>1907.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Acreage under crops and grass in England</td><td align='right'>24,312,033</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Total acreage under crops and grass</td><td align='right'>24,585,455</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'><i>Corn crops.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'><i>Corn crops.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Wheat</td><td align='right'>2,987,129</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Wheat</td><td align='right'>1,537,208</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Barley or bere</td><td align='right'>2,000,531</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Barley</td><td align='right'>1,411,163</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Oats</td><td align='right'>1,489,999</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Oats</td><td align='right'>1,967,682</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Rye</td><td align='right'>48,604</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Rye</td><td align='right'>53,837</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Beans</td><td align='right'>470,153</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Beans</td><td align='right'>296,186</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Peas</td><td align='right'>306,356</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Peas</td><td align='right'>164,326</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>Total</td><td align='right'>7,302,772</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>Total</td><td align='right'>5,430,402</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'><i>Green crops.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Potatoes</td><td align='right'>303,964</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Potatoes</td><td align='right'> 381,891</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Turnips and swedes</td><td align='right'>1,495,885</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Turnips and swedes</td><td align='right'> 1,058,292</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Mangels</td><td align='right'>348,289</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Mangels</td><td align='right'>436,193</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Carrots</td><td align='right'>14,445</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Cabbage, kohl rabi, and rape</td><td align='right'>176,218</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Cabbage</td><td align='right'> 65,262</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Kohl rabi </td><td align='right'>20,572</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Rape</td><td align='right'>79,913</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Vetches and other green crops</td><td align='right'>420,373</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Vetches or tares </td><td align='right'>145,067</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Lucerne</td><td align='right'> 63,379</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>Total</td><td align='right'>2,759,174</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Flax</td><td align='right'>7,210</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Hops</td><td align='right'>71,239</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Hops</td><td align='right'>44,938</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Barefallow or uncropped arable</td><td align='right'>576,235</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Small fruit</td><td align='right'> 73,372</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Clover, sainfoin, and grasses<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;under rotation</td>
+    <td valign='bottom' align='right'>2,737,387</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Clover, sainfoin, and grasses<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; under rotation</td>
+    <td valign='bottom' align='right'>2,611,722</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Other crops</td><td align='right'>117,914</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Bare fallow</td><td align='right'>248,678</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>Total arable</td><td align='right'>13,454,017</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>Total arable</td><td align='right'>10,777,595</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'>Permanent grass, exclusive of<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;mountain or heath land</td>
+    <td valign='bottom' align='right'>10,858,016</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'>Permanent grass</td><td valign='bottom' align='right'>13,807,860</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>24,312,033</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>24,585,455</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>The small fruit was divided into:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Strawberries</td><td align='right'>23,623&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Raspberries</td><td align='right'>6,479<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Currants and gooseberries</td><td align='right'>24,178<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Others</td><td align='right'>19,090&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>73,371<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332"></a>As arable land has suffered much more than grass from foreign
+imports, it was inevitable that this country should become more
+pastoral; in 1877 the arable land of England amounted to 13,454,017
+acres, and permanent grass to 10,858,016. By 1907 this was
+practically reversed, the permanent grass amounting to 13,807,860
+acres and the arable to 10,777,595. In corn crops the great decrease
+has been in the acreage of wheat, but barley, beans, and peas have
+also diminished, while oats have increased. In green crops there has
+been a great decrease in turnips and swedes, compensated to some
+extent by an increase in mangels, and a sad decrease in hops. The
+changes in thirty years can be gathered from the tables of the Board
+of Agriculture given on p. 331.</p>
+
+<p>In 1877 no separate return of small fruit was made, but in 1878 the
+orchards of England, including fruit trees of any kind, covered
+161,228 acres, which by 1907 had grown to a total area under fruit of
+294,910 acres, among which were 168,576 acres of apples, 8,365 of
+pears, 11,952 of cherries, and 14,571 of plums. Much of the small
+fruit is included in the orchards.</p>
+
+<p>'Other crops' were further divided into:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>Acres.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Carrots</td><td align='right'>11,897</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Onions</td><td align='right'>3,416</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Buckwheat </td><td align='right'> 5,226</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Flax</td><td align='right'>355</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Others</td><td align='right'>97,020</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>117,914</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The average yield per acre of various crops in England for the ten
+years 1897-1906 was:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>Bushels.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wheat</td><td align='right'>31.1</td><td><a name="FNanchor_731_732" id="FNanchor_731_732"></a><a href="#Footnote_731_732" class="fnanchor">[731]</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Barley</td><td align='right'>32.88</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Oats</td><td align='right'>41.38</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Beans</td><td align='right'>29.28</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Peas</td><td align='right'>27.15</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>Tons.</i><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333"></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Potatoes</td><td align='right'>5.74</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Turnips and swedes</td><td align='right'>12.19</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Mangels</td><td align='right'>19.24</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>Cwt.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hay from clover, and grasses under rotation</td><td align='right'>29.40</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hay from permanent grass</td><td align='right'>24.33</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hops</td><td align='right'>8.81</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The live stock in 1877 consisted of:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Horses used solely for purposes of agriculture</td><td align='right'>761,089</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Unbroken horses and mares kept solely for breeding</td><td align='right'>309,119</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='right'>1,070,208</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cattle.</td><td align='left'>Cows and heifers in milk or in calf.</td><td align='right'>1,557,574</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Two years old and over</td><td align='right'>1,072,407</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Under two years of age</td><td align='right'>1,349,669</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='right'>3,979,650</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Sheep</td><td align='right'>18,330,377</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Pigs</td><td align='right'>2,114,751</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>In 1907:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Horses used solely for agriculture</td><td align='right'>863,817</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Unbroken</td><td align='right'>325,330</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='right'>1,189,147</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cattle.</td><td align='left'>Cows and heifers in milk or in calf</td><td align='right'>2,032,284</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Two years old and over</td><td align='right'>&nbsp; 1,043,034</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>Under two years of age</td><td align='right'>&nbsp; 1,912,413</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='right'>4,987,731</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Sheep<a name="FNanchor_732_733" id="FNanchor_732_733"></a><a href="#Footnote_732_733" class="fnanchor">[732]</a></td><td align='right'>15,098,928</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='left'>Pigs</td><td align='right'>2,257,136</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The decrease in sheep and the increase in cattle and horses (though
+of late years the latter have shown a tendency to decrease) are to be
+noted.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334"></a>The number of live stock per 1,000 acres of cultivated land in the
+United Kingdom and other countries is:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'><i>Country.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Cattle.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Sheep.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Pigs.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Total.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>United Kingdom</td>
+  <td align='right'>247</td>
+  <td align='right'>619</td>
+  <td align='right'>76</td>
+  <td align='right'>942</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Belgium</td>
+  <td align='right'>411</td>
+  <td align='right'>54</td>
+  <td align='right'>240</td>
+  <td align='right'>705</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Denmark</td>
+  <td align='right'>264</td>
+  <td align='right'>126</td>
+  <td align='right'>209</td>
+  <td align='right'>599</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>France </td>
+  <td align='right'>167</td>
+  <td align='right'>207</td>
+  <td align='right'>88</td>
+  <td align='right'>462</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Germany</td>
+  <td align='right'>221</td>
+  <td align='right'>90</td>
+  <td align='right'>216</td>
+  <td align='right'>527</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Holland</td>
+  <td align='right'>322</td>
+  <td align='right'>116</td>
+  <td align='right'>164</td>
+  <td align='right'>602</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>It will be observed that in cattle the United Kingdom comes out
+badly, but is pre-eminent in sheep and has the largest total; though,
+as cattle require more acreage, Belgium nearly equals its aggregate
+produce for 1,000 acres.</p>
+
+<p>As regards prices at the two periods 1871-5 and 1906-7, if we take
+100 as the price at the former the following are the prices at the
+latter:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Beef</td><td align='right'> 71</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Mutton</td><td align='right'> 93</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Bacon</td><td align='right'>121</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wheat</td><td align='right'>56</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Butter</td><td align='right'>97</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cheese</td><td align='right'>100</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Turning once more to the occupation of land, the percentage of land
+occupied by owners in 1907 in England was 12.4, the rest being
+occupied by tenants, and the following is a statement of the number
+of agricultural holdings of various sizes in 1875 and 1907:</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="6" align='center'>1875.<a name="FNanchor_733_734" id="FNanchor_733_734"></a><a href="#Footnote_733_734" class="fnanchor">[733]</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'><i>50 acres<br />and<br />under.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>50 to<br />100<br />acres.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>100 to<br />300<br />acres.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>300 to<br />500<br />acres.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>500 to <br />1000<br />acres.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Above<br />1000<br />acres.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>293,469</td>
+  <td align='center'>44,842</td>
+  <td align='center'>58,450</td>
+  <td align='center'>11,245</td>
+  <td align='center'>3,871</td>
+  <td align='center'>463</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+<br /><br />
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="6" align='center'>1907.</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'><i>Above 1 and not<br />exceeding 5 acres.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Above 5 and not<br />exceeding 50 acres.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Above 50 and not<br />exceeding 300 acres.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'><i>Above 300<br />acres.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>80,921</td>
+  <td align='center'>165,975</td>
+  <td align='center'>109,927</td>
+  <td align='center'>14,652</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_342" id="Footnotes_342"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_710_711" id="Footnote_710_711"></a><a href="#FNanchor_710_711"><span class="label">[710]</span></a> McCulloch, <i>Commercial Dictionary</i> (1882), p. 449.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_711_712" id="Footnote_711_712"></a><a href="#FNanchor_711_712"><span class="label">[711]</span></a> See <i>Returns of the Board of Agriculture</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_712_713" id="Footnote_712_713"></a><a href="#FNanchor_712_713"><span class="label">[712]</span></a> The imports from Russia were that year exceptionally
+small.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_713_714" id="Footnote_713_714"></a><a href="#FNanchor_713_714"><span class="label">[713]</span></a> McCulloch, <i>Commercial Dictionary</i> (1852), p. 274.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_714_715" id="Footnote_714_715"></a><a href="#FNanchor_714_715"><span class="label">[714]</span></a> In 1860 the number of live cattle imported was 104,569;
+in 1897, 618,321; in 1907, 472,015.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_715_716" id="Footnote_715_716"></a><a href="#FNanchor_715_716"><span class="label">[715]</span></a> In 1860 the quantity of beef imported was 283,332 cwt.;
+in 1907, 6,033,736 cwt.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_716_717" id="Footnote_716_717"></a><a href="#FNanchor_716_717"><span class="label">[716]</span></a> See above.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_717_718" id="Footnote_717_718"></a><a href="#FNanchor_717_718"><span class="label">[717]</span></a> Supra, p. 38.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_718_719" id="Footnote_718_719"></a><a href="#FNanchor_718_719"><span class="label">[718]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, i. 176, 192;
+<i>Hundred Rolls</i>, i. 405, 414.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_719_720" id="Footnote_719_720"></a><a href="#FNanchor_719_720"><span class="label">[719]</span></a> Burnley, <i>History of Wool</i>, p. 65.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_720_721" id="Footnote_720_721"></a><a href="#FNanchor_720_721"><span class="label">[720]</span></a> Ibid. p. 70.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_721_722" id="Footnote_721_722"></a><a href="#FNanchor_721_722"><span class="label">[721]</span></a> Cf. supra, p. 172.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_722_723" id="Footnote_722_723"></a><a href="#FNanchor_722_723"><span class="label">[722]</span></a> Smith, <i>Memoirs of Wool</i>, i. 222.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_723_724" id="Footnote_723_724"></a><a href="#FNanchor_723_724"><span class="label">[723]</span></a> See above.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_724_725" id="Footnote_724_725"></a><a href="#FNanchor_724_725"><span class="label">[724]</span></a> Smith, <i>Memoirs of Wool</i>, ii. 252.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_725_726" id="Footnote_725_726"></a><a href="#FNanchor_725_726"><span class="label">[725]</span></a> McPherson, <i>Annals of Commerce</i>, iii. 156.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_726_727" id="Footnote_726_727"></a><a href="#FNanchor_726_727"><span class="label">[726]</span></a> McCulloch, <i>Commercial Dictionary</i>, p. 1431. For
+imports see Appendix, p. 354.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_727_728" id="Footnote_727_728"></a><a href="#FNanchor_727_728"><span class="label">[727]</span></a> Of which 6,000,000 lb. came from Spain. The first
+Spanish Merino sheep were introduced into Australia in 1797. See
+Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, ii. 538, and cf. below.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_728_729" id="Footnote_728_729"></a><a href="#FNanchor_728_729"><span class="label">[728]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (1890), p. 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_729_730" id="Footnote_729_730"></a><a href="#FNanchor_729_730"><span class="label">[729]</span></a> <i>Board of Agriculture Returns</i> (1907), p. 187.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_730_731" id="Footnote_730_731"></a><a href="#FNanchor_730_731"><span class="label">[730]</span></a> Cf. Appendix IV.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_731_732" id="Footnote_731_732"></a><a href="#FNanchor_731_732"><span class="label">[731]</span></a> In 1907 the average wheat crop was 33.96 bushels per
+acre in England and 39.18 in Scotland. The average yield per acre of
+wheat in Holland is 34.1 bushels; Belgium, 34; Germany, 30.3; Denmark,
+28.2 France, 197.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_732_733" id="Footnote_732_733"></a><a href="#FNanchor_732_733"><span class="label">[732]</span></a> The total number of sheep in Great Britain in 1877 was
+28,161,164; in 1907, 26,115,455. In 1688 Youatt estimates it at
+12,000,000; In 1741, 17,000,000; in 1800 26,000,000; in 1830
+32,000,000.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_733_734" id="Footnote_733_734"></a><a href="#FNanchor_733_734"><span class="label">[733]</span></a> Unfortunately the class 50 acres and under at this time
+included holdings <i>under</i> one acre, so that it is useless for the
+comparison of the number of small holdings at the two dates, for in
+1907 none appear under one acre.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335"></a>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>MODERN FARM LIVE STOCK</h3>
+
+<div class="center">CART HORSES</div>
+
+
+<p>Arthur Young at the end of the eighteenth century found only two
+kinds of cart horses worthy of mention, the Shire and the Suffolk
+Punch; to-day, besides these two, we have the Clydesdale.</p>
+
+<p>The Shire horse, according to Sir Walter Gilbey, is the purest
+survival of the Great Horse of mediaeval times, known also as the War
+Horse, and the Old English Black Horse. It is the largest of draught
+horses, attaining a height of 17 to 17.3 hands and a weight of 2,200
+lb., its general characteristics being immense strength, symmetrical
+proportions, bold free action, and docile disposition. In 1878 the
+Shire Horse Society was established to improve the breed, and
+distribute sound and healthy sires through the country.</p>
+
+<p>The Clydesdale, whose native home is the valley of the Clyde, is not
+so large as the Shire, but strong, active, and a fine worker. They
+are either derived from a cross between Flemish stallions and
+Lanarkshire mares, or are an improvement of the old Lanark breed.<a name="FNanchor_734_735" id="FNanchor_734_735"></a><a href="#Footnote_734_735" class="fnanchor">[734]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Suffolk Punch looks what he is-a thorough farm horse. He stands
+lower than the two former breeds, but weighs heavily, often 2,000 lb.
+They are generally chestnut or light dun in colour, and their legs
+are without the feather of the Clydesdale and Shire. They have been
+long associated with Suffolk, and were mentioned by Camden in 1586.
+According to the Suffolk <i>Stud Book</i> of 1880, the Suffolk <a name="Page_336" id="Page_336"></a>horses
+of to-day are with few exceptions the descendants in the direct male
+line of the original breed described by Arthur Young.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center">CATTLE</div>
+
+<p>What was the original breed of cattle in this island is uncertain. The
+Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in
+1887 favours the view that the herds of wild cattle, such as still
+exist at Chillingham, represent the original breed of Great Britain.
+It states that the 'urus' was the only indigenous wild ox in this
+country, and the source of all our domesticated breeds as well as of
+the few wild ones that remain, such as the Chillingham breed, which is
+small, white, with the inside of the ear red, and a brownish muzzle.
+Some, however, assert they are merely the descendants of a
+domesticated breed run wild, which have reverted somewhat to the
+ancient type.<a name="FNanchor_735_736" id="FNanchor_735_736"></a><a href="#Footnote_735_736" class="fnanchor">[735]</a></p>
+
+<p>According to Thorold Rogers, the cattle of the Middle Ages were small
+rough animals like the mountain breeds of to-day, and at the end of
+the sixteenth century we have seen they had large horns, were low and
+heavy, and for the most part black.<a name="FNanchor_736_737" id="FNanchor_736_737"></a><a href="#Footnote_736_737" class="fnanchor">[736]</a> The great variety of cattle
+in Great Britain may be due to their being the descendants of several
+species, or to difference of climate and soil, or to spontaneous
+variation, but the chief cause is the diligent selection of breeders.
+Marshall is quite positive<a name="FNanchor_737_738" id="FNanchor_737_738"></a><a href="#Footnote_737_738" class="fnanchor">[737]</a> that the Hereford, Devon, Sussex, and
+the black mountain breeds of Scotland and Wales are all descended from
+the original native breed of this island, that the Shorthorns came
+from the Continent, and the Longhorns probably from Ireland. Bradley's
+division of cattle into black, white, and red tells us little.<a name="FNanchor_738_739" id="FNanchor_738_739"></a><a href="#Footnote_738_739" class="fnanchor">[738]</a>
+There was very little attempt at improvement until the middle of the
+eighteenth century, for peace was necessary for long <a name="Page_337" id="Page_337"></a>continued
+effort, and 1746, the date of Culloden, the last battle fought on
+British soil, may be taken practically as the commencement of the era
+of progress.</p>
+
+<p>The Shorthorn is the most famous and widely-spread breed of this
+country, if not in the world; it exceeds in number any other breed in
+the United Kingdom, and most cross-breds have Shorthorn blood in them.
+It adapts itself to any climate, and is equally noted for beef-making
+and milk-yielding.</p>
+
+<p>The origin of the Shorthorns is uncertain; they originated from the
+Teeswater and Holderness varieties, but where these came from is a
+matter of dispute. Young, in his <i>Northern Tour</i>,<a name="FNanchor_739_740" id="FNanchor_739_740"></a><a href="#Footnote_739_740" class="fnanchor">[739]</a> says, 'In
+Yorkshire the common breed was the short-horned kind of cattle called
+Holderness, but really the Dutch sort'; and many have said the
+Holderness and the Teeswater breeds both came from Holland, and were
+practically the same, while others assert the original home of the
+Teeswaters was the West Highlands.<a name="FNanchor_740_741" id="FNanchor_740_741"></a><a href="#Footnote_740_741" class="fnanchor">[740]</a></p>
+
+<p>John Lawrence speaks of the Dutch breed with short horns in 1726;<a name="FNanchor_741_742" id="FNanchor_741_742"></a><a href="#Footnote_741_742" class="fnanchor">[741]</a>
+but, unless they were smuggled over, it certainly seems strange that
+any Dutch cattle should have been imported in the eighteenth century,
+for the importation of cattle was strictly forbidden during the whole
+century. It was George Culley's opinion that they came from Holland,
+because few were found except along the eastern coast; he also knew
+farmers who went over to Holland to buy bulls.<a name="FNanchor_742_743" id="FNanchor_742_743"></a><a href="#Footnote_742_743" class="fnanchor">[742]</a></p>
+
+<p>Be this as it may, it was the cattle of the Teeswater district in
+Durham that the Collings improved, and they are still called Durhams
+in many parts. The work of the Collings<a name="FNanchor_743_744" id="FNanchor_743_744"></a><a href="#Footnote_743_744" class="fnanchor">[743]</a> was carried on by Thomas
+Booth, who farmed his own estate of Killerby in Yorkshire, where he
+turned his attention to Shorthorns about 1790, and by 1814 he was as
+well known as the Collings. He improved the Shorthorns by reducing the
+<a name="Page_338" id="Page_338"></a>bone, especially the length and coarseness of the legs, the too
+prominent hips, and the heavy shoulder bones. In 1819 he removed to
+Warlaby, and died there in 1835, having given up the Killerby estate
+to his son John, who with his brother Richard ably sustained their
+father's reputation. 'Booth strains' equally with 'Bates strains', the
+results of the work of Bates of Kirkleavington, whose cattle we have
+seen at the Oxford Show in 1839, and whose herd was dispersed in 1850,
+have been the foundation of many famous herds, and can be traced in
+many a pedigree animal of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The palmy days of the Shorthorns were the 'seventies' of the last
+century, when they made fabulous prices. At the great sale at New York
+Mills, in 1873, eleven females of the Duchess tribe averaged <i>&pound;</i>4,522
+14<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i>, and one cow sold for <i>&pound;</i>8,458 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> In 1877 Mr. Loder bought
+Third Duchess of Hillhurst for 4,100 guineas; in 1876 Lord Bective
+gave 4,300 guineas for Fifth Duchess of Hillhurst, then 16 months old;
+and in 1875 the bull Duke of Connaught sold for 4,500 guineas. It was
+not likely that with the advent of bad times these prices would
+continue, and nothing like them in the Shorthorn world has occurred
+since.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><i>Herefords.</i><a name="FNanchor_744_745" id="FNanchor_744_745"></a><a href="#Footnote_744_745" class="fnanchor">[744]</a></div>
+
+<p>Herefordshire cattle have long been famous as one of the finest
+breeds in the world. Marshall, writing in 1788, does not hesitate to
+say, 'The Herefordshire breed of cattle, taking it all in all, may
+without risque be deemed the first breed of cattle in the land.'
+Their origin has been accounted for in various ways. Some say they
+were originally brown or reddish-brown from Normandy or Devon, others
+that they came from Wales, while it is recorded that Lord Scudamore
+in the latter half of the seventeenth century introduced red cows
+with white faces from Flanders. However, they do not <a name="Page_339" id="Page_339"></a>emerge from
+obscurity until about the middle of the eighteenth century, when
+Messrs. Tomkins, Weyman, Yeomans, Hewer, and Tully devoted their
+energies to establishing a county breed. There were four varieties of
+Herefords, which have now practically merged into the red with white
+face, mane, and throat: the mottle face, with red marks intermixed
+with the parts usually white; the dark greys; light greys; and the
+red with the white face. The rivalry between the breeders of the
+white and the mottle faces almost caused the failure of the Herd-Book
+commenced in 1845 by Mr. Eyton. The mottle-faced party seems to have
+been then the most influential, but the dark and light grey varieties
+also had strong adherents. In 1857 Mr. Duckham took over the
+management of the Herd-Book, and to his exertions the breed owes a
+deep debt of gratitude. One of the greatest supporters of the
+Herefordshire breed was Mr. Westcar of Creslow, who, starting in
+1779, attended Hereford October Fair for forty years, and when the
+Smithfield Show commenced in 1799 won innumerable first prizes there
+with Herefordshire cattle. Between 1799 and 1811 twenty of his
+Herefordshire prize oxen averaged <i>&pound;</i>106 6<i>s.</i> each, and at the sale of
+Mr. Ben Tomkins's herd after his death in 1819 twenty-eight breeding
+animals averaged <i>&pound;</i>152, one cow fetching <i>&pound;</i>262 15<i>s.</i> Herefords are
+famous for their feeding qualities at grass, and good stores are
+scarce, the best being fattened on their native pastures. They are
+not only almost the only breed in their own county, but few English
+counties south of Shropshire are without them; they have done well in
+Ireland, and in Canada, the United States, South America, and
+Australia have attained great success. They are not so well qualified
+for crossing as Shorthorns, but have blended well with that breed,
+and produced good crosses with Ayrshires and Jerseys, but not with
+Devons. It has been said that they are not a favourite sort with
+London butchers, as they require time to ripen, which does not suit a
+hurrying age. Hence they probably flourished best under the old
+<a name="Page_340" id="Page_340"></a>school of graziers, who sometimes kept them to six or seven years
+old. At all events they are a very fine breed for beef purposes,
+their meat being particularly tender, juicy, and fine-grained. They
+are seldom kept for dairy purposes, being poor milkers; consequently
+the calf is nearly always allowed to run with the dam, which accounts
+for the fact that one seldom sees pure-bred Herefords that are not
+well grown. The highest price paid for a Hereford was 4,000 guineas
+for Lord Wilton in 1884.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><i>Devons.</i></div>
+
+<p>The cattle of North Devon can be traced as the peculiar breed of the
+county from which they take their name from the earliest records.
+Bradley mentioned the red cattle of Somerset in 1726, and no doubt
+there were many in Devonshire.<a name="FNanchor_745_746" id="FNanchor_745_746"></a><a href="#Footnote_745_746" class="fnanchor">[745]</a> William Marshall states (1805),
+and he is supported by subsequent writers, that 'they are of the
+middle horn class', and in his time so nearly resembled the
+Herefordshire breed in frame, colour, and horn, as not to be
+distinguishable from them, except in the greater cleanness of the head
+and fore-quarters, and their smaller size. Yet they could not have had
+the white faces and throats of the Herefords, as they have always been
+famous for their uniformity in colour&mdash;a fine dark red.<a name="FNanchor_746_747" id="FNanchor_746_747"></a><a href="#Footnote_746_747" class="fnanchor">[746]</a> He also
+compares them to the cattle of Sussex and the native cattle of
+Norfolk.<a name="FNanchor_747_748" id="FNanchor_747_748"></a><a href="#Footnote_747_748" class="fnanchor">[747]</a> The Devons then differed very much in different parts of
+the county; those of North Devon taking the lead, being 'nearly what
+cattle ought to be'. They were, considered as draught animals, the
+best workers anywhere beyond all comparison, though rather small, for
+which deficiency they made up in <a name="Page_341" id="Page_341"></a>exertion and agility. As dairy cattle
+they were not very good, since rearing for the east country graziers
+had long been the main object of Devon cattle farmers, but as grazing
+cattle they were excellent.</p>
+
+<p>Vancouver, a few years after this, praised their activity in work and
+their unrivalled aptitude to fatten, but says they were then
+declining in their general standard of excellence, and in numbers,
+owing to the great demand for them from other parts of England, where
+the buyers (Mr. Coke, who had established a valuable herd of them,
+and others) spared neither pains nor price to obtain those of the
+highest excellence.</p>
+
+<p>This danger was clearly perceived by Francis Quartly of Molland, who
+set to work to remedy it by systematically buying the choicest cows he
+could procure. As the reputation and perhaps continuance of the Devon
+breed is due to him more than to any other man, his account of his own
+efforts on behalf of it is specially valuable.<a name="FNanchor_748_749" id="FNanchor_748_749"></a><a href="#Footnote_748_749" class="fnanchor">[748]</a> At the end of the
+eighteenth century the principal North Devon yeomen were all breeders,
+and every week you might see in the Molton Market, their natural
+locality, animals that would now be called choice. There were few
+cattle shows in those days, and therefore the relative value of
+animals was not so easily tested. The war prices tempted many farmers
+to sell their best bulls and cows out of the district, so that good
+animals were becoming scarce, and the breed generally going back. Mr.
+Quartly therefore for years bought all the best animals he could find
+with rare skill and judgement, and continued to improve his stock till
+he brought it to perfection. About the year 1834 cattle shows began at
+Exeter, and for the first year or two Mr. Quartly did not compete;
+then he allowed his nephews to enter in all the classes, and they
+brought home all the prizes. This lead they kept, and at the Royal
+Show at Exeter in 1850 their stock obtained nine <a name="Page_342" id="Page_342"></a>out of the ten prizes
+for Devons. The <i>Devon Herd-Book</i> was first published in 1851 by
+Captain T.T. Davy, and a writer in 1858 says that of twenty-nine
+prize bulls in the first three volumes twenty-seven were descended
+from the Quartly bull Forester, and of thirty-four prize cows
+twenty-nine from the cow Curly, also of their stock.</p>
+
+<p>Among other famous breeders of Devons contemporary with Quartly were
+Messrs. Merson, Davy, Michael Thorne, Yapp, Buckingham, the Halses,
+and George Turner.</p>
+
+<p>In 1829 Moore says, 'The young heifers of North Devon, with their
+taper legs, the exact symmetry of their form, and their clear coats of
+dark red, are pictures of elegance.' Their superiority for grazing and
+draught was proved by the high prices demanded for them, but they were
+not equally esteemed as dairy animals,<a name="FNanchor_749_750" id="FNanchor_749_750"></a><a href="#Footnote_749_750" class="fnanchor">[749]</a> though of late years this
+reproach has been removed. The ploughing of two acres of fallow land
+was the common work of four oxen, which, when fattened at five years
+old, would reach eleven score a quarter.</p>
+
+<p>Since the publication of the Herd-Book, Devons have spread all over
+the world, to Mexico, Jamaica, Canada, Australia, France, and United
+States, and the fact that in their original home they have been
+largely kept by tenant farmers proves them a good rent-paying breed.
+Yet it cannot be pretended that away from their native country they
+are as much valued as the Shorthorn and Hereford.</p>
+
+<p>The South Hams breed of South Devon is a distinct variety, though it
+is believed to be descended from the 'Rubies'<a name="FNanchor_750_751" id="FNanchor_750_751"></a><a href="#Footnote_750_751" class="fnanchor">[750]</a> and apparently has
+at some time been crossed with the Guernsey; they are good milkers and
+attain a great size, but the quality of the meat is decidedly inferior
+to that of North Devon.</p>
+
+<p>From the earliest times the real Devon colour has been red, varying
+from a dark to a lighter or almost chestnut <a name="Page_343" id="Page_343"></a>shade; half a century ago
+the lighter ones were more numerous than at present, and they are
+often of richer quality though less hardy than the dark ones.</p>
+
+<p>The Sussex is larger and coarser than the Devon, of a deep brown
+chestnut colour, very hardy, a beef-producing but not a milk-yielding
+sort.</p>
+
+<p>Longhorns,<a name="FNanchor_751_752" id="FNanchor_751_752"></a><a href="#Footnote_751_752" class="fnanchor">[751]</a> a generation ago nearly extinct, once the favourite
+cattle of the midlands and portions of the north, are descended from a
+breed long established in the Craven district of Yorkshire. 'The true
+Lancashire,' said Young in 1770, 'were Longhorns, and in Derbyshire
+were a bastard sort of Lancashires.'<a name="FNanchor_752_753" id="FNanchor_752_753"></a><a href="#Footnote_752_753" class="fnanchor">[752]</a> It was this breed that
+Bakewell improved, and of late years great efforts, chiefly in
+Warwickshire and Leicestershire, have been made to revive it.</p>
+
+<p>The Red Polled, or Norfolk Polled, is the only hornless breed of
+English cattle, and they are good milkers and fatteners.</p>
+
+<p>The Lincoln Red is a small red variety of the Shorthorn.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the Welsh breeds have spread into the adjacent parts of
+England, and may be classified as North and South Welsh, or Angleseys
+and Castle Martins; black in colour, and generally with long horns.</p>
+
+<p>The Scottish cattle&mdash;the Aberdeen Angus, the Galloways, the Highland
+breed, and the Ayrshires&mdash;are also seen in England, but not so often
+as the Jerseys and Guernseys from the Channel Islands, while the
+small Dexters and Kerrys from Ireland are favourites with some
+English farmers.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center">SHEEP</div>
+
+<p>The sheep of the British Isles may be divided into three main
+classes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. Longwools, containing Leicesters, Border Leicester's, Cotswolds,
+Lincolns, Kentish, Devon Longwool, South Devon, Wensleydale, and
+Roscommon.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344"></a>2. Shortwools: the Oxford Downs, Southdowns, Shropshires, Hampshire
+Downs, Suffolks, Ryelands, Somerset and Dorset Horned, and Clun
+Forest.</p>
+
+<p>3. Mountain breeds: Cheviots, Blackfaced Mountain, Herdwick, Lonk,
+Dartmoor, Exmoor, Welsh Mountain, and Limestone.</p>
+
+<p>These are all English except the Border Leicester, Cheviot, and
+Blackfaced Mountain, which are Scotch; the Welsh Mountain is of
+course Welsh, and the Roscommon Irish.</p>
+
+<p>1. The Leicesters, the largest and in many respects the most
+important of British longwool sheep, are the sheep which Bakewell
+improved so greatly. They are capable of being brought to a great
+weight, and their long fine wool averages 7 lb. to the fleece.</p>
+
+<p>The Border Leicesters are an offshoot of the last named, bred on the
+Scottish Border, and originating from the flock which George and
+Matthew Culley in 1767 took from the Tees to the Tweed.</p>
+
+<p>The Cotswolds have been on the Gloucestershire hills for ages, and
+have long been famous for the length of their fleece, hardiness, and
+breeding qualities.</p>
+
+<p>The Lincoln is the result of the old native breed of the county
+improved by Leicester blood. They have larger heads and denser and
+heavier wool than the Leicesters, averaging 8 to 9 lb. to the fleece,
+but have been known to yield 14 lb.</p>
+
+<p>The Kentish or Romney Marsh have long existed in the district whence
+they obtain their name, but are not much known away from that
+locality.</p>
+
+<p>The Devon Longwool is a result of the infusion of Leicester blood
+among the old Bampton stock of Devonshire called Bampton Notts or
+polled sheep.</p>
+
+<p>The South Devons or South Hams are another local breed, and are a
+result of the improvement of the South Hams Notts by the Leicester.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345"></a>The Wensleydales are descendants of the old Teeswater breed, itself a
+variety of the old Leicester and improved by the new Leicesters of
+Culley.</p>
+
+<p>2. Oxford Downs, a modern black-faced breed, now widely spread all
+over the midland counties, are a mixture of Cotswolds with Hampshire
+Downs and Southdowns, and originated at the beginning of Queen
+Victoria's reign, but were not definitely so called till 1857. This
+cross of two distinct varieties, the long and the short wool, has
+approximated to the shortwool type.</p>
+
+<p>The Southdown, formerly Sussex Down, an old breed bred for ages on
+the chalky soils of the South Downs, is 'perhaps', says Youatt, 'the
+most valuable breed in the kingdom.' It was to John Ellman of Glynde,
+at the end of the eighteenth century, that they owe their present
+perfection, and they have exercised as much influence among the
+shortwools as the Leicesters among the longwools.</p>
+
+<p>The Shropshire sheep is a descendant of the original Longmynd or old
+Shropshire sheep, which began to be crossed by the Southdown at the
+commencement of the nineteenth century.<a name="FNanchor_753_754" id="FNanchor_753_754"></a><a href="#Footnote_753_754" class="fnanchor">[753]</a> They were recognized as a
+distinct breed in 1853, and since then have become one of the most
+valued breeds, combining the symmetry and quality of the Southdown
+with the weight of the Cotswold and the fattening tendency of the
+Leicester, with a hardier constitution.</p>
+
+<p>The Hampshire Down is another instance of the widespread influence of
+the Southdown, being the result of crossing that breed with the old
+Wiltshire sheep, which had long curling horns, and the Berkshire
+Knott. They are heavier than the Shropshire, and are perhaps more
+distinguished for early maturity than any other breed.</p>
+
+<p>The Suffolk is derived from the old horned Norfolk ewe mated with the
+Southdown, and was first granted its name in 1859.</p>
+
+<p>The Ryeland is a small, hornless, white-faced breed which <a name="Page_346" id="Page_346"></a>has been in
+Herefordshire for centuries, but of late years has dwindled in numbers
+before the advent of the Shropshire.</p>
+
+<p>The Somerset and Dorset Horned is another old breed, preserved in a
+pure state, much improved in modern times, and very hardy.</p>
+
+<p>The Clun Forest breed of West Shropshire and the adjacent parts of
+Wales is a mixture of the Ryeland, Shropshire, and Welsh breeds.</p>
+
+<p>3. The Cheviot is found on both sides of the hills of that name,
+though Northumberland is said to be its original home, and it was
+improved in the eighteenth century by crossing with the Lincoln.</p>
+
+<p>The Blackfaced Mountain breed is found chiefly in Scotland, but
+thrives on the bleak grazing lands of the north of England.</p>
+
+<p>The Herdwicks' home is the hills of Cumberland and Westmoreland,
+where they are hardy enough to fatten on the poor, thin pasture.</p>
+
+<p>The Lonk is the largest mountain breed, belonging to the fells of
+Yorkshire and Lancashire.</p>
+
+<p>The Dartmoors and Exmoors almost certainly came from one stock,
+though the former are now the larger, and are the few real survivors
+of the old forest or mountain breeds of England. The Exmoor is
+horned, the Dartmoor hornless.</p>
+
+<p>The Welsh Mountain is a small, hardy, soft-woolled breed, their
+mutton having the best flavour of any sheep, and their wool making
+the famous Welsh flannel.</p>
+
+<p>The Limestone is little known outside the fells of Westmoreland.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center">PIGS</div>
+
+<p>Our pigs may be roughly divided into white, black, and red; the first
+comprising the Large, Middle, and Small Whites, formerly called
+Yorkshires; the second the Small Black (Suffolk or Essex), the Large
+Black only recently recognized, but apparently very ancient, and the
+Berkshire, which often has white marks on face, legs, or tail. The
+red is the Tamworth, one of the oldest breeds, its skin being red
+with dark spots.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_354" id="Footnotes_354"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_734_735" id="Footnote_734_735"></a><a href="#FNanchor_734_735"><span class="label">[734]</span></a> Youatt, <i>Complete Grazier</i> (1900), p. 388; cf. pp.
+104-5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_735_736" id="Footnote_735_736"></a><a href="#FNanchor_735_736"><span class="label">[735]</span></a> Youatt, <i>Complete Grazier</i> (1900), p. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_736_737" id="Footnote_736_737"></a><a href="#FNanchor_736_737"><span class="label">[736]</span></a> See above.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_737_738" id="Footnote_737_738"></a><a href="#FNanchor_737_738"><span class="label">[737]</span></a> <i>Rural Economy of West of England</i>, i. 235 cf. above,
+p. 235.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_738_739" id="Footnote_738_739"></a><a href="#FNanchor_738_739"><span class="label">[738]</span></a> See above.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_739_740" id="Footnote_739_740"></a><a href="#FNanchor_739_740"><span class="label">[739]</span></a> ii. 126; about 1770.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_740_741" id="Footnote_740_741"></a><a href="#FNanchor_740_741"><span class="label">[740]</span></a> Youatt, <i>Complete Grazier</i>, p. 18, and see 'Druid',
+<i>Saddle and Sirloin</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_741_742" id="Footnote_741_742"></a><a href="#FNanchor_741_742"><span class="label">[741]</span></a> Cf. supra, p. 167.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_742_743" id="Footnote_742_743"></a><a href="#FNanchor_742_743"><span class="label">[742]</span></a> <i>Culley on Live Stock</i> (1807), p. 42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_743_744" id="Footnote_743_744"></a><a href="#FNanchor_743_744"><span class="label">[743]</span></a> See p. 233.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_744_745" id="Footnote_744_745"></a><a href="#FNanchor_744_745"><span class="label">[744]</span></a> Much of these accounts of Herefords and Devons is from
+the author's articles in the <i>Victoria County History</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_745_746" id="Footnote_745_746"></a><a href="#FNanchor_745_746"><span class="label">[745]</span></a> See above.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_746_747" id="Footnote_746_747"></a><a href="#FNanchor_746_747"><span class="label">[746]</span></a> Risdon, <i>Survey</i> (1810), Introd. p. viii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_747_748" id="Footnote_747_748"></a><a href="#FNanchor_747_748"><span class="label">[747]</span></a> <i>Rural Economy of West of England</i>, i. 235. Risdon says
+of Devonshire: 'As to cattle, no part of the Kingdom is better supplied
+with beasts of all sorts, whether for profit or pleasure,' those for
+pleasure being apparently wild ones kept in parks.&mdash;Chapple's
+<i>Review of Risdon's Survey</i>, p. 23.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_748_749" id="Footnote_748_749"></a><a href="#FNanchor_748_749"><span class="label">[748]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (1<i>s.</i> ser.), xi. 680. See also ibid.
+xix. 368, and (2nd ser.) v. 107; xiv. 663; xx. 691.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_749_750" id="Footnote_749_750"></a><a href="#FNanchor_749_750"><span class="label">[749]</span></a> <i>History of Devon</i>, i. 456.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_750_751" id="Footnote_750_751"></a><a href="#FNanchor_750_751"><span class="label">[750]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (3rd ser.), i. 527.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_751_752" id="Footnote_751_752"></a><a href="#FNanchor_751_752"><span class="label">[751]</span></a> See above.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_752_753" id="Footnote_752_753"></a><a href="#FNanchor_752_753"><span class="label">[752]</span></a> <i>Northern Tour</i>, ii. 126.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_753_754" id="Footnote_753_754"></a><a href="#FNanchor_753_754"><span class="label">[753]</span></a> <i>R.A.S.E. Journal</i> (1858), p. 42.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347"></a>
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX_I" id="APPENDIX_I"></a>APPENDIX I</h2>
+
+<h3>AVERAGE PRICES FROM 1259 TO 1700<a name="FNanchor_754_755" id="FNanchor_754_755"></a><a href="#Footnote_754_755" class="fnanchor">[754]</a></h3>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="6" align='center'><b>CORN PER QUARTER.</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>WHEAT.</td>
+  <td align='center'>BARLEY.</td>
+  <td align='center'>OATS.</td>
+  <td align='center'>RYE.</td>
+  <td align='center'>BEANS.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1259-1400</td>
+  <td align='right'>5<i>s.</i> 10<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>4<i>s.</i> 3<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>2<i>s.</i> 5<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>4<i>s.</i> 4<sup>7</sup>/<sub>8</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>4<i>s.</i> 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1401-1540</td>
+  <td align='right'>5<i>s.</i> 11<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>3<i>s.</i> 8<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>2<i>s.</i> 2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>4<i>s.</i> 7<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>3<i>s.</i> 9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1541-82</td>
+  <td align='right'>13<i>s.</i> 10<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>8<i>s.</i> 5<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>5<i>s.</i> 5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>9<i>s.</i> 1<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1583-1700</td>
+  <td align='right'>39<i>s.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp; 0<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>21<i>s.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp; 4<i>d.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>13<i>s.</i> 10<i>d.</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>22<i>s.</i> 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br /><br />
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="8" align='center'><b>LIVE STOCK.</b></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>OXEN.</td>
+  <td align='center'>COWS.</td>
+  <td align='center'>CART<br /> HORSES.<a name="FNanchor_755_756" id="FNanchor_755_756"></a><a href="#Footnote_755_756" class="fnanchor">[755]</a></td>
+  <td align='center'>SHEEP.</td>
+  <td align='center'>LAMBS.</td>
+  <td align='center'>PIGS<br />(GROWN).</td>
+  <td align='center'>BOARS.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1259-1400</td>
+  <td align='center'>13<i>s.</i> 1<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>9<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>16<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>1<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> to 1<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>8<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>3<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>4<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1401-1540</td>
+  <td align='center'>moderate<br />increase</td>
+  <td align='center'>14<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>unaltered</td>
+  <td align='center'>moderate<br /> increase</td>
+  <td align='center'>9<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>unaltered</td>
+  <td align='center'>6<i>s.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1541-82</td>
+  <td align='center'>55<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>32<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>great increase</td>
+  <td align='center'>3<i>s.</i> to<br />4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>2<i>s.</i> to 3<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i><br />to 8<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1583-1700</td>
+  <td align='center'>100<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>60<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>1580-1640<br /><i>&pound;</i>5 to <i>&pound;</i>10<br />
+    1640-1700<br />&nbsp;<i>&pound;</i>8 to <i>&pound;</i>15</td>
+  <td align='center'>10<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>&mdash;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>great increase</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<br /><br />
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="6" align='center'><b>POULTRY AND EGGS.</b></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>HENS.</td>
+  <td align='center'>DUCKS.</td>
+  <td align='center'>GEESE.</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>EGGS.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1259-1400</td>
+  <td align='center'>1<sup>6</sup>/<sub>8</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>2<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>3<sup>5</sup>/<sub>8</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>4<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>per 120</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1401-1540</td>
+  <td align='center'>2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>4<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>6<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1541-82</td>
+  <td align='center'>4<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>4<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>10<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>7<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1583-1700</td>
+  <td align='center'>8<i>d.</i>-1<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>2<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>3<i>s.</i>3<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<br />
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>WOOL.</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>CHEESE.</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>BUTTER.</td>
+  <td align='center'>HAY.</td>
+  <td align='center'>HOPS.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>per lb.</td>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>Per load.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Per cwt.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1259-1400</td>
+  <td align='center'>3<sup>5</sup>/<sub>7</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>4<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>per 7 lb.</td>
+  <td align='right'>4<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>per 7 lb.</td>
+  <td align='center'>3<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1401-1540</td>
+  <td align='center'>3<sup>5</sup>/<sub>7</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>per lb.</td>
+  <td align='right'>1<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>per lb.</td>
+  <td align='center'>unaltered</td>
+  <td align='center'>14<i>s.</i> 0<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1541-82</td>
+  <td align='center'>7<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>1<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td>
+  <td align='right'>3<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td>
+  <td align='center'>9<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>26<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1583-1702</td>
+  <td align='center'>9<i>d.</i>-1<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='right'>3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td>
+  <td align='right'>4<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td>
+  <td align='center'>26<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>82<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="5" align='center'><b>LABOUR.</b><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348"></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>Reaping wheat<br />per acre.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Reaping oats<br />per acre.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Mowing<br />per acre.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Labourer per day<br />without food.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1261-1350</td>
+  <td align='center'>5<sup>5</sup>/<sub>8</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>4<sup>7</sup>/<sub>8</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>2<i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1351-1400</td>
+  <td align='center'>8<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>8<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>7<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>3<i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1401-1540</td>
+  <td align='center'>9<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>8<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>8<sup>1</sup>/<sub>8</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>4<i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1541-82</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash;<a name="FNanchor_756_757" id="FNanchor_756_757"></a><a href="#Footnote_756_757" class="fnanchor">[756]</a></td>
+  <td align='center'>&mdash;</td>
+  <td align='center'>&mdash;</td>
+  <td align='center'>6<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1583-1640</td>
+  <td align='center'>&mdash;</td>
+  <td align='center'>&mdash;</td>
+  <td align='center'>1<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>8<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1640-1700</td>
+  <td align='center'>&mdash;</td>
+  <td align='center'>&mdash;</td>
+  <td align='center'>1<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>10<i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+<br /><br />
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='center'><b>PRICE OF LAND PER ACRE.</b></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>To Rent.</td>
+  <td align='center'>To Buy.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Arable.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Grass.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1261-1350</td>
+  <td align='center'>4<i>d.</i>-6<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>1<i>s.</i>-2<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>12 years' purchase</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1351-1400</td>
+  <td align='center'>6<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>2<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>"</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1401-1540</td>
+  <td align='center'>6<i>d.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>2<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>15-20 years</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1541-82</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>slight increase</td>
+  <td align='center'>unaltered</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1583-1640</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>great increase</td>
+  <td align='center'>20 years</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1641-1700</td>
+  <td align='center'>5<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>8<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>"</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1770</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>10<i>s.</i></td>
+  <td align='center'>30 years</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_356" id="Footnotes_356"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_754_755" id="Footnote_754_755"></a><a href="#FNanchor_754_755"><span class="label">[754]</span></a> Summarized from Thorold Rogers' prices in his <i>History
+of Agriculture and Prices</i>, with some alterations.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_755_756" id="Footnote_755_756"></a><a href="#FNanchor_755_756"><span class="label">[755]</span></a> Affri, 13<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i> cart horses, 19<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> A good saddle
+horse about 1300 was worth <i>&pound;</i>5. By 1580 it was worth <i>&pound;</i>10 to <i>&pound;</i>15, by
+1700 <i>&pound;</i>20 to <i>&pound;</i>25.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_756_757" id="Footnote_756_757"></a><a href="#FNanchor_756_757"><span class="label">[756]</span></a> A decided increase, but prices fluctuate so much that
+it is hard to strike an average.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX_II" id="APPENDIX_II"></a>APPENDIX II</h2>
+
+
+<h3>TABLE SHOWING EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF
+WHEAT AND FLOUR FROM AND INTO ENGLAND,
+UNIMPORTANT YEARS OMITTED</h3>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='center'>Exports.<br />Quarters.</td><td align='center'>Imports.<br />Quarters.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><i>England.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1697</td><td align='right'>14,699</td><td align='right'>400</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1703</td><td align='right'>166,615</td><td align='right'>50</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1717</td><td align='right'>22,954</td><td align='right'>none</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1728</td><td align='right'>3,817</td><td align='right'>74,574</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1733</td><td align='right'>427,199</td><td align='right'>7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1750</td><td align='right'>947,602</td><td align='right'>279</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><i>Great Britain.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1757</td><td align='right'>11,545</td><td align='right'>141,562</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1758</td><td align='right'>9,234</td><td align='right'>20,353</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1761</td><td align='right'>441,956</td><td align='right'>none</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1767</td><td align='right'>5,071</td><td align='right'>497,905</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1770</td><td align='right'>75,449</td><td align='right'>34</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1775</td><td align='right'>91,037</td><td align='right'>560,988</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1776</td><td align='right'>210,664</td><td align='right'>20,578</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1780</td><td align='right'>224,059</td><td align='right'>3,915</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1786</td><td align='right'>205,466</td><td align='right'>51,463</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1787</td><td align='right'>120,536</td><td align='right'>59,339</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1789</td><td align='right'>140,014</td><td align='right'>112,656</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1791</td><td align='right'>70,626</td><td align='right'>469,056</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1796</td><td align='right'>24,679</td><td align='right'>879,200</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1801</td><td align='right'>28,406</td><td align='right'>1,424,765</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1808</td><td align='right'>98,005</td><td align='right'>84,889</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1810</td><td align='right'>75,785</td><td align='right'>1,567,126</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1815</td><td align='right'>227,947</td><td align='right'>384,475</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1825</td><td align='right'>38,796</td><td align='right'>787,606</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1837</td><td align='right'>308,420</td><td align='right'>1,109,492</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1839</td><td align='right'>42,512</td><td align='right'>3,110,729</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1842</td><td align='right'>68,047</td><td align='right'>3,111,290</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349"></a>The above figures are taken from McCulloch's <i>Commercial
+Dictionary</i>, 1847, p. 438, and agree roughly with those given by
+McPherson, <i>Annals of Commerce</i>, iii. 674, and iv. 216 and 532.</p>
+
+<p>After 1842, exports played a very small part, and imports continued
+to increase; in 1847, 4,612,110 <i>quarters</i> of wheat and flour
+came in; and the following figures show their growth in recent
+times:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+ <td colspan="4" align='center'>AVERAGE OF ANNUAL IMPORTS OF WHEAT AND FLOUR IN CWTS.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1861-5</td><td align='right'>34,651,549</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1866-70</td><td align='right'>37,273,678</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1871-5</td><td align='right'>50,495,127</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1876-80</td><td align='right'>63,309,874</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1881-5</td><td align='right'>77,285,881</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1886-90</td><td align='right'>77,794,380</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1891-5</td><td align='right'>96,582,863</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1896-1900</td><td align='right'>95,956,376</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1901-5</td><td align='right'>111,638,817</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>With regard to the exports and imports of all kinds of corn, large
+quantities were exported in the first half of the eighteenth century.
+In 1733, 800,000 quarters were sent to France, Portugal, Spain, and
+Italy,<a name="FNanchor_757_758" id="FNanchor_757_758"></a><a href="#Footnote_757_758" class="fnanchor">[757]</a> and exports reached their maximum in 1750 with 1,667,778
+quarters, but by 1760 had decreased to 600,000, and after that fell
+considerably; in 1771, for instance, the first year of the corn
+register, they only amounted to 81,665 quarters, whereas imports were
+203,122. The figures of the imports were swollen by the large
+quantities of oats which came into England at this time. The following
+years are typical of the fluctuations in the trade:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>Exports.</td><td align='right'>Imports.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1774</td><td align='right'>47,961</td><td align='right'> 803,844</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1776</td><td align='right'>376,249</td><td align='right'> 444,121</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1780</td><td align='right'>400,408</td><td align='right'> 219,093</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1782</td><td align='right'>278,955</td><td align='right'> 133,663</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1783</td><td align='right'>104,274</td><td align='right'> 852,389</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1784-8</td><td colspan="2" align='center'>large excess of imports, mainly oats</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1789</td><td align='right'>652,764</td><td align='right'>478,426</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>the last year when exports of all kinds of corn exceeded imports.<a name="FNanchor_758_759" id="FNanchor_758_759"></a><a href="#Footnote_758_759" class="fnanchor">[758]</a></p>
+
+<p>To sum up, according to these figures, England's exports of wheat
+regularly exceeded her imports from 1697 until 1757, with the
+exception of the years 1728-9; then they fluctuated till 1789, the
+last year in which exports of wheat exceeded imports, and as the same
+year is the last time when our exports of all kinds of corn exceeded
+our imports, England at that date ceased to be an exporting country.<a name="FNanchor_759_760" id="FNanchor_759_760"></a><a href="#Footnote_759_760" class="fnanchor">[759]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_357" id="Footnotes_357"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_757_758" id="Footnote_757_758"></a><a href="#FNanchor_757_758"><span class="label">[757]</span></a> McPherson, <i>Annals of Commerce</i>, iii. 198.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_758_759" id="Footnote_758_759"></a><a href="#FNanchor_758_759"><span class="label">[758]</span></a> Ibid. iii. 674; iv. 216, 532.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_759_760" id="Footnote_759_760"></a><a href="#FNanchor_759_760"><span class="label">[759]</span></a> The excess of exports of wheat in 1808 was accidentally
+due to the requirements of the army in Spain.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350"></a>
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX_III" id="APPENDIX_III"></a>APPENDIX III</h2>
+
+
+<h3>AVERAGE PRICES PER IMPERIAL QUARTER OF BRITISH CORN IN ENGLAND
+AND WALES, IN EACH YEAR FROM 1771 TO 1907 INCLUSIVE, ACCORDING TO
+THE RETURNS OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE</h3>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>YEARS.</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>WHEAT.</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>BARLEY.</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;OATS.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1771</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>48</td><td align='right'>7</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>26</td><td align='right'>5</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>2</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1772</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>52</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>26</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1773</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>52</td><td align='right'>7</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>29</td><td align='right'>2</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1774</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>54</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>29</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1775</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>49</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>26</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1776</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>39</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>20</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1777</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>46</td><td align='right'>11</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>21</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>1</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1778</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>43</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>23</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>7</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1779</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>34</td><td align='right'>8</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>20</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>14</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1780</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>36</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>13</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1781</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>46</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>8</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>14</td><td align='right'>1</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1782</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>49</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>23</td><td align='right'>2</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>7</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1783</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>54</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>31</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>20</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1784</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>50</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>28</td><td align='right'>8</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>10</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1785</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>43</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>24</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1786</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>40</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>25</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1787</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>42</td><td align='right'>5</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>23</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1788</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>46</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>22</td><td align='right'>8</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>1</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1789</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>52</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>23</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1790</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>54</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>26</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>19</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1791</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>48</td><td align='right'>7</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>26</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>1</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1792</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>43</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>27</td><td align='right'>7</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1793</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>49</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>31</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>20</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1794</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>52</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>31</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>21</td><td align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1795</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>75</td><td align='right'>2</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>37</td><td align='right'>5</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>24</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1796</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>78</td><td align='right'>7</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>35</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>21</td><td align='right'>10</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1797</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>53</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>27</td><td align='right'>2</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1798</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>51</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>29</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>19</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1799</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>69</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>36</td><td align='right'>2</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>27</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1800</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>113</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>59</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>39</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1801</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>119</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>68</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>37</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1802</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>69</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>33</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>20</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1803</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>58</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>25</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>21</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1804</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>62</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>31</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>24</td><td align='right'>3</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1805</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>89</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>44</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>28</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1806</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>79</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>38</td><td align='right'>8</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>27</td><td align='right'>7<a name="Page_351" id="Page_351"></a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1807</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>75</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>39</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>28</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1808</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>81</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>43</td><td align='right'>5</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>33</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1809</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>97</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>47</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>31</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1810</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>106</td><td align='right'>5</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>48</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>28</td><td align='right'>7</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1811</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>95</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>42</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>27</td><td align='right'>7</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1812</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>126</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>66</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>44</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1813</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>109</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>58</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>38</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1814</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>74</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>37</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>25</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1815</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>65</td><td align='right'>7</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>30</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>23</td><td align='right'>7</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1816</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>78</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>33</td><td align='right'>11</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>27</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1817</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>96</td><td align='right'>11</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>49</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>32</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1818</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>86</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>53</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>32</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1819</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>74</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>45</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>28</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1820</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>67</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>33</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>24</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1821</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>56</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>26</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>19</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1822</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>44</td><td align='right'>7</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>21</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>1</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1823</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>53</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>31</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>22</td><td align='right'>11</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1824</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>63</td><td align='right'>11</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>36</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>24</td><td align='right'>10</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1825</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>68</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>40</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>25</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1826</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>58</td><td align='right'>8</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>34</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>26</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1827</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>58</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>37</td><td align='right'>7</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>28</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1828</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>60</td><td align='right'>5</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>32</td><td align='right'>10</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>22</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1829</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>66</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>32</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>22</td><td align='right'>9</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1830</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>64</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>32</td><td align='right'>7</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>24</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1831</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>66</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>38</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>25</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1832</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>58</td><td align='right'>8</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>33</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>20</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1833</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>52</td><td align='right'>11</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
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+  <td align='left'>1901</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>26</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>25</td><td align='right'>2</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>5</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1902</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>28</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>25</td><td align='right'>8</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>20</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1903</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>26</td><td align='right'>9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>22</td><td align='right'>8</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1904</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>28</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>22</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1905</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>29</td><td align='right'>8</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>24</td><td align='right'>4</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1906</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>28</td><td align='right'>3</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>24</td><td align='right'>2</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1907</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>30</td><td align='right'>7</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>25</td><td align='right'>1</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>10</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX_IV" id="APPENDIX_IV"></a>APPENDIX IV</h2>
+
+<h3>MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION</h3>
+
+
+<p>Gregory King, at the end of the seventeenth century, estimated the
+acreage of England and Wales at 39,000,000&mdash;not at all a bad
+estimate, the area, excluding water, according to the Board of
+Agriculture Returns of 1907, being 37,130,344. The different
+estimates by Grew, Templeman, Petty, Young, Halley, Middleton, and
+others varied between 31,648,000 and 46,916,000 acres. The last, that
+of Arthur Young, was actually adopted by Pitt for his estimate of the
+income-tax.<a name="FNanchor_760_761" id="FNanchor_760_761"></a><a href="#Footnote_760_761" class="fnanchor">[760]</a></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Caird in 1850<a name="FNanchor_761_762" id="FNanchor_761_762"></a><a href="#Footnote_761_762" class="fnanchor">[761]</a> estimated the cultivated lands of England at
+27,000,000 acres (in 1907 they were 24,585,455 acres), cultivated
+thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Permanent grass</td><td align='right'>13,333,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Arable</td><td align='right'>13,667,000</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>the latter being divided as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>Acres.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Bushels<br />per acre.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Produce,<br />quarters.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Wheat</td><td align='right'>3,416,750</td><td align='center'>27</td><td align='right'>11,531,531</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Barley</td><td align='right'>1,416,750</td><td align='center'>38</td><td align='right'>6,729,562</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Oats and rye</td><td align='right'>2,000,000</td><td align='center'>44</td><td align='right'>11,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Clover and seeds</td><td align='right'>2,277,750</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Beans and peas</td><td align='right'>1,139,000</td><td align='center'>30</td><td align='right'>4,271,250</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Turnips, marigolds, &amp; potatoes</td><td align='right'>2,116,750</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Rape and fallow</td><td align='right'>1,300,000</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354"></a>Davenant, at the end of the seventeenth century, made the following
+estimate showing the importance of wool in English trade<a name="FNanchor_762_763" id="FNanchor_762_763"></a><a href="#Footnote_762_763" class="fnanchor">[762]</a>:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Annual income of England</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i>43,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Yearly rent of land</td><td align='right'> 10,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Value of wool shorn yearly</td><td align='right'>2,000,000</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; woollen manufactures</td><td align='right'>10,000,000</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Thus the rents of land formed nearly one-fourth the total income of
+the country, and wool paid one-fifth of the rents.<a name="FNanchor_763_764" id="FNanchor_763_764"></a><a href="#Footnote_763_764" class="fnanchor">[763]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the eighteenth century a great quantity of wool was smuggled out
+of England in defiance of the law; in the space of four months in
+1754, 4,000 tods was 'run' into Boulogne.<a name="FNanchor_764_765" id="FNanchor_764_765"></a><a href="#Footnote_764_765" class="fnanchor">[764]</a></p>
+<br /><br />
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4" align='center'>FOREIGN AND COLONIAL WOOL
+  IMPORTED INTO ENGLAND.<a name="FNanchor_765_766" id="FNanchor_765_766"></a><a href="#Footnote_765_766" class="fnanchor">[765]</a>
+</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>lb.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1766</td><td align='right'>1,926,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1771</td><td align='right'>1,829,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1780</td><td align='right'>323,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1790</td><td align='right'>2,582,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1800</td><td align='right'>8,609,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1810</td><td align='right'>10,914,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1820</td><td align='right'>9,775,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1830</td><td align='right'>32,305,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1840</td><td align='right'>49,436,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1850</td><td align='right'>74,326,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1855</td><td align='right'>99,300,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'>1857</td><td align='right'>127,390,000</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<br /><br />
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'>PRICES OF LABOUR IN SURREY IN 1780.<a name="FNanchor_766_767" id="FNanchor_766_767"></a><a href="#Footnote_766_767" class="fnanchor">[766]</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Day labourer, per day, in winter</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; in summer</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Reaping wheat, per acre</td><td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; and according to the crop up to&nbsp; &nbsp;</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Mowing barley, per acre</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; oats &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td><td align='right'>1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to 2</td><td align='right'> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; grass &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; "</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Hand-hoeing turnips, per acre, first time</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; second time</td><td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Thatching hayricks, per square of 100 ft.</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Washing and shearing sheep, per score</td><td align='right'> 3</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Ploughing light land, per acre </td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; stiff &nbsp;&nbsp; " &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; " </td><td align='right'>7<i>s.</i> to 10</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Common hurdles, each</td><td colspan="2" align='right'>5</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<br /><br />
+<div class="center"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355"></a>OCCUPIERS OF LAND.</div>
+
+<p>In 1816 there were said to be 589,374 occupiers of land in Great
+Britain<a name="FNanchor_767_768" id="FNanchor_767_768"></a><a href="#Footnote_767_768" class="fnanchor">[767]</a>&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>With incomes under <i>&pound;</i>50</td><td align='right'> 114,778</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Between <i>&pound;</i>50 and <i>&pound;</i>150</td><td align='right'> 432,534</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Over <i>&pound;</i>150</td><td align='right'>42,062</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>589,374</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>======</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>In 1907 there were 510,954 occupiers of one acre and more.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="6" align='center'>MULHALL'S CALCULATION OF AVERAGE ANNUAL WAGES IN ENGLAND.</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>Bailiff.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Shepherd.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Labourer.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Woman.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Boy.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1800</td>
+  <td align='center'><i>&pound;</i>20</td>
+  <td align='center'><i>&pound;</i>16</td>
+  <td align='center'><i>&pound;</i>12</td>
+  <td align='center'><i>&pound;</i>8</td>
+  <td align='center'><i>&pound;</i>6</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1850</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;40</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;25</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;20</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;10</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;8</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1880</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;52</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;36</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;30</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;15</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;10</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>The average annual cost of living of an agricultural family of five
+was in 1823 <i>&pound;</i>31, in 1883, <i>&pound;</i>37.</p>
+
+<br />
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="6" align='center'>COMPARATIVE STATEMENT BY A. YOUNG OF PRICES AND WAGES IN ENGLAND<br />
+    FROM 1200 TO 1810 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF REPRESENTING FACTS<br />
+    IN 1810 BY THE NUMBER 20, AND THE FACTS OF THE PRECEDING PERIODS<br />
+    BY THE PROPORTION BORNE BY THEM TO THAT NUMBER.</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Periods.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Wheat.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Meat.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Wool.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Labourer's<br />Wages.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Horses.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1200-99</td>
+  <td align='center'>5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+  <td align='center'>3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1300-99</td>
+  <td align='center'>6<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+  <td align='center'>4<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1400-99</td>
+  <td align='center'>3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+  <td align='center'>5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1500-99</td>
+  <td align='center'>6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+  <td align='center'>5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1600-99</td>
+  <td align='center'>9<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+  <td align='center'>8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>...</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1700-66</td>
+  <td align='center'>7<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>7<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>12&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>10&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>15<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1767-89</td>
+  <td align='center'>11&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>11<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>15<sup>1</sup>/<sub>3</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>12<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>17<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1790-1803</td>
+  <td align='center'>13&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>16<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>16<sup>1</sup>/<sub>6</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>16<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+  <td align='center'>19<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1804-10</td>
+  <td align='center'>20&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>20&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>20&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>20&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>20&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Thus wheat in 1804-10 had risen 233 per cent. since the sixteenth
+century.</p>
+
+<br />
+<div class='center'>THE LABOURER'S WAGES.</div>
+
+<p>The following table, published by Mr. Barton in 1817,<a name="FNanchor_768_769" id="FNanchor_768_769"></a><a href="#Footnote_768_769" class="fnanchor">[768]</a> shows
+the depreciation of the labourer's wages in purchasing power between
+1742 and 1808:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>Period.</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>Weekly <br />pay.</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='center'>Price of<br />wheat.</td>
+  <td align='center'>Wages in <br />pints of<br />bread.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1742-52</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>30</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td align='center'>102</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1761-70</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>7</td><td align='right'>6</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>42</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;90</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1780-90</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>51</td><td align='right'>2</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;80</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1795-9</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>70</td><td align='right'>8</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;65</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>1800-8</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>0</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>86</td><td align='right'>8</td>
+  <td align='center'>&nbsp;&nbsp;60</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356"></a>In answer to inquiries sent by the Poor Law Commissioners in 1834 to
+900 parishes in England the average weekly wages of labourers were&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>in summer,</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="5">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>in</td><td align='center'>254</td><td align='left'>parishes,</td><td align='left'>with beer or cider</td>
+  <td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>4<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>522</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>without beer or cider&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>5<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>in winter,</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='right'>in</td><td align='center'>200</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>with beer or cider</td>
+  <td align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>2<sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>544</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>without beer or cider</td>
+  <td align='right'>9</td><td align='right'>11<sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+<br />
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>The annual average inclusive earnings of the labourer<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;himself were stated at</td>
+  <td valign='bottom' align='right'>27</td><td valign='bottom' align='right'>17</td><td valign='bottom' align='right'>10</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>and of his wife and children</td>
+  <td align='right'>13</td><td align='right'>19</td><td align='right'>10</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align='right'>41</td><td align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="4" align='right'>========</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>It will thus be seen that the wife and children provided a third of
+the income. The majority of the parishes said the labourer could
+maintain his family on these wages.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the weekly budget of a labourer with an average family in
+1800:&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_769_770" id="FNanchor_769_770"></a><a href="#Footnote_769_770" class="fnanchor">[769]</a></p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td align='center'>Cr.</td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='center'>Dr.</td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.&nbsp;&nbsp;</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Wages</td><td align='right'>15</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Rent</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>7<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Garden</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Bread</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'> 0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='left'>Extras</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>0</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Bacon</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Tea and sugar</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Cheese</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Butter</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Fuel</td><td align='right'> 1</td><td align='right'>3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Candles and soap</td><td align='right'> 0</td><td align='right'> 6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Clothes</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'> 6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Schooling </td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'> 3&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="4">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'>Sundries </td><td align='right'> 0</td><td align='right'> 6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>17</td><td align='right'>6</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="2" align='right'>18</td><td align='right'>4<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>======</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+  <td colspan="3" align='right'>======</td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>There is no fresh meat, and it is hard to say where any economy could
+be practised.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+CONTRACT PRICES OF BUTCHER'S MEAT<br />
+PER CWT. AT GREENWICH HOSPITAL, 1730-1842.<a name="FNanchor_770_771" id="FNanchor_770_771"></a><a href="#Footnote_770_771" class="fnanchor">[770]</a></div>
+</div>
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><i>&pound;</i></td><td align='right'><i>s.</i></td><td align='right'><i>d.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1730</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>5</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1740</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1750</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>6</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1760</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>11</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1770</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1780</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1790</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>10</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1800</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>4</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1810</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1815</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>8</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1820</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>10</td><td align='right'>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1825</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>19</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1830</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1835</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>0</td><td align='right'>7</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1840</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='right'>0</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1842</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>2</td><td align='right'>12</td><td align='right'>8</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3><a name="Footnotes_364" id="Footnotes_364"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_760_761" id="Footnote_760_761"></a><a href="#FNanchor_760_761"><span class="label">[760]</span></a> C. Wren Hoskyns, <i>Pamphlet on Agricultural Statistics</i>,
+p. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_761_762" id="Footnote_761_762"></a><a href="#FNanchor_761_762"><span class="label">[761]</span></a> <i>English Agriculture in 1850-1</i>, p. 521. Cf. above, p.
+331.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_762_763" id="Footnote_762_763"></a><a href="#FNanchor_762_763"><span class="label">[762]</span></a> Smith, <i>Memoirs of Wool</i>, i. 157.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_763_764" id="Footnote_763_764"></a><a href="#FNanchor_763_764"><span class="label">[763]</span></a> In 1908 the rental of agricultural land was 3<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub>&nbsp;per
+cent, of the total income of the country. See <i>The Times</i> May 13,
+1909.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_764_765" id="Footnote_764_765"></a><a href="#FNanchor_764_765"><span class="label">[764]</span></a> Ibid. ii. 264.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_765_766" id="Footnote_765_766"></a><a href="#FNanchor_765_766"><span class="label">[765]</span></a> Cunningham, <i>Industry and Commerce</i>, ii. 693. Cf.
+above, p. 328.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_766_767" id="Footnote_766_767"></a><a href="#FNanchor_766_767"><span class="label">[766]</span></a> Trusler, <i>Practical Husbandry</i>, p. 153.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_767_768" id="Footnote_767_768"></a><a href="#FNanchor_767_768"><span class="label">[767]</span></a> Farmer's Magazine (1817), p. 6. Statistics at this
+date, however, must be taken with caution. They were usually
+estimates. Cf. above, p. 334, for holdings in England.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_768_769" id="Footnote_768_769"></a><a href="#FNanchor_768_769"><span class="label">[768]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1881), xvi, 305.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_769_770" id="Footnote_769_770"></a><a href="#FNanchor_769_770"><span class="label">[769]</span></a> <i>Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners</i> (1881),
+xvi. 310.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_770_771" id="Footnote_770_771"></a><a href="#FNanchor_770_771"><span class="label">[770]</span></a> McCulloch, <i>Commercial Dictionary</i> (1852), p. 271.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357"></a>
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2>
+
+<p>
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">A</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Abbot's Ripton, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Aberdeen Angus cattle, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Accounts, keeping, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Accumulation of estates, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Acre, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>; tenantry, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Advantages of large farms, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Affer, the, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Agricultural Holdings Acts, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299-303</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Agricultural revolution, the, of eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Agriculture,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">state of, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">seventeenth-century writers on, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">state of, in eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">nineteenth, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262-70</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Aitchison, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Akermanni, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Alderney cattle, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ale, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Allotments, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_269'>255n.</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315-7</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Allowance system, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Allowances, parish, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Almaine, corn from, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Almonds, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Amalgamation of farms, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a>.<br />
+<br />
+America,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gold discoveries in, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imports from, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_323'>323-4</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Ancaster, Earl of, estate of, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Andover, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Anti-Corn Law League, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Apples, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135-6</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186-9</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(<i>See</i> Prices.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Apprentices, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Apricots, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Arable district of England (1893), <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Arable fields, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Arable land, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">amount of, in 1688, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">decrease of, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of, in Domesday, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1770, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1850, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1877 and 1907, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">preponderance of, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">produce of, in 1688, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suffers more than grass, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">value of, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115-7</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Arch, Joseph, <a href='#Page_290'>290-2</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ardley, Inquisition of, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Argentina, imports from, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Arley, Upper, wine made at, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Artificial grasses, <i>see</i> Clover, improve commons, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ash timber, value of, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Assize of beer, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_31'>14n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Association, British, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Average crops of corn (1770), <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(<i>See under</i> Wheat, Oats, Barley, &amp;c.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Average size of farms in 1768, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Averagium, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Australia, gold discoveries in, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imports from, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep introduced into, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wool from, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Axholme, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ayrshires, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">B</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Bacon, Lord, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>,<br />
+<br />
+Bacon, 'the necessary meate' of the labourer, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price of, <i>see</i> Prices.</span><br />
+<br />
+Badger, a corn dealer, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bailiff, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bakewell, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163-7</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214-7</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Balance sheet, estate, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">farm, in 1805, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1888, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Balks, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ball, John, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Banbury cheese, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bank Restriction Act, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Barking Nunnery, vineyard at, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Barley, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331-2</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cost of, per acre, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">produce, per acre, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>165n.</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197-8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">profit on, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>. (<i>See</i> Prices.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Barns, size of, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Barren years at end of seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Basic slag, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bassingthorpe, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bates, Thomas, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bath, wine made at, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>.<br /><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358"></a>
+<br />
+Beale, John, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Beans, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331-2</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cost of growing, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">profit on, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>. (<i>See</i> Prices.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Bedford, Duke of, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bedfordshire, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Beef, price of, <i>see</i> Prices.<br />
+<br />
+Beer, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Belgium,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">live stock in, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wheat crops in, <a href='#Footnotes_342'>332n.</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Belvoir estate, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Berkeley estates, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_45'>27n.</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_55'>45n.</a>, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Berkshire, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Berkshire Knotts, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pigs, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Berlin decrees, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Best, Henry, accounts of, <a href='#Page_138'>138-40</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bideford, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Biggleswade, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Birds eating fruit, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Black Death, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41-3</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Black Year, the, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Blight, Hop, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Blyth, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Board of Agriculture, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229-33</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(Government), <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Bones for manure, <a href='#Page_154'>154-5</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275-6</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Booth, Thomas, <a href='#Page_337'>337-8</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bordarii, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Boston, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Boys' wages, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bradley, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168-9</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Brampton, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bread, different kinds of, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206-7</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rye, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wheaten, a luxury, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">common, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">made of turnips, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price of (<i>see</i> Prices).</span><br />
+<br />
+Breeding of stock, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215-7</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Brentford, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bridport, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bright, John, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Buckinghamshire, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Buckwheat, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Budget, labourer's weekly, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_356'>356</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Buildings, farm, and repairs, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bull, description of a (1726), <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Burford, riot at, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Buri, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bury St. Edmunds, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Butter, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_73'>63n.</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>206n.</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, 247<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(<i>see</i> Prices), <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">exports of, <a href='#Page_326'>326-7</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+By-industries of peasant, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">C</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Cabbages, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cadaveratores, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Caird, Sir James, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>319n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Cake, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Calstock, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Calves, killing of, forbidden, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rearing, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Cambridgeshire, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Camden, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Canada, imports from, <a href='#Page_323'>323-4</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Canterbury, hops from, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Capital of farmers, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203-4</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Carrington, Lord, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Carrots, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>. <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Carter, wages of, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cart-horses, price of, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Carts, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cattle, Chillingham, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">diseases, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">export of, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">improvement in, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a> (<i>see</i> Cattle, size of);</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number of, in 1867 and 1878, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1907, <a href='#Page_333'>333-4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">original breed of, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price of, <i>see</i> Prices;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">size of, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">separation of, for summer pasture, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sorts of (1726), <a href='#Page_167'>167</a> (<i>see under</i> Various breeds);</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">about 1800, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1839, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1892, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">time to buy, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>. (<i>See</i> Bakewell, Collings, Exports, <i>and</i> Imports.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Cattle plagues, of eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185-6</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of nineteenth century, <a href='#Page_289'>289-90</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Cauliflowers, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Causes of high prices at end of eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Celery, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Chamberlayne, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cheddar cheese, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cheese, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_73'>63n.</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>206n.</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(<i>See</i> Prices, Exports, <i>and</i> Imports.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Chelmsford, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>.<br /><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359"></a>
+<br />
+Chemistry, agricultural, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cherries, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cheshire, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Chestnuts, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cheviots, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>,<br />
+<br />
+Child, Josiah, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Christ Church, Canterbury, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cider, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135-6</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187-9</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cistercians, good farmers, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Civil War, checks improvement, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">family settlements after, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Claret made in Oxfordshire, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Clarke, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Close parishes, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cloth made in England, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Clothes, part of wages, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of labourer, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206-8</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of farmer, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Clover, cost of growing, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduced, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">spread of, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141-2</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">seed, price of, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sown with corn, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Clun Forest sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Clydesdale horse, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cobbett, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cobden, Richard, <a href='#Footnotes_300'>279n.</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_300'>285n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Coinage, depreciation of, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Coke of Holkham, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224-8</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>.<br />
+<br />
+'Coke's Clippings', <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Coleseed, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Coliberti, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Collings, the, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233-5</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Combe, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>.<br />
+<br />
+'Comet,' <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Commissions, Royal, on Agriculture, &amp;c., <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294-6</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_304'>304</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311-14</a>, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Committees, Parliamentary, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_278'>263n.</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Common, John, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Common fields, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118-9</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Common land, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">evils of, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">improvement of, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Common pasture, <i>see</i> Pasture <i>and</i> Meadows.<br />
+<br />
+Commons, advantages of, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of, in 1795, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rights of, lost, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Communities and corporations contrasted, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Commutation of labour services for money, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Compensation for improvements, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299-302</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Competition, foreign, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>, <a href='#Page_323'>323-30</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Consolidation of farms, <i>see</i> Amalgamation.<br />
+<br />
+Contractors for labour, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Co-operation in agriculture, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Copyholders, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121-2</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Corn laws, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265-6</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277-80</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cornwall, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cost of living (1773-1800), <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cotarii, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cotswold sheep, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wool, famous, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Cottages, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_132'>121n.</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_267'>267-8</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>311n.</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315-6</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Court Rolls, of Manydown, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cowper, John, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cows, decrease in number of, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">increase, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">let out by the year, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">yield of, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>. (<i>See</i> Prices of Cattle.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Craik improves drill, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Craven, migration from, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Crimean War, effect of, <a href='#Footnotes_300'>277n.</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Crondall, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Crows' and magpies' nests to be destroyed, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Culley, George, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cultivated land, amount of, in 1685, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1867, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Cultivation, Walter of Henley on, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of England, in 1688, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the old and new ways of, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200-2</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Cultivation, clauses, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cumberland, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Currants, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Custom of the country, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>300n.</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a> (<i>see</i> Tenant right).<br />
+<br />
+Cuxham, manor of, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cylindrical drain pipes, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">D</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Dairy, the, and dairying, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199-200</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_306'>306</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>, <a href='#Page_340'>340-1</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(<i>See</i> Butter, Cheese, <i>and</i> Milk.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Damsons, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br /><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360"></a>
+<br />
+Danegeld, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dartmoor sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Davenant, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Daventry, common fields at, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Davy, Sir H., <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">T.T., <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Dealers, legislation against, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">complaints against, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Defoe, Daniel, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Degge, Simon, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Demesne, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Denmark, imports from, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_323'>323-4</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">livestock in, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wheat crops in, <a href='#Footnotes_342'>332n.</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Depression, agricultural, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_262'>262-70</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293-6</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305-14</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Derby, Lord, estate of, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>320n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Derbyshire, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Devon cattle, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>, <a href='#Page_340'>340-3</a>.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(<i>See</i> Southams.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Devon sheep, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Devonshire, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Devonshiring, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>.<br />
+<br />
+D'Ewes, Sir S., quoted, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dexters, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dibbling wheat, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Digging for wheat, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Diseases of Animals Act (1890), <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dishley, <a href='#Page_214'>214-6</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Distress, law of, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">periods of, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a> (<i>see</i> Depression, agricultural), <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Divining rod, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Domesday, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Doncaster, roads near, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dorking, manor of, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dorset, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Dovecotes, <i>see</i> Pigeons.<br />
+<br />
+Drainage, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213-4</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_271'>271</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Drills, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175-7</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200-2</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Drinking habits, <a href='#Page_207'>207-8</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Drying hops, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Duchesses, the, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Duckham, Mr., <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ducks, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a> (<i>see</i> Poultry).<br />
+<br />
+Dugdale, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Du-Hamel, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Durham, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Durham ox, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dutch breed of cattle, <i>see</i> Shorthorns.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">E</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Eakring, common meadows at, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Eardisley, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>.<br />
+<br />
+East Indies, wool from, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Eden, account of potatoes, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Education Acts, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Egypt, imports from, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Eighteenth century, general characteristics of, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Electricity applied to vegetables, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Elevator, hay and straw, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Elkington of Princethorpe, <a href='#Page_213'>213-4</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ellis, Chiltern and Vale Farming, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ellman, John, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Enclosers prosecuted in Star Chamber, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Enclosure, <a href='#Page_74'>74-82</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252-261</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">agreement as to, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">acts of, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">amount of, exaggerated, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">different kinds of, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">evils of, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252-3</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254-61</a>, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">expense of, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">non-parliamentary,<a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a deed of, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a sign of progress, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145-8</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">legislation against, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">checked, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+England, appearance of, in fifteenth century, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the seventeenth, <a href='#Page_120'>120-1</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+English invaders, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Entails, barred, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Essex, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Estates, great, accumulation of, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advantages of, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">often a loss, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Evelyn, John, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Evesham, Vale of, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ewes, milking of, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Exhibition, Great, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Exmoor sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Exporting country, England ceases to be an, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Exports of butter and cheese, <a href='#Page_326'>326-7</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Exports of corn, <a href='#Footnotes_73'>63n.</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159-161</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348-9</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reaches its maximum, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>;</span><br /><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361"></a>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of livestock, <a href='#Page_325'>325-6</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of wool, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Extensive cultivation, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Extent of the Manor, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Eyton, Mr., <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">F</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Faggots, price of, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fairs for hops, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">horses, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>172n.</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wool, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>172n.</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Fallows, utilized, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1877, 1907, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1850, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Families employed on common and on enclosed land, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Farm or feorm, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Farmer, day's work of, in seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">discontent of, <a href='#Page_127'>127-8</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">financial position of, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212-3</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257-8</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264-5</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">growing more skilful, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Farmer's Letters</i>, Young's, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Farmhouses, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Farming, bad, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">improvement in, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Farming calendar, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Farms, in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, <a href='#Page_116'>116-7</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">size of (1768), <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Farnham, hops, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fashion, farming becomes the, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fattening oxen, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136-7</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>225n.</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>225n.</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">chickens, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+'Favourite', <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Feeding pigs, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fences, legislation as to, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fens, the, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Feversham, fruit growing near, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fifteenth century, character of, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Figs, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Filberts, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fitzherbert, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83-5</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fixtures, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Flanders, cattle, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">clover from, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">hops from, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wool exported to, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep exported to, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Flax, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151-2</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fleece, weight of, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fleta, quoted, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Floor, for hop-picking, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Flour, exports and imports of, <a href='#Page_348'>348-9</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fluctuations in price of corn, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Fold soke, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Folding quality, of sheep, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Food, labourer's, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_139'>139-40</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200-8</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_259'>240n.</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290-1</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">farmer's, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_259'>240n.</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Foot-and-mouth disease, <i>see</i> Cattle Plagues.<br />
+<br />
+Foot-rot, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Foreman, requirements of, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Forncett, manor of, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fountains Abbey, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Four-course rotation, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Four-field system, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fourteenth century, characteristics of, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fowler, John, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fox, the, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>.<br />
+<br />
+France, exports to, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imports from, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">livestock in, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">small holders of, <a href='#Page_202'>202-3</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wheat crops in, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Freeholders, <i>see also</i> Yeoman, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121-2</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Freemen, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Free tenants, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Free trade, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277-81</a>, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">effect of, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+French War, great, <i>see</i> Wars.<br />
+<br />
+Fruit, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imports of <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Fruit-growing in seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_129'>129-131</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186-9</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in nineteenth century, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Furlongs, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Furniture of manor house, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">labourer's home, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">G</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Gafol, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Galloway cattle, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Game, damage by, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Game law, the first, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Gang system, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Geese, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>. (<i>See</i> Poultry.)<br />
+<br />
+Gentry, at the Revolution, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">estates of under Walpole, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">status of <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">supplanted, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">(<i>See</i> Landlords <i>and</i> Squire).</span><br />
+<br />
+Gerard, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>.<br /><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362"></a>
+<br />
+'Gerefa, the', <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Germany, exports to, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imports from, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_323'>323-4</a>, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">livestock in, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wheat crops in, <a href='#Footnotes_342'>332n.</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Gilbert, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Gilbert's Act, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Gilbey, Sir W.,<a href='#Page_335'>335</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Glamorganshire, vineyards in, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Glastonbury Abbey, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Gleaning, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Gloucestershire, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Gloves, gifts of, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Gold premium, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Googe, Barnaby, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Gooseberries, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Grafting in seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Grain crops, chief source of lord's income, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Grapes, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a> (<i>see</i> Vineyards).<br />
+<br />
+Grass, acreage under, in 1877 and 1907, <a href='#Page_331'>331-2</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1850, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">arable land laid down to, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93-4</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117-9</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">converting, to tillage, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">more profitable than arable, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">seeds, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226-7</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Grass land, price of, <i>see</i> Pasture and meadow, price of;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ploughed up, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Grass section of England in 1893, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Grasshoppers, plague of, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Graziers, profits of, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>,<br />
+<br />
+Greycoats of Kent, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ground Game Act, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Guano, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Guernsey cattle, <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Gun, the, in seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">H</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Haggard, Rider, Mr., <a href='#Page_314'>314-5</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hallam, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hambleton, Sir A. Barker of, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hamlets, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hampshire, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>165n.</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Handborough, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Harrison, 'Description of England,' <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Harrow, the, and harrowing, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153-4</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Hartlib, Simon, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142-3</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Harvest, importance of, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Harvest homes, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Harvest work, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hatfield Chase, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hawsted, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Hay, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price of, <i>see</i> Prices;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">carrying off, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imports of, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Hay tedder, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Haymaking, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Headlands, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>.<br />
+<br />
+'Heaths', Shropshire, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hedges, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hemp, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Henley, Walter of, <a href='#Footnotes_31'>19n.</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Henry of Huntingdon, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hens, number of eggs from, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Herdwick sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hereford cattle, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338-40</a>, <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Herefordshire, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186-7</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Hertfordshire, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Hentzner's description of English fanning, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hide, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Highland, West, cattle, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hoeing, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201-2</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">horse, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Holder, the small, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121-2</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_253'>253-61</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_316'>316-9</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">decrease of, causes of, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">new class of, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Holderness cattle, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Holdings, various sizes of, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Holland,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shorthorns from, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">live stock in, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wheat crops in, <a href='#Footnotes_342'>332n.</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Honey, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hops, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86-7</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89-91</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297-9</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_329'>329-30</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">acreage of, in 1729, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297-8</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">average crop, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">duty on, <a href='#Page_297'>297-8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imports of, <a href='#Page_329'>329-30</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">profit on, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298-9</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">substitutes, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Horse fairs, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Horse shoes, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Horses,<br /><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363"></a>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">deterioration of; <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">export of, <a href='#Page_325'>325-6</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">kinds of, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number of, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">size of, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tax on, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">working powers of, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(<i>See</i> Prices.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Houghton, account of potatoes, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Houses, wooden, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a> (<i>see</i> Farmhouses);<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the squire and yeoman, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Housing cattle and horses, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Howberry, <a href='#Page_175'>175-6</a>.<br />
+<br />
+'Hubback', <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hundred Rolls, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hunting, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Huntingdonshire, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_45'>25n.</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>,<a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hurdles, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Husbandry, old and new, <i>see</i> Cultivation.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">I</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Implements, cost of, rises, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152-3</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in nineteenth century, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273-5</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_300'>287n.</a>, <a href='#Page_303'>303-4</a>, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">improvement in, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">list of, in eleventh century, <a href='#Page_17'>17-52</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prices of, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Importing country, England becomes an, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Imports cause low prices, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Imports<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of clover seed, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of corn, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_73'>63n.</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159-61</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_241'>241-4</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277-80</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_323'>323-4</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_330'>330</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348-9</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of dairy produce, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of fruit, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of hops, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of linen, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of livestock, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280-1</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_324'>324-6</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of meat, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of wool, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Improvements, amount expended in, <a href='#Page_320'>320-1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">needed in eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in farming in eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a> (<i>see</i> Agriculture, state of), <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_204'>204</a> (<i>see</i> Farming).</span><br />
+<br />
+Inbreeding, Bakewell and, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Collings and, <a href='#Page_234'>234-5</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Income and expenditure of landed classes (1688), <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Incubators, early, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>.<br />
+<br />
+India,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imports from, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wool from, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Ine, laws of, as to fencing, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Inherent capabilities of the soil, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Inns, markets for produce, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Inoculation of fruit trees, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Intensive cultivation, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Irish imports, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_324'>324-5</a>, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">labourers, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Irrigation, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Isle of Wight, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>172n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Italy, exports to, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wool exported to, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">J</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Jamaica, wool from, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Jersey cattle, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>, (<i>See</i> Alderney.)<br />
+<br />
+Jus faldae, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Justices regulate wages, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">K</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Kent, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143-7</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Kentish<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cattle, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Kerry cattle, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Kett, rising of, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ketton, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Kilns, hop, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>.<br />
+<br />
+King's, Gregory, statistics, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258-9</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Kingston, Lord, estate rents of, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Knights Hospitallers' estates, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">L</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Labour,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cost of, per acre, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">services, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Labourer, character of, in eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">condition of, at end of eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_237'>237-9</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">condition of, in nineteenth century, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266-8</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_283'>283-4</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290-2</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311-2</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313-4</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">decrease of, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>311n.</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">life of, in Middle Ages,<a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">made a land-less man by enclosure, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number of (1688), <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">savings of, <a href='#Page_102'>102-3</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sports of, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the home of the, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wages of, <i>see</i> Wages.</span><br />
+<br />
+Lambs, to fall March <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lammas, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lancashire, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Land, value of, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286-7</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Landlords,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">absentee, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the fourteenth century, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">new class of, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>;</span><br /><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364"></a>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">houses of the <a href='#Page_103'>103</a> (<i>see</i> Cottages);</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">improve estates, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">protectionists, <a href='#Page_160'>160-1</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ignorant of estate management, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in nineteenth century, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320-2</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">position, weakened, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relations of, and tenant, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282-3</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suffered most from present depression, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reserve sporting rights, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">take to farming, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Landlordship, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lawes, Sir John, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lawrence, John, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Laxton, Notts, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Leases,<a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115-6</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121-2</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Footnotes_278'>263n.</a>, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Leicester sheep, <a href='#Page_215'>215-6</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Leicestershire, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214-6</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+'Lemmons', <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Leominster,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">manor of, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wool, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>172n.</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Liberi homines, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Liebig, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lime, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Limestone sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Liming the land, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lincoln<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">red cattle, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Lincolnshire, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Liquorice, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Liverpool,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">apples at, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wheat at, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Liverpool, Lord, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Live stock,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">depreciation of, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">exports of, <a href='#Page_325'>325-6</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number of (1877 and 1907), <a href='#Page_333'>333-4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in England (1688), <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">duty on, repealed, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Locusts in England, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>.<br />
+<br />
+London,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">affects wages, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attracts country folk, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">potato grown near, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">carrots grown near, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">roads near, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep and cattle driven to, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Longhorn cattle, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216-7</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_300'>275n.</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Longmynd, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lonk sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lord of the manor, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">small holder suffers at his hand, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+'Lord Wilton', <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lucerne, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>167n.</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Luffenham,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">South, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">North, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Luxury, spread of, an, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lyttelton,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sir H., <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lord, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">M</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Macadam, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Machinery, use of, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Madder, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Maidstone hops, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Maize, imports of, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mangolds, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331-2</a>, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Manor, regulations of the, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Manor, the typical, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Manorial balance sheets, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Manorial system, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Manors, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mansion house, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Manufactures, influence of, on wages, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Manures, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150-4</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275-6</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Manydown, Hants, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Market gardening, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Markham, Gervase, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134-7</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Marling, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Marshall, William, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Maryland, wool from, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mattocks for breaking clods, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>.<br />
+<br />
+McCormick, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>.<br />
+<br />
+McCulloch, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Meadowland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Meadows,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">value of, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115-6</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Meat, imports of, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Medlars, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Meikle, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Menzies, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Merino sheep, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_342'>328n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Messor, the, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Middlesex, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Midland counties,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">enclosure in, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep in, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Migration of labourers, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_169'>158n.</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>.<br /><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365"></a>
+<br />
+Milk, <a href='#Footnotes_73'>63n.</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a> (<i>see</i> Dairy), <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mill, suit of, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mills, excessive number of, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Minimum wage proposed, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Minister of Agriculture, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mixtil, or mastlin, or mesling, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>207n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Moles, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Molton Market, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Monasteries, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Money payments, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mortimer abuses the law, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Moryson, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mountain sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mowing corn,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fitzherbert's advice, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">machines for, <a href='#Page_303'>303-4</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Mowing grass,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cost of, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fitzherbert's advice, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Mulberries, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Murrain, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_55'>42n.</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mutton, price of, <i>see</i> Prices.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">N</span></b><br />
+<br />
+New world, influx of precious metals from, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>.<br />
+<br />
+New Zealand, wool from, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Newark, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Nitrate of soda, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Non-intercourse Act of United States, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Norden, Sir John, <a href='#Page_127'>127-8</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Norfolk, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_73'>63n.</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>167n.</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_224'>224-8</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Norfolk, or four-course rotation, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Normandy, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>.<br />
+<br />
+North,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">difference of wages between, and South, <a href='#Page_283'>283-5</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">superior thrift in, <a href='#Page_207'>207-8</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Northamptonshire, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Northleach, rates at, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Northumberland, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>193n.</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Norwich, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Nottinghamshire, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Nowton, Suffolk, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Nucleated villages, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Nuts, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">O</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Oak timber,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">value of, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Coke's, <a href='#Page_225'>225-6</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Oakham, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Oats, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135-8</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331-2</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cost of growing, in 1770, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">produce, per acre, in 1712, <a href='#Footnotes_116'>105n.</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1770, <a href='#Page_197'>197-9</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">profit on, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>. (<i>See</i> Prices.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Occupiers of land, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.<br />
+<br />
+'Old Comely', <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Olives, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Onions, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Open parishes, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Oranges, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Orchards, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_135'>135-6</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Owners and occupiers, percentage of, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Owners of Land, return, <a href='#Page_260'>260-1</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Owners, small, <i>see</i> Holders, small.<br />
+<br />
+Ox teams, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Oxen,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">description of, in 1592, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">value of, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>. (<i>See</i> Cattle, price of.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Oxford, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Oxford Down sheep, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Oxfordshire, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">P</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Pack-horses, use of, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Packing fruit in seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Paring and burning, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Parsnips, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Pasture, breaking up, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Pasture,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">common, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">often worth little, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">permanent, in Holdings Act, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extent of, in 1688, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in 1770, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ploughed up during French War, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sparing, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Pasture land, price of, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115-7</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Patents, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Peaches, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Pears, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Peas, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331-2</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Peasants' revolt, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Peel's drainage loans, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Penalty for breaking up pasture, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>.<br /><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366"></a>
+<br />
+Perry, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Pestilences, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Piecework, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Pigeons, number of, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Pigs,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">export of, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">feeding, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">foot-and-mouth disease attacks, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">import of, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number of, <a href='#Page_333'>333-4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">profit on, in 1763, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">size of, in 1592, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">value of, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_45'>35n.</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200-3</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">varieties of, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(<i>See</i> Prices.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Pinchbeck, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Pitt, William, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Plat, Sir Hugh, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Plattes, Gabriel, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Pleuro-pneumonia, <i>see</i> Cattle plagues.<br />
+<br />
+Plot, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Plough, eleventh- and twelfth-century, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ploughing,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cost of, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">months for, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Ploughland, the, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ploughs and ploughing, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Plums, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Poaching, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by labourers, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Population of England, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Pork, price of, <i>see</i> Prices.<br />
+<br />
+Porter, 'Progress of Nation,' <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Portugal, exports to, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Potatoes, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331-3</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disease, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Poultry, <a href='#Footnotes_55'>41n.</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a> (<i>see</i> Prices);<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">carrying, to London,<a href='#Page_171'>171</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Praepositus, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Precarii, or boon days, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Precious metals,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influx of, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">scarcity of, <a href='#Footnotes_78'>66n.</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Prices:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Apples, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bacon and pork, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Barley, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>, <a href='#Page_350'>350-3</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beans, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beef, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>206n.</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bread, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>206n.</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>207n.</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_259'>242n.</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Butter, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>206n.</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285-6</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Carts, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cattle, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>165n.</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cheese, <a href='#Page_173'>173-4</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>206n.</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clover, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>165n.</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173-4</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>206n.</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fifteenth century, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fourteenth century, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Flax, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grapes, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Harness, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hay, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>165n.</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241-2</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hops, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Horses, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>165n.</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Horse-shoes, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Implements, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Malt, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Milk, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mutton, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_10'>10-2</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>206n.</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nineteenth century, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242-4</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247-8</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264-6</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277-81</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oats, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>, <a href='#Page_350'>350-3</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Peas, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pedigree cattle, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pigs, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Potatoes, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Poultry and eggs, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rabbits,<a href='#Page_174'>174</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rams, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rollers, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rye, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Saffron, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133-4</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sheep, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, 3511., <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>165n.</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>206n.</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sixteenth century, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102-6</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br /><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367"></a>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Straw, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tenth century, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thirteenth century, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Twelfth century, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vetches, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Waggons, <a href='#Page_203'>203-4</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wheat, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242-4</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247-8</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277-8</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_334'>334</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>, <a href='#Page_350'>350-3</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wine, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wool, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285-6</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Prickly comfrey, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Proclamation as to wages and prices, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Production, increased cost of, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Prosperity,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">agricultural, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210-1</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243-4</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">during French War, <a href='#Page_243'>243-6</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Protecting fruit from blight, Sec., <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Protection,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">effect of, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278-9</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">highest limit of, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>; <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277-9</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Provender rents, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Pruning fruit trees, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Pulverization of soil, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Q</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Quarter Sessions, assessment of wages by, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Quartly, Francis, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Quiet Emptores, statute of, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Quinces, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Quit, notice to, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">R</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Rabbits,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rearing, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reserved to landlord, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Railway rates, <a href='#Page_295'>295-6</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rake, horse, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Raleigh introduces potatoes, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rams,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ewes to, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price of, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Ramsey, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Raspberries, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rates, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Rathgib, Jacob, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>.,<br />
+<br />
+Reaping,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cost of, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">machines, <a href='#Page_303'>303-4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">time for, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">versus mowing corn, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Red Polled cattle, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Reeve, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">duties of a, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Reigate, Flaunchford near, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rents:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Twelfth century, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thirteenth century, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fourteenth century, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fifteenth century, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sixteenth century, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_236'>193n.</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_348'>348</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nineteenth century, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285-6</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_304'>304</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306-9</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>319n.</a>, <a href='#Page_321'>321-2</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Repairs, <i>see</i> Buildings, farm.<br />
+<br />
+Restrictive covenants, <i>see</i> Cultivation clauses.<br />
+<br />
+Revival, recent, in agriculture, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Revolt, Peasants', <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Revolution, agricultural and industrial, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ridges, high, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rinderpest, <i>see</i> Cattle plagues.<br />
+<br />
+Riots, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_366'>366</a>,<br />
+<br />
+Ripon, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Roads, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220-3</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Rock and Far Forest district, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>,<br />
+<br />
+Rogers, Thorold, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Roller, farm, in seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rolling, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Romney Marsh sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Romsey Abbey, <a href='#Footnotes_31'>15n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Roots, few, used for cows, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a> (<i>see</i> Turnips).<br />
+<br />
+Roscommon sheep, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Roses, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ross, John, of Warwick, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rot, <i>see</i> Sheep rot.<br />
+<br />
+Rotation of crops (<i>see</i> Four-course and Three-field system) <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rothamsted, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Roundsman system, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Royal Agrlctttonal Society, <a href='#Page_273'>273-4</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Royal Society, helps agriculture, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Russia,<br /><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368"></a>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imports rom, <a href='#Page_323'>323-4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wool from, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Rutland, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dukes of, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Rye, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Norfolk, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">produce, per acre, in 1770, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Rye-grass, <a href='#Page_178'>178-9</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ryeland sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">S</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Saffron, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Walden, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Sainfoin, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Saint Paul's, manors of, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sales, famous, <a href='#Footnotes_259'>234n.</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Salt, value of, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Samford Hall, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Scotland,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cattle of, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wheat crop in, <a href='#Footnotes_342'>332n.</a></span><br />
+<br />
+Scott, Reynold, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Scottish cattle, <a href='#Page_168'>168-9</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Scudamore, Lord, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Seasons,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bad, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_55'>42n.</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">good, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Seed,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">amount of, for wheat, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_78'>67n.</a>,<a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for clover, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">clover, price of, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Sefton, Lord, estate of, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>320n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Selions, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Self-binding reaper, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Seneschal, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Settled Land Acts, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Settlement, law of parochial, <a href='#Page_157'>157-8</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_278'>269n.</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Settlements, family, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259-60</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Seventeenth century, characteristics of, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sheaf-binding apparatus, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Shearing sheep, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sheep, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">diseases of, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">export of, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a> (<i>see</i> Live stock);</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">improvement of, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number of,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in 1867, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in 1877 and 1907, <a href='#Page_333'>333-4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price of, <i>see</i> Prices;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">varieties of, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215-7</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343-6</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">washing, cost of, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Sheep-rot, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_278'>265n.</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Shepherd, wages of, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Shire horse, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Society, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Shoeing, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Shorthorn cattle, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233-5</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336-8</a>, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>, <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Shows, Agricultural, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273-5</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Shropshire, <a href='#Footnotes_31'>11n.</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_31'>16n.</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Siberian Railway, <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sicks, uncultivated patches, <a href='#Footnotes_109'>99n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Sinclair, Sir J., <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sittingboume, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sixteenth century, character of, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Slaves, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Smith, Adam, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Smith of Deanston, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>, <a href='#Page_271'>271-2</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Smithfield, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cattle show, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prices at, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Smyth, John, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Society, Royal Agricultural, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Society for Encouragement of Arts, &amp;c., <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Socmen, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Somerset, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Somerville, Loid, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Southams cattle, <a href='#Page_342'>342</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Southdown sheep, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Spade, prejudice against, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for hops, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Spain,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">exports to, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">imports from, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Spanish wool, <a href='#Page_38'>38-9</a>, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Speculation,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in land, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in produce, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Speenhamland Act, <a href='#Page_237'>237-8</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Spencer, Earl, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sporting rights reserved, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Spraying fruit, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Squatters, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Squire, the, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211-2</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Stafford, Marquis of, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Staffordshire, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Statesmen, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Statistics, agricultural, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a> (<i>see</i> King, Gregory),<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_331'>331-2</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Statute of labourers, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.<br /><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369"></a>
+<br />
+Statutes <i>quoted</i>:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">20 Hen. III. c. 4, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">25 Edw. III. 2. c. 1, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">34 Edw. III. c. 20, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">12 Ric. II. c. 4, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">12 Ric. II. c. 5, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">12 Ric. II. c. 6, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">13 Ric. II. c. 13, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">15 Ric. II. c. 5, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">17 Ric. II. c. 7, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">4 Hen. IV. c. 14, <a href='#Footnotes_78'>67n.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">7 Hen. IV. c. 17, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">9 Hen. V. c. 5, <a href='#Footnotes_78'>68n.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">3 Hen. VI. c. 2, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">3 Hen. VI. c. 4, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">4 Hen. VI. c. 5, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">15 Hen. VI. c. 2, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">23 Hen. VI. c. 12, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">3 Edw. IV. c. 2, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">3 Edw. IV. c. 5, <a href='#Footnotes_88'>71n.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">22 Edw. IV. c. 1, <a href='#Footnotes_88'>71n.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">4 Hen. VII. c. 19, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">11 Hen. VII. c. 13, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">11 Hen. VII. c. 22, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">6 Hen. VIII. c. 3, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">6 Hen. VIII. c. 5, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">21 Hen. VIII. c. 8, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">22 Hen. VIII. c. 7, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">24 Hen. VIII c. 3, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">24 Hen. VIII. c. 4, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">24 Hen. VIII. c. 10, <a href='#Footnotes_94'>82n.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">25 Hen, VIII. c. 1, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">25 Hen. VIII. c. 13, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">27 Hen. VIII. c. 6, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">27 Hen. VIII. c. 22, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">32 Hen. VIII. c. 13, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I Edw. VI. c. 5, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">3 and 4 Edw. VI. c. 19, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">5 Edw. VI. c. 14, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">2 and 3 Phil. and Mary, c. 3, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">5 Eliz. c. 4, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">5 Eliz. c. 5, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">8 Eliz. c. 3, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">8 Eliz. c. 15, <a href='#Footnotes_94'>82n.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">13 Eliz. c. 25, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">14 Eliz. c. 11, <a href='#Footnotes_94'>82n.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">31 Eliz. c. 7, <a href='#Footnotes_132'>121n.</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">39 Eliz. c. 1, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">39 Eliz, c. 2, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">39 Eliz. c. 18, <a href='#Footnotes_94'>82n.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">43 Eliz. c. 2, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">1 Jac. I. c. 18, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">21 Jac. I. c. 28, <a href='#Footnotes_132'>118n.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">12 Car. II. c. 4, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">13 and 14 Car. II. c. 18, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">14 Car. II. c. 12, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">15 Car. II. c. 7, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">18 Car. II. c. 2, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">22 Car. II. c. 13, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">32 Car. II. c. 2, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">3 W. and M. c. 2, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">8 and 9 W. and M. c. 30, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">7 and 8 Wm. III. c. 28, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">36 Geo. III. c. 23, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">41 Geo. III. c. 109, <a href='#Page_231'>231-2</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">9 Geo. IV. c. 60, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">4 and 5 Wm. IV. c. 76, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">6 and 7 Wm. IV. c. 71, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">5 Vict. c. 14, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">9 and 10 Vict. c. 22, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">9 and 10 Vict. c. 23, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">14 and 15 Vict. c. 25, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">30 and 31 Vict. c. 130, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">38 and 39 Vict. c. 92, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">43 and 44 Vict. c. 47, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">46 and 47 Vict. c. 61, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">59 and 60 Vict. c. 16, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>314n.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">63 and 64 Vict. c. 50, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">1 Edw. VII. c. 13, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>314n.</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">6 Edw. VII. c. 56, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">7 Edw. VII. c. 54, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Steam,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">applied to threshing, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cultivator, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Stilton cheese, <a href='#Page_173'>173-4</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Stinting the common pasture, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Stock and land leases, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Stocking a farm, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Stores, public grain, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Stott, the, or affer, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Stourbridge Fair, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_189'>172n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Stratfieldsaye, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Straw,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as winter food for cattle, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">carrying off, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price of, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Strawberries, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Stubble, grazing of, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Suffolk, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_73'>63n.</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Punch, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Supplies of com per head, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a> (<i>see</i> Wheat, home supplies).<br />
+<br />
+Surrey, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Surveyor, the seventeeiith-century, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sussex, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cattle, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Swanage, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Swedes, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331-2</a>, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>.<br /><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370"></a>
+<br />
+'Swing' riots, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">T</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Taltarum's case, effect of, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Tamworth pigs, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Taunton,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">manor of, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">good fanning near, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Taxes, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263-4</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">weight of, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Tea,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">drinking, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price of, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Teams, composition of, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Telford, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Tenant farmers,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">assist in agricultural progress, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number of, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">origin of, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Tenant-right, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Teeswater cattle, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Tewkesbury, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Thatchers, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Thomson of Banchory, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Thorney and Woburn estates, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Three-field system, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Threshing,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cost of, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198-9</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">machine, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236-7</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">time for, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Tillage,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">decrease of, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">encouragement of, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117-8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reaction against, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(<i>See</i> Arable, <i>and</i> Grass.)</span><br />
+<br />
+Timber (<i>see</i> Oak timber), <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">spoils crops, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Tiptree, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Tithe,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dispute, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on turnips, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rent charge, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Tithes, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_270'>270</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Tooke, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<i>Tours</i>, Young's, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Towns, movement of rural population towards, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>, <a href='#Page_316'>316-7</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Townshend, Lord, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182-3</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<i>Treatise on Husbandry</i>, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Tull, Jethro, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174-7</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200-1</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Turkeys, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Turkish dominions, imports from, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Turnip cutters, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Turnip fly, remedies for, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Turnips, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331-2</a>, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cost of growing, in 1770, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">injure wool, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep first fattened on, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">spread of, in eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_201'>201</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">varieties of, in 1720, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Tusser, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Two-field system, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>.<br />
+<br />
+'Twopenny', <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">U</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Underwood, value of, in seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Unions, Agricultural Labourers', <a href='#Page_291'>291-2</a>.<br />
+<br />
+United States, <i>see</i> America.<br />
+<br />
+Unreasonable disturbance, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Upwey, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">V</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Vanghan, Rowland, <a href='#Page_132'>132-3</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Vegetables, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_132'>112n.</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_259'>236n.</a><br />
+<br />
+Ventnor, vineyard at, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Vermin, destruction of, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Vermuyden, Cornelius, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Vetches, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Village, the, of the eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Village smith, the, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Villeins, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disappearance of, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Vills or villages, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Vineyards, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144-5</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Virgate, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Virginia,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">potatoes from, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wool from, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">W</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Wages:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Twelfth century, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thirteenth century, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fourteenth century, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fifteenth century, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sixteenth century, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seventeenth century, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eighteenth century, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205-6</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354-5</a>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nineteenth century, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283-4</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290-2</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>, <a href='#Page_356'>356</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Wages,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on a farm in 1805, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">regulated by statute, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>;</span><br /><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371"></a>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">by Justices, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Waggons, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wainage, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wales, cattle of, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wallachia and Moldavia, imports from, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Walsingham states demands of villeins, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wars, effect of, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Warwickshire, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_290'>290</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Waste land, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">committee on, <a href='#Footnotes_269'>255n.</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">good crops from the, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Young and, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Water carriage, cheapness of, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Weaning lambs, time for, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Weaving, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Webster of Canley, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Weeding hook and tongs, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Weeds, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Week work, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Welsh mountain sheep, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wensleydale sheep, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Westcar of Creslow, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Westcote, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Westmoreland, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Weston, Sir R., introduces clover, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Weyhill Fair, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wheat,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">acreage tinder, in 1907, <a href='#Page_331'>331-2</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">consumption of, per head, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cost of growing, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">crops, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197-9</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cultivation of, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177-9</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">different kinds of, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">home supplies of, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price of, <i>see</i> Prices.</span><br />
+<br />
+White, Gilbert, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wilton, hops near, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wiltshire, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sheep, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Winchelsea, Lord, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Winchester, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wine, <a href='#Page_144'>144-5</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wire binder, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wirral, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wisbech, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Woad, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Women, work of, on the farm, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wood, W. A., <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Woods, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Woodstock, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Wool, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38-41</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171-3</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">export of, <i>see</i> Exports;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">import of, <i>see</i> Imports;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price of, <i>see</i> Prices.</span><br />
+<br />
+Wool,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">custom of picking refuse, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">storing, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Worcestershire, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Work, hours of, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Worlidge, John, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142-8</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150-4</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Worsley, Sir R., <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<b><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Y</span></b><br />
+<br />
+Yeoman, the, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258-61</a>, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">house of, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Yeomen purchase lands of gentry, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Yorkshire, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138-9</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_330'>306n.</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Young, Arthur, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190-3</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200-6</a>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Footnotes_300'>288n.</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#Page_335'>335</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposed to drilling, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pet aversions of, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">statements of, as to growth of clover, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of English Agriculture
+by W. H. R.  Curtler
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH AGRICULTURE ***
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+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/16594.txt b/16594.txt
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+++ b/16594.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of English Agriculture
+by W. H. R.  Curtler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Short History of English Agriculture
+
+Author: W. H. R.  Curtler
+
+Release Date: August 25, 2005 [EBook #16594]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH AGRICULTURE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Million Book Project, Juliet Sutherland, Tricia
+Gilbert and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE
+
+BY
+
+W.H.R. CURTLER
+
+
+  OXFORD
+  AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
+  1909
+
+
+  HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
+  PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
+  LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
+  TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+'A husbandman', said Markham, 'is the master of the earth, turning
+barrenness into fruitfulness, whereby all commonwealths are
+maintained and upheld. His labour giveth liberty to all vocations,
+arts, and trades to follow their several functions with peace and
+industrie. What can we say in this world is profitable where
+husbandry is wanting, it being the great nerve and sinew which
+holdeth together all the joints of a monarchy?' And he is confirmed
+by Young: 'Agriculture is, beyond all doubt, the foundation of every
+other art, business, and profession, and it has therefore been the
+ideal policy of every wise and prudent people to encourage it to the
+utmost.' Yet of this important industry, still the greatest in
+England, there is no history covering the whole period.
+
+It is to remedy this defect that this book is offered, with much
+diffidence, and with many thanks to Mr. C.R.L. Fletcher of Magdalen
+College, Oxford, for his valuable assistance in revising the proof
+sheets, and to the Rev. A.H. Johnson of All Souls for some very
+useful information.
+
+As the agriculture of the Middle Ages has often been ably described,
+I have devoted the greater part of this work to the agricultural
+history of the subsequent period, especially the seventeenth,
+eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.
+
+W.H.R. CURTLER.
+
+_May 22, 1909._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Communistic Farming.--Growth of the Manor.--Early Prices.--The
+Organization and Agriculture of the Manor
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The Thirteenth Century.--The Manor at its Zenith, with Seeds of Decay
+already visible.--Walter of Henley
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Fourteenth Century.--Decline of Agriculture.--The Black Death.--
+Statute of Labourers
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+How the Classes connected with the Land lived in the Middle Ages
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The Break-up of the Manor.--Spread of Leases.--The Peasants'
+Revolt.--Further Attempts to regulate Wages.--A Harvest
+Home.--Beginning of the Corn Laws.--Some Surrey Manors
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+1400-1540. The so-called 'Golden Age of the Labourer' in a Period of
+General Distress
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Enclosure
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Fitzherbert.--The Regulation of Hours and Wages
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+1540-1600. Progress at last--Hop-growing.--Progress of Enclosure.--
+Harrison's _Description_
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+1540-1600. Live Stock.--Flax.--Saffron.--The Potato.--The Assessment
+of Wages
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+1600-1700. Clover and Turnips.--Great Rise in Prices.--More
+Enclosure.--A Farming Calendar
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The Great Agricultural Writers of the Seventeenth Century.--Fruit-growing.
+--A Seventeenth-century Orchard
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Evils of Common Fields.--Hops.--Implements.--Manures.--Gregory
+King.--Corn Laws
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+1700-65. General Characteristics of the Eighteenth Century.--Crops.
+--Cattle.--Dairying.--Poultry.--Tull and the New Husbandry.--Bad
+Times.--Fruit-growing
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+1700-65. Townshend.--Sheep-rot.--Cattle Plague.--Fruit-growing
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+1765-93. Arthur Young.--Crops and their Cost.--The Labourers'
+Wages and Diet.--The Prosperity of Farmers.--The Country
+Squire.--Elkington.--Bakewell.--The Roads.--Coke of Holkham
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+1793-1815. The Great French War.--The Board of Agriculture.--High
+Prices, and Heavy Taxation
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Enclosure.--The Small Owner
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+1816-37. Depression
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+1837-75. Revival of Agriculture.--The Royal Agricultural
+Society.--Corn Law Repeal.--A Temporary Set-back.--The Halcyon Days
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+1875-1908. Agricultural Distress again.--Foreign Competition.--
+Agricultural Holdings Act.--New Implements.--Agricultural
+Commissions.--The Situation in 1908
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Imports and Exports.--Live Stock
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Modern Farm Live Stock
+
+
+APPENDICES
+
+I. Average Prices from 1259 to 1700
+
+II. Exports and Imports of Wheat and Flour from and into England,
+unimportant years omitted
+
+III. Average Prices per Imperial Quarter of British Corn in England
+and Wales, in each year from 1771 to 1907 inclusive
+
+IV. Miscellaneous Information
+
+
+
+
+LANDMARKS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE
+
+
+1086. Domesday inquest, most cultivated land in tillage. Annual value
+of land about 2d. an acre.
+
+1216-72. Henry III. Assize of Bread and Ale.
+
+1272-1307. Edward I. General progress. Walter of Henley.
+
+1307. Edward II. Decline.
+
+1315. Great famine.
+
+1337. Export of wool prohibited.
+
+1348-9. Black Death. Heavy blow to manorial system. Many demesne
+lands let, and much land laid down to grass.
+
+1351. Statute of Labourers.
+
+1360. Export of corn forbidden.
+
+1381. Villeins' revolt.
+
+1393. Richard II allows export of corn under certain conditions.
+
+1463. Import of wheat under 6s. 8d. prohibited.
+
+End of fifteenth century. Increase of enclosure.
+
+1523. Fitzherbert's _Surveying and Husbandry_.
+
+1540. General rise in prices and rents begins.
+
+1549. Kett's rebellion. The last attempt of the English peasant to
+obtain redress by force.
+
+1586. Potatoes introduced.
+
+1601. Poor Law Act of Elizabeth.
+
+1645. Turnips and clover introduced as field crops.
+
+1662. Statute of Parochial Settlement.
+
+1664. Importation of cattle, sheep, and swine forbidden.
+
+1688. Bounty of 5s. per quarter on export of wheat, and high duty on
+import.
+
+1733. Tull publishes his _Horse-hoeing Husbandry_.
+
+1739. Great sheep-rot.
+
+1750. Exports of corn reached their maximum.
+
+1760. Bakewell began experimenting.
+
+1760 (about). Industrial and agrarian revolution, and great increase
+of enclosure.
+
+1764. Elkington's new drainage system.
+
+1773. Wheat allowed to be imported at a nominal duty of 6d. a quarter
+when over 48s.
+
+1777. Bath and West of England Society established, the first in
+England.
+
+1789. England definitely becomes a corn-importing country.
+
+1793. Board of Agriculture established.
+
+1795. Speenhamland Act.
+
+About same date swedes first grown.
+
+1815. Duty on wheat reached its maximum.
+
+1815-35. Agricultural distress.
+
+1825. Export of wool allowed.
+
+1835. Smith of Deanston, the father of modern drainage.
+
+1838. Foundation of Royal Agricultural Society.
+
+1846. Repeal of the Corn Laws.
+
+1855-75. Great agricultural prosperity.
+
+1875. English agriculture feels the full effect of unrestricted
+competition with disastrous results.
+
+  "   First Agricultural Holdings Act.
+
+1879-80. Excessive rainfall, sheep-rot, and general distress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+COMMUNISTIC FARMING.--GROWTH OF THE MANOR.--EARLY PRICES.--THE
+ORGANIZATION AND AGRICULTURE OF THE MANOR
+
+
+When the early bands of English invaders came over to take Britain
+from its Celtic owners, it is almost certain that the soil was held by
+groups and not by individuals, and as this was the practice of the
+conquerors also they readily fell in with the system they found.[1]
+These English, unlike their descendants of to day, were a race of
+countrymen and farmers and detested the towns, preferring the lands of
+the Britons to the towns of the Romans. Co-operation in agriculture
+was necessary because to each household were allotted separate strips
+of land, nearly equal in size, in each field set apart for tillage,
+and a share in the meadow and waste land. The strips of arable were
+unfenced and ploughed by common teams, to which each family would
+contribute.
+
+Apparently, as the land was cleared and broken up it was dealt out
+acre by acre to each cultivator; and supposing each group consisted of
+ten families, the typical holding of 120 acres was assigned to each
+family in acre strips, and these strips were not all contiguous but
+mixed up with those of other families. The reason for this mixture of
+strips is obvious to any one who knows how land even in the same field
+varies in quality; it was to give each family its share of both good
+and bad land, for the householders were all equal and the principle on
+which the original distribution of the land depended was that of
+equalizing the shares of the different members of the community.[2]
+
+In attributing ownership of lands to communities we must be careful
+not to confound communities with corporations. Maitland thinks the
+early land-owning communities blended the character of corporations
+and of co-owners, and co-ownership is ownership by individuals.[3] The
+vills or villages founded on their arrival in Britain by our English
+forefathers resembled those they left at home, and even there the
+strips into which the arable fields were divided were owned in
+severalty by the householders of the village. There was co-operation
+in working the fields but no communistic division of the crops, and
+the individual's hold upon his strips developed rapidly into an
+inheritable and partible ownership. 'At the opening of Anglo-Saxon
+history absolute ownership of land in severalty was established and
+becoming the rule.'[4]
+
+In the management of the meadow land communal features were much more
+clearly brought out; the arable was not reallotted,[5] but the meadow
+was, annually; while the woods and pastures, the right of using which
+belonged to the householders of the village, were owned by the village
+'community'. There may have been at the time of the English conquest
+Roman 'villas' with slaves and _coloni_ cultivating the owners'
+demesnes, which passed bodily to the new masters; but the former
+theory seems true of the greater part of the country.
+
+At first 'extensive' cultivation was practised; that is, every year a
+fresh arable field was broken up and the one cultivated last year
+abandoned, for a time at all events; but gradually 'intensive' culture
+superseded this, probably not till after the English had conquered the
+land, and the same field was cultivated year after year.[6] After the
+various families or households had finished cutting the grass in their
+allotted portions of meadow, and the corn on their strips of tillage,
+both grass and stubble became common land and were thrown open for the
+whole community to turn their stock upon.
+
+The size of the strips of land in the arable fields varied, but was
+generally an acre, in most places a furlong (furrow long) or 220 yards
+in length, and 22 yards broad; or in other words, 40 rods of 5-1/2
+yards in length and 4 in breadth. There was, however, little
+uniformity in measurement before the Norman Conquest, the rod by which
+the furlongs and acres were measured varying in length from 12 to 24
+feet, so that one acre might be four times as large as another.[7] The
+acre was, roughly speaking, the amount that a team could plough in a
+day, and seems to have been from early times the unit of measuring the
+area of land.[8] Of necessity the real acre and the ideal acre were
+also different, for the reason that the former had to contend with the
+inequalities of the earth's surface and varied much when no scientific
+measurement was possible. As late as 1820 the acre was of many
+different sizes in England. In Bedfordshire it was 2 roods, in Dorset
+134 perches instead of 160, in Lincolnshire 5 roods, in Staffordshire
+2-1/4 acres. To-day the Cheshire acre is 10,240 square yards. As,
+however, an acre was and is a day's ploughing for a team, we may
+assume that the most usual acre was the same area then as now. There
+were also half-acre strips, but whatever the size the strips were
+divided one from another by narrow grass paths generally called
+'balks', and at the end of a group of these strips was the 'headland'
+where the plough turned, the name being common to-day. Many of these
+common fields remained until well on in the nineteenth century; in
+1815 half the county of Huntingdon was in this condition, and a few
+still exist.[9] Cultivating the same field year after year naturally
+exhausted the soil, so that the two-field system came in, under which
+one was cultivated and the other left fallow; and this was followed by
+the three-field system, by which two were cropped in any one year and
+one lay fallow, the last-named becoming general as it yielded better
+results, though the former continued, especially in the North. Under
+the three-field plan the husbandman early in the autumn would plough
+the field that had been lying fallow during summer, and sow wheat or
+rye; in the spring he broke up the stubble of the field on which the
+last wheat crop had been grown and sowed barley or oats; in June he
+ploughed up the stubble of the last spring crop and fallowed the
+field.[10] As soon as the crops began to grow in the arable fields and
+the grass in the meadows to spring, they were carefully fenced to
+prevent trespass of man and beast; and, as soon as the crops came off,
+the fields became common for all the village to turn their stock upon,
+the arable fields being usually common from Lammas (August 1) to
+Candlemas (February 2) and the meadows from July 6, old Midsummer Day,
+to Candlemas[11]; but as in this climate the season both of hay and
+corn harvest varies considerably, these dates cannot have been fixed.
+
+The stock, therefore, besides the common pasture, had after harvest
+the grazing of the common arable fields and of the meadows. The common
+pasture was early 'stinted' or limited, the usual custom being that
+the villager could turn out as many stock as he could keep on his
+holding. The trouble of pulling up and taking down these fences every
+year must have been enormous, and we find legislation on this
+important matter at an early date. About 700 the laws of Ine, King of
+Wessex, provided that if 'churls have a common meadow or other
+partible land to fence, and some have fenced their part and some have
+not, and cattle stray in and eat up their common corn or grass; let
+those go who own the gap and compensate to the others who have fenced
+their part the damage which then may be done, and let them demand such
+justice on the cattle as may be right. But if there be a beast which
+breaks hedges and goes in everywhere, and he who owns it will not or
+cannot restrain it, let him who finds it in his field take it and slay
+it, and let the owner take its skin and flesh and forfeit the rest.'
+
+England was not given over to one particular type of settlement,
+although villages were more common than hamlets in the greater part of
+the country.[12] The vill or village answers to the modern civil
+parish, and the term may be applied to both the true or 'nucleated'
+village of clustered houses and the village of scattered hamlets, each
+of a few houses, existing chiefly on the Celtic fringe. The population
+of some of the villages at the time of the Norman Conquest was
+numerous, 100 households or 500 people; but the average townships
+contained from 10 to 20 households.[13] There was also the single
+farm, such as that at Eardisley in Herefordshire, described in
+Domesday, lying in the middle of a forest, perhaps, as in other
+similar cases, a pioneer settlement of some one more adventurous than
+his fellows.[14]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such was the early village community in England, a community of free
+landholders. But a change began early to come over it.[15] The king
+would grant to a church all the rights he had in the village,
+reserving only the _trinoda necessitas_, these rights including the
+feorm or farm, or provender rent which the king derived from the
+land--of cattle, sheep, swine, ale, honey, &c.--which he collected by
+visiting his villages, thus literally eating his rents. The churchmen
+did not continue these visits, they remained in their monasteries, and
+had the feorm brought them regularly; they had an overseer in the
+village to see to this, and so they tightened their hold on the
+village. Then the smaller people, the peasants, make gifts to the
+Church. They give their land, but they also want to keep it, for it is
+their livelihood; so they surrender the land and take it back as a
+lifelong loan. Probably on the death of the donor his heirs are
+suffered to hold the land. Then labour services are substituted for
+the old provender rents, and thus the Church acquires a demesne, and
+thus the foundations of the manorial system, still to be traced all
+over the country, were laid. Thegns, the predecessors of the Norman
+barons, become the recipients of grants from the churches and from
+kings, and householders 'commend' themselves and their land to them
+also, so that they acquired demesnes. This 'commendation' was
+furthered by the fact that during the long-drawn out conquest of
+Britain the old kindred groups of the English lost their corporate
+sense, and the central power being too weak to protect the ordinary
+householder, who could not stand alone, he had to seek the protection
+of an ecclesiastical corporation or of some thegn, first for himself
+and then for his land. The jurisdictional rights of the king also
+passed to the lord, whether church or thegn; then came the danegeld,
+the tax for buying off the Danes that subsequently became a fixed land
+tax, which was collected from the lord, as the peasants were too poor
+for the State to deal with them; the lord paid the geld for their
+land, consequently their land was his. In this way the free ceorl of
+Anglo-Saxon times gradually becomes the 'villanus' of Domesday.
+Landlordship was well established in the two centuries before the
+Conquest, and the land of England more or less 'carved into
+territorial lordships'.[16] Therefore when the Normans brought their
+wonderful genius for organization to this country they found the
+material conditions of manorial life in full growth; it was their task
+to develop its legal and economic side.[17]
+
+As the manorial system thus superimposed upon the village community
+was the basis of English rural economy for centuries, there need be no
+apology for describing it at some length.
+
+The term 'manor', which came in with the Conquest,[18] has a technical
+meaning in Domesday, referring to the system of taxation, and did not
+always coincide with the vill or village, though it commonly did so,
+except in the eastern portion of England. The village was the agrarian
+unit, the manor the fiscal unit; so that where the manor comprised
+more than one village, as was frequently the case, there would be more
+than one village organization for working the common fields.[19]
+
+The manor then was the 'constitutive cell' of English mediaeval
+society.[20] The structure is always the same; under the headship of
+the lord we find two layers of population, the villeins and the
+freeholders; and the territory is divided into demesne land and
+tributary land of two classes, viz. that of the villeins and that of
+the freeholders. The cultivation of the demesne (which usually means
+the land directly occupied and cultivated by the lord, though legally
+it has a wider meaning and includes the villein tenements), depends to
+a certain extent on the work supplied by the tenants of the tributary
+land. Rents are collected, labour superintended, administrative
+business transacted by a set of manorial officers.
+
+We may divide the tillers of the soil at the time of Domesday into
+five great classes[21] in order of dignity and freedom:
+
+  1. Liberi homines, or freemen.
+  2. Socmen.
+  3. Villeins.
+  4. Bordarii, cotarii, buri or coliberti.
+  5. Slaves.
+
+The two first of these classes were to be found in large numbers in
+Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and
+Northamptonshire. It is not easy to draw the line between them, but
+the chief distinction lay in the latter being more burdened with
+service and customary dues and more especially subject to the
+jurisdictional authority of the lord.[22] They were both free, but
+both rendered services to the lord for their land. Both the freemen
+and the slaves by 1086 were rapidly decreasing in number.
+
+The most numerous class[23] on the manors was the third, that of the
+villeins or non-free tenants, who held their land by payment of
+services to the lord. The position of the villein under the feudal
+system is most complicated. He both was and was not a freeman. He was
+absolutely at the disposal of the lord, who could sell him with his
+tenement, and he could not leave his land without his lord's
+permission. He laboured under many disabilities, such as the merchet
+or fine for marrying his daughter, and fines for selling horse or ox.
+On the other hand, he was free against every one but his lord, and
+even against the lord was protected from the forfeiture of his
+'wainage' or instruments of labour and from injury to life and
+limb.[24]
+
+His usual holding was a virgate of 30 acres of arable, though the
+virgate differed in size even in the same manors; but in addition to
+this he would have his meadow land and his share in the common pasture
+and wood, altogether about 100 acres of land. For this he rendered the
+following services to the lord of the manor:
+
+1. Week work, or labour on the lord's demesne for two or three days a
+week during most of the year, and four or five days in summer. It was
+not always the villein himself, however, who rendered these services,
+he might send his son or even a hired labourer; and it was the holding
+and not the holder that was considered primarily responsible for the
+rendering of services.[25]
+
+2. Precarii or boon days: that is, work generally during harvest, at
+the lord's request, sometimes instead of week work, sometimes in
+addition.
+
+3. Gafol or tribute: fixed payments in money or kind, and such
+services as 'fold soke', which forced the tenants' sheep to lie on the
+lord's land for the sake of the manure; and suit of mill, by which the
+tenant was bound to grind his corn in the lord's mill.
+
+With regard to the 'boon days' in harvest, it should be remembered
+that harvest time in the Middle Ages was a most important event.
+Agriculture was the great industry, and when the corn was ripe the
+whole village turned out to gather it, the only exceptions being the
+housewives and sometimes the marriageable daughters. Even the larger
+towns suspended work that the townsmen might assist in the harvest,
+and our long vacation was probably intended originally to cover the
+whole work of gathering in the corn and hay. On the occasion of the
+'boon-day' work, the lord usually found food for the labourers which,
+the Inquisition of Ardley[26] tells us, might be of the following
+description: for two men, porridge of beans and peas and two loaves,
+one white, the other of 'mixtil' bread; that is, wheat, barley, and
+rye mixed together, with a piece of meat, and beer for their first
+meal. Then in the evening they had a small loaf of mixtil bread and
+two 'lescas' of cheese. While harvest work was going on the better-off
+tenants, usually the free ones, were sometimes employed to ride about,
+rod in hand, superintending the others.
+
+The services of the villeins were often very comprehensive, and even
+included such tasks as preparing the lord's bath; but on some manors
+their services were very light.[27] When the third of the above
+obligations, the gafol or tribute, was paid in kind it was most
+commonly made in corn; and next came honey, one of the most important
+articles of the Middle Ages, as it was used for both lighting and
+sweetening purposes. Ale was also common, and poultry and eggs, and
+sometimes the material for implements.
+
+These obligations were imposed for the most part on free and unfree
+tenants alike, though those of the free were much lighter than those
+of the unfree; the chief difference between the two, as far as tenure
+of the land went, lay in the fact that the former could exercise
+proprietary rights over his holding more or less freely, the latter
+had none.[28] It seems very curious to the modern mind that the
+villein, a man who farmed about 100 acres of land, should have been in
+such a servile condition.
+
+The amount of work due from each villein came to be fixed by the
+extent or survey of the manor, but the quality of it was not[29];
+that is, each one knew how many days he had to work, but not whether
+he was to plough, sow, or harrow, &c. It is surprising to find, that
+on the festival days of the Church, which were very numerous and
+observed as holy days, the lord lost by no work being done, and the
+same was the case in wet weather.
+
+One of the most important duties of the tenant was the 'averagium', or
+duty of carrying for the lord, especially necessary when his manors
+were often a long way apart. He would often have to carry corn to the
+nearest town for sale, the products of one manor to another, also to
+haul manure on to the demesne. If he owned neither horse nor ox, he
+would sometimes have to use his own back.[30]
+
+The holding of the villein did not admit of partition by sale or
+descent, it remained undivided and entire. When the holder died all
+the land went to one of the sons if there were several, often to the
+youngest. The others sought work on the manor as craftsmen or
+labourers, or remained on the family plot. The holding therefore might
+contain more than one family, but to the lord remained one and
+undivided.[31]
+
+In the fourth class came the bordarii, the cotarii, and the coliberti
+or buri; or, as we should say, the crofters, the cottagers, and the
+boors.
+
+The bordarii numbered 82,600 in Domesday, and were subject to the same
+kind of services as the villeins, but the amount of the service was
+considerably less.[32] Their usual holding was 5 acres, and they are
+very often found on the demesne of the manor, evidently in this case
+labourers on the demesne, settled in cottages and provided with a bit
+of land of their own. The name failed to take root in this country,
+and the bordarii seem to become villeins or cottiers.[33]
+
+The cotarii, cottiers or cottagers, were 6,800 in number, with small
+pieces of land sometimes reaching 5 acres.[34] Distinctly inferior to
+the villeins, bordarii, and cottars, but distinctly superior to the
+slaves, were the buri or coliberti who, with the bordars and cottars,
+would form a reserve of labour to supplement the ordinary working days
+at times when work was pressing, as in hay time and harvest. At the
+bottom of the social ladder in Domesday came the slaves, some 25,000
+in number, who in the main had no legal rights, a class which had
+apparently already diminished and was diminishing in numbers, so that
+for the cultivation of the demesne the lord was coming to rely more on
+the labour of his tenants, and consequently the labour services of the
+villeins were being augmented.[35] The agricultural labourer as we
+understand him, a landless man working solely for wages in cash, was
+almost unknown.
+
+All the arrangements of the manor aimed at supplying labour for the
+cultivation of the lord's demesne, and he had three chief officers to
+superintend it:
+
+1. The seneschal, who answers to our modern steward or land agent, and
+where there were several manors supervised all of them. He attended to
+the legal business and held the manor courts. It was his duty to be
+acquainted with every particular of the manor, its cultivation,
+extent, number of teams, condition of the stock, &c. He was also the
+legal adviser of his lord; in fact, very much like his modern
+successor.
+
+2. The bailiff for each manor, who collected rents, went to market to
+buy and sell, surveyed the timber, superintended the ploughing,
+mowing, reaping, &c., that were due as services from the tenants on
+the lord's demesne; and according to _Fleta_ he was to prevent their
+'casting off before the work was done', and to measure it when
+done.[36] And considering that those he superintended were not paid
+for their work, but rendering more or less unwelcome services, his
+task could not have been easy.
+
+3. The praepositus or reeve, an office obligatory on every holder of a
+certain small quantity of land; a sort of foreman nominated from among
+the villeins, and to a certain extent representing their interests.
+His duties were supplementary to those of the bailiff: he looked after
+all the live and dead stock of the manor, saw to the manuring of the
+land, kept a tally of the day's work, had charge of the granary, and
+delivered therefrom corn to be baked and malt to be brewed.[37]
+Besides these three officers, on a large estate there would be a
+messor who took charge of the harvest, and many lesser officers, such
+as those of the akermanni, or leaders of the unwieldy plough teams;
+oxherds, shepherds, and swineherds to tend cattle, sheep, and pigs
+when they were turned on the common fields or wandered in the waste;
+also wardens of the woods and fences, often paid by a share in the
+profits connected with their charge; for instance, the swineherd of
+Glastonbury Abbey received a sucking-pig a year, the interior parts of
+the best pig, and the tails of all the others slaughtered.[38] On the
+great estates these offices tended to become hereditary, and many
+families did treat them as hereditary property, and were a great
+nuisance in consequence to their lords. At Glastonbury we find the
+chief shepherd so important a person that he was party to an agreement
+concerning a considerable quantity of land.[39] There were also on
+some manors 'cadaveratores', whose duty was to look into and report on
+the losses of cattle and sheep from murrain, a melancholy tale of the
+unhealthy conditions of agriculture.
+
+The supervision of the tenants was often incessant and minute.
+According to the Court Rolls of the Manor of Manydown in Hampshire,
+tenants were brought to book for all kinds of transgressions. The
+fines are so numerous that it almost appears that every person on the
+estate was amerced from time to time. In 1365 seven tenants were
+convicted of having pigs in their lord's crops, one let his horse run
+in the growing corn, two had cattle among the peas, four had cattle on
+the lord's pasture, three had made default in rent or service, four
+were convicted of assault, nine broke the assize of beer, two had
+failed to repair their houses or buildings. In all thirty-four were in
+trouble out of a population of some sixty families. The account is
+eloquent of the irritating restrictions of the manor, and of the
+inconveniences of common farming.[40]
+
+It is impossible to compare the receipts of the lord of the manor at
+this period with modern rents, or the position of the villein with the
+agricultural labourer; it may be said that the lord received a labour
+rent for the villein's holding, or that the villein received his
+holding as wages for the services done for the lord,[41] and part of
+the return due to the lord was for the use of the oxen with which he
+had stocked the villein's holding.
+
+Though in 1066 there were many free villages, yet by the time of
+Domesday they were fast disappearing and there were manors everywhere,
+usually coinciding with the village which we may picture to ourselves
+as self-sufficing estates, often isolated by stretches of dense
+woodland and moor from one another, and making each veritably a little
+world in itself. At the same time it is evident from the extent of
+arable land described in Domesday that many manors were not greatly
+isolated, and pasture ground was often common to two or more
+villages.[42]
+
+If we picture to ourselves the typical manor, we shall see a large
+part of the lord's demesne forming a compact area within which stood
+his house; this being in addition to the lord's strips in the open
+fields intermixed with those of his tenants. The mansion house was
+usually a very simple affair, built of wood and consisting chiefly of
+a hall; which even as late as the seventeenth century in some cases
+served as kitchen, dining room, parlour, and sleeping room for the
+men; and one or two other rooms.[43] It is probable that in early
+times the thegns possessed in most cases only one manor apiece,[44] so
+that the manor house was then nearly always inhabited by the lord, but
+after the Conquest, when manors were bestowed by scores and even
+hundreds by William on his successful soldiers, many of them can only
+have acted as the temporary lodging of the lord when he came to
+collect his rent, or as the house of the bailiff. According to the
+_Gerefa_, written about 1000--and there was very little alteration for
+a long time afterwards--the mansion was adjacent to a court or yard
+which the quadrangular homestead surrounded with its barns, horse and
+cattle stalls, sheep pens and fowlhouse. Within this court were ovens,
+kilns, salt-house, and malt-house, and perhaps the hayricks and wood
+piles. Outside and surrounding the homestead were the enclosed arable
+and grass fields of the portion of the demesne which may be called the
+home farm, a kitchen garden, and probably a vineyard, then common in
+England. The garden of the manor house would not have a large variety
+of vegetables; some onions, leeks, mustard, peas, perhaps cabbage; and
+apples, pears, cherries, probably damsons, plums,[45] strawberries,
+peaches, quinces, and mulberries. Not far off was the village or town
+of the tenants, the houses all clustering close together, each house
+standing in a toft or yard with some buildings, and built of wood,
+turf, clay, or wattles, with only one room which the tenant shared
+with his live stock, as in parts of Ireland to-day. Indeed, in some
+parts of Yorkshire at the beginning of the nineteenth century this
+primitive simplicity still prevailed, live stock were still kept in
+the house, the floors were of clay, and the family slept in boxes
+round the solitary room. Examples of farmhouses clustered together at
+some distance from their respective holdings still survive, though
+generally built of stone. Next the village, though not always, for
+they were sometimes at a distance by the banks of a stream, were the
+meadows, and right round stretched the three open arable fields,
+beyond which was the common pasture and wood,[46] and, encircling all,
+heath, forest, and swamp, often cutting off the manor from the rest of
+the world.
+
+The basis of the whole scheme of measurement in Domesday was the hide,
+usually of 120 acres, the amount of land that could be ploughed by a
+team of 8 oxen in a year; a quarter of this was the virgate, an eighth
+the bovate, which would therefore supply one ox to the common team.
+These teams, however, varied; on the manors of S. Paul's Cathedral in
+1222 they were sometimes composed of horses and oxen, or of 6 horses
+only, sometimes 10 oxen.[47]
+
+The farming year began at Michaelmas when, in addition to the sowing
+of wheat and rye, the cattle were carefully stalled and fed only on
+hay and straw, for roots were in the distant future, and the corn was
+threshed with the flail and winnowed by hand. In the spring, after the
+ploughing of the second arable field, the vineyard, where there was
+one, was set out, and the open ditches, apparently the only drainage
+then known, cleansed. In May it was time to set up the temporary
+fences round the meadows and arable fields, and to begin fallowing the
+third field.
+
+A valuable document, describing the duties of a reeve, gives many
+interesting details of eleventh-century farming:--
+
+     'In May, June, and July one may harrow, carry out manure, set
+     up sheep hurdles, shear sheep, do repairs, hedge, cut wood,
+     weed, and make folds. In harvest one may reap; in August,
+     September, and in October one may mow, set woad with a dibble,
+     gather home many crops, thatch them and cover them over,
+     cleanse the folds, prepare cattle sheds and shelters ere too
+     severe a winter come to the farm, and also diligently prepare
+     the soil. In winter one should plough and in severe frosts
+     cleave timber, make an orchard, and do many affairs indoors,
+     thresh, cleave wood, put the cattle in stalls and the swine in
+     pigstyes, and provide a hen roost. In spring one should plough
+     and graft, sow beans, set a vineyard, make ditches, hew wood
+     for a wild deer fence; and soon after that, if the weather
+     permit, set madder, sow flax seed and woad seed, plant a garden
+     and do many things which I cannot fully enumerate that a good
+     steward ought to provide.'[48]
+
+The methods of cultivation were simple. The plough, if we may judge by
+contemporary illustrations, had in the eleventh century a large wheel
+and very short handles.[49] In the twelfth century Neckham describes
+its parts: a beam, handles, tongue, mouldboard, coulter, and
+share.[50] Breaking up the clods was done by the mattock or beetle,
+and harrowing was done by hand with what looks like a large rake; the
+scythes of the haymakers and the sickles of the reapers were very like
+those that still linger on in some districts to-day.
+
+Here is a list of tools and implements for the homestead: an axe,
+adze, bill, awl, plane, saw, spokeshave, tie hook, auger, mattock,
+lever, share, coulter, goad-iron, scythe, sickle, weed-hook, spade,
+shovel, woad dibble, barrow, besom, beetle, rake, fork, ladder, horse
+comb, shears, fire tongs, weighing scales, and a long list of spinning
+implements necessary when farmers made their own clothes. The author
+wisely remarks that one ought to have coverings for wains, plough
+gear, harrowing tackle, &c.; and adds another list of instruments and
+utensils: a caldron, kettle, ladle, pan, crock, firedog, dishes, bowls
+with handles, tubs, buckets, a churn, cheese vat, baskets, crates,
+bushels, sieves, seed basket, wire sieve, hair sieve, winnowing fans,
+troughs, ashwood pails, hives, honey bins, beer barrels, bathing tub,
+dishes, cups, strainers, candlesticks, salt cellar, spoon case, pepper
+horn, footstools, chairs, basins, lamp, lantern, leathern bottles,
+comb, iron bin, fodder rack, meal ark or box, oil flask, oven rake,
+dung shovel; altogether a very complete list, the compiler of which
+ends by saying that the reeve ought to neglect nothing that should
+prove useful, not even a mousetrap, nor even, what is less, a peg for
+a hasp.
+
+Manors in 1086 were of all sizes, from one virgate to enormous
+organizations like Taunton or Leominster, containing villages by the
+score and hundreds of dependent holdings.[51] The ordinary size,
+however, of the Domesday manor was from four to ten hides of 120 acres
+each, or say from 500 to 1,200 acres,[52] and the Manor of Segenehou
+in Bedfordshire may be regarded as typical. Held by Walter brother of
+Seiher it had as much land as ten ploughs could work, four plough
+lands belonging to the demesne and six to the villeins, of whom there
+were twenty-four, with four bordarii and three serfs; thus the
+villeins had 30 acres each, the normal holding. The manorial system
+was in fact a combination of large farming by the lords, and small
+farming by the tenants. Nor must we compare it to an ordinary estate;
+for it was a dominion within which the lord had authority over
+subjects of various ranks; he was not only a proprietor but a prince
+with courts of his own, the arbiter of his tenants' rights as well as
+owner of the land.
+
+One of the most striking features of the Domesday survey is the large
+quantity of arable land and the small quantity of meadow, which
+usually was the only land whence they obtained their hay, for the
+common pasture cannot often have been mown.[53] Indeed, it is
+difficult to understand how they fed their stock in hard winters.
+
+According to the returns, in many counties more acres were ploughed in
+1086 than to-day; in some twice as much. In Somerset in 1086 there
+were 577,000 acres of arable; in 1907, 178,967. In Gloucestershire, in
+1086, 589,000 acres; in 1907, 238,456.[54] These are extreme
+instances; but the preponderance of arable is startling, even if we
+allow for the recent conversion of arable to pasture on account of the
+low price of corn. Between the eleventh century and the sixteenth, the
+laying down of land to grass must have proceeded on a gigantic scale,
+for Harrison tells us that in his day England was mainly a grazing
+country. No wonder Harrison's contemporaries complained of the decay
+of tillage.
+
+Mediaeval prices and statistics are, it is well known, to be taken
+with great caution; but we may assume that the normal annual value of
+land under cultivation in 1086 was about 2d. an acre.[55] Land indeed,
+apart from the stock upon it, was worth very little: in the tenth and
+eleventh centuries it appears that the hide, normally of 120 acres,
+was only worth L5 to buy, apparently with the stock upon it. In the
+time of Athelstan a horse was worth 120d., an ox 30d., a cow 20d., a
+sheep 5d., a hog 8d., a slave L1--so that a slave was worth 8
+oxen[56]; and these prices do not seem to have advanced by the
+Domesday period.
+
+According to the Pipe Roll of 1156, wheat was 1s. 6d. a quarter; but
+prices then depended entirely on seasons, and we do not know whether
+that was good or bad. However, many years later, in 1243 it was only
+2s. a quarter at Hawsted.[57] In dear years, nearly always the result
+of wet seasons, it went up enormously; in 1024 the English Chronicle
+tells us the acre seed of wheat, that is about 2 bushels, sold for
+4s.,[58] 3 bushels of barley for 6s. and 4 bushels of oats for 4s. In
+1190 Holinshed says that, owing to a great dearth, the quarter of
+wheat was 18s. 8d. The average price, however, in the twelfth century
+was probably about 4s. a quarter.
+
+In 1194 Roger of Hoveden[59] says an ox, a cow, and a plough horse
+were the same price, 4s.; a sheep with fine wool 10d., with coarse
+wool 6d.; a sow 12d., a boar 12d.
+
+Sometimes prices were kept down by imports; 1258 was a bad and dear
+year, 'most part of the corn rotted on the ground,' and was not all
+got in till after November 1, so excessive was the wet and rain. And
+upon the dearth a sore death and mortality followed for want of
+necessary food to sustain the pining bodies of the poor people, who
+died so thick that there were great pits made in churchyards to lay
+the dead bodies in. And corn had been dearer if great store had not
+come out of Almaine, but there came fifty great ships with wheat and
+barley, meal and bread out of Dutchland, which greatly relieved the
+poor.[60]
+
+Were the manors as isolated as some writers have asserted? Generally
+speaking, we may say the means of communication were bad and many an
+estate cut off almost completely from the outside world, yet the
+manors must often have been connected by waterways, and sometimes by
+good roads, with other manors and with the towns. Rivers in the Middle
+Ages were far more used as means of communication than to-day, and
+many streams now silted up and shallow were navigable according to
+Domesday. Water carriage was, as always, much cheaper than land
+carriage, and corn could be carried from Henley to London for 2d. or
+3d. a quarter. The roads left by the Romans, owing to the excellence
+of their construction, remained in use during the Middle Ages, and
+must have been a great advantage to those living near them; but the
+other roads can have been little better than mud tracks, except in the
+immediate vicinity of the few large towns. The keeping of the roads in
+repair, one part of the _trinoda necessitas_ was imposed on all lands;
+but the results often seem to have been very indifferent, and they
+appear largely to have depended on chance, or the goodwill or devotion
+of neighbouring landowners.[61] Perhaps they would, except in the case
+of the Roman roads, have been impassable but for the fact that the
+great lords and abbots were constantly visiting their scattered
+estates, and therefore were interested in keeping such roads in order.
+But in those days people were contented with very little, and though
+Edward I enforced the general improvement of roads in 1285, in the
+fourteenth century they were decaying. Parliament adjourned thrice
+between 1331 and 1380 because the state of the roads kept many of the
+members away. In 1353 the high road running from Temple Bar, then the
+western limit of London, to Westminster was 'so full of holes and
+bogs' that the traffic was dangerous for men and carriages; and a
+little later all the roads near London were so bad, that carriers 'are
+oftentimes In peril of losing what they bring.' What must remote
+country roads have been like when these important highways were in
+this state? If members of Parliament, rich men riding good horses,
+could not get to London, how did the clumsy wagons and carts of the
+day fare? The Church might well pity the traveller, and class him with
+the sick 'and the captive among the unfortunates whom she recommended
+to the daily prayers of pious souls.'[62] Rivers were mainly crossed
+by ford or ferry, though there were some excellent bridges, a few of
+which still remain, maintained by the _trinoda necessitas_, by gilds,
+by 'indulgences' promised to benefactors, and by toll, the right to
+levy which, called pontage, was often spent otherwise than on the
+repair of the bridge.
+
+A few of the old open fields still exist, and the best surviving example
+of an open-field parish is that of Laxton in Nottinghamshire.[63]
+Nearly half the area of the parish remains in the form of two great
+arable fields, and two smaller ones which are treated as two parts of
+the third field. The different holdings, freehold and leasehold,
+consist in part of strips of land scattered all over these fields. The
+three-course system is rigidly adhered to, first year wheat, second
+year spring corn, third year fallow.
+
+In a corner of the parish is Laxton Heath, a common covered with
+coarse grass where the sheep are grazed according to a 'stint'
+recently determined upon, for when it was unstinted the common was
+overstocked. The commonable meadows which the parish once had were
+enclosed at a date beyond anyone's recollection, though the
+neighbouring parish of Eakring still has some. There are other
+enclosures in the remote parts of the parish which apparently
+represent the old woodland. The inconvenience of the common-field
+system was extreme. South Luffenham in Rutland, not enclosed till
+1879, consisted of 1,074 acres divided among twenty-two owners into
+1,238 pieces. In some places furrows served to divide the lands
+instead of turf balks, which were of course always being altered.
+Another difficulty arose from there being no check to high winds,
+which would sometimes sweep the whole of the crops belonging to
+different farmers in an inextricable heap against the nearest
+obstruction.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 18; Medley, _Constitutional
+History_, p. 15.
+
+[2] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 257.
+
+[3] Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, pp. 341 et seq.
+
+[4] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_, Sec.36.
+
+[5] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 282,
+says, 'As a rule it was not subject to redivision.'
+
+[6] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 42.
+
+[7] Maitland, _op. cit._ p. 368.
+
+[8] _Anonymous Treatise on Husbandry_, Royal Historical Society, pp.
+xli. and 68. About 1230, Smyth, in his _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i.
+113, says, 'At this time lay all lands in common fields, in one acre
+or ridge, one man's intermixt with another.'
+
+[9] See below.
+
+[10] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 74.
+Maitland thinks the two-field system was as common as the three-field,
+both in early and mediaeval times. _Domesday Book and Beyond_, p. 366.
+
+[11] Nasse, _Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages_, p. 5. To-day
+harvest generally commences about August 1, so that this, like the
+growth of grapes in mediaeval times, seems to show our climate has
+grown colder.
+
+[12] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 264.
+
+[13] Maitland, _op. cit._ p. 17.
+
+[14] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 265.
+
+[15] Maitland, _op. cit._ pp. 318 et seq.
+
+[16] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 345.
+
+[17] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 339.
+
+[18] Maitland, _Domesday Book_, p. 110
+
+[19] Vinogradoff, _op. cit._ p. 395.
+
+[20] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, pp. 225 et seq.
+
+[21] Maitland, _op. cit._ p. 23.
+
+[22] Vinogradoff, _op. cit._ p. 433.
+
+[23] In Domesday they number 108,500. Maitland, _Domesday Book_.
+
+[24] Maitland, _op. cit._.
+
+[25] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 300.
+
+[26] _Domesday of S. Paul_, p. lxviii.
+
+[27] Maitland, _Domesday Book_, p. 56.
+
+[28] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 166. In
+some manors free tenants could sell their lands without the lord's
+licence, in others not.
+
+[29] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 279.
+
+[30] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 285.
+
+[31] Ibid. p. 246; and _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p.
+448. At the end of the eighteenth century, in default of sons, lands
+in some manors in Shropshire descended to the youngest
+daughter.--Bishton, _General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire_,
+p. 178.
+
+[32] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 456.
+
+[33] Maitland, Domesday Book, p. 40.
+
+[34] Ibid.
+
+[35] Maitland, _Domesday Book_, p. 35.
+
+[36] _Fleta_, c. 73.
+
+[37] _Domesday of S. Paul_, xxxv. _Fleta_, 'an anonymous work drawn up
+in the thirteenth century to assist landowners in managing their
+estates' says, the reeve 'shall rise early, and have the ploughs
+yoked, and then walk in the fields to see that all is right and note
+if the men be idle, or if they knock off work before the day's task is
+fully done.'
+
+[38] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 321.
+
+[39] Ibid. p. 324.
+
+[40] _Manor of Manydown_, Hampshire Record Society, p. 17. Breaking
+the assize of beer meant selling it without a licence, or of bad
+quality. The village pound was the consequence of the perpetual
+straying of animals, and later on the vicar sometimes kept it. See
+ibid. p. 104.
+
+[41] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 106.
+
+[42] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 264.
+
+[43] Andrews, _Old English Manor_, p. 111.
+
+[44] _Domesday of S. Paul_, p. xxxvii.
+
+[45] Thorold Rogers, _Agriculture and Prices_, i. 17: Cunningham,
+_Industry and Commerce_, i. 55: Neckham, _De Natura Rerum_, Rolls
+Series, ch. clxvi. Rogers says there were no plums, but Neckham
+mentions them. See also Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p.
+64. Matthew Paris says the severe winter in 1257 destroyed cherries,
+plums and figs. _Chron. Maj._, Rolls Series, v. 660.
+
+[46] Woods were used as much for pasture as for cutting timber and
+underwood. Not only did the pigs feed there on the mast of oak, beech,
+and chestnut, but goats and horned cattle grazed on the grassy
+portions.
+
+[47] The illustrations of contemporary MSS. usually show teams in the
+plough of 2 or 4 oxen, and 4 was probably the team generally used,
+according to Vinogradoff, _op. cit._ p. 253. It must, of course, have
+varied according to the soil. Birch, in his _Domesday_, p. 219, says
+he has never found a team of 8 in contemporary illustrations. To-day
+oxen can be still seen ploughing in teams of two only. However, about
+a hundred years ago, when oxen were in common use, we find teams of 8,
+as in Shropshire, for a single-furrow plough, 'so as to work them
+easily.' Six hours a day was the usual day's work, and when more was
+required one team was worked in the morning, another in the
+afternoon.--_Victoria County History: Shropshire, Agriculture_. Walter
+of Henley says the team stopped work at three.
+
+[48] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 570.
+
+[49] See the excellent reproductions of the Calendar of the Cott. MSS.
+in Green's _Short History of the English People_, illustrated edition,
+i. 155.
+
+[50] _De Natura Rerum_, Rolls Series, p, 280.
+
+[51] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 307.
+
+[52] Ibid. p. 312. Perhaps one of the most interesting features of the
+smaller manors is that they were constantly being swallowed up by the
+larger.
+
+[53] As some of the common pasture was held in severalty, this may
+perhaps have been mown in scarce years. Walter of Henley mentions
+mowing the waste, see below, p. 34.
+
+[54] Maitland, _Domesday Book_, 436; _Board of Agriculture Returns_,
+1907.
+
+[55] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 310;
+Birch, _Domesday_, p. 183.
+
+[56] Maitland, _Domesday Book_. 44; Cunningham, _Growth of Industry
+and Commerce_, i. 171; _Domesday of S. Paul_, pp. xliii. and xci.
+
+[57] Cullum, _History of Hawsted_, p. 181.
+
+[58] Rolls Series, ii. 220. According to this, the price of a bushel
+of wheat reckoned in modern money was L3 in that year
+
+[59] Ibid. iii. 220.
+
+[60] Holinshed, who is supported by William of Malmesbury in the
+assertion that in time of scarcity England imported corn. Matthew
+Paris, _Chron. Maj._, v. 673.
+
+[61] Jusserand, _English Wayfaring Life_, p. 79.
+
+[62] Jusserand, _English Wayfaring Life_, p. 89.
+
+[63] Gilbert Slater, _The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of
+Common Fields_, p. 8.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.--THE MANOR AT ITS ZENITH, WITH SEEDS OF DECAY
+ALREADY VISIBLE.--WALTER OF HENLEY
+
+
+In the thirteenth century the manorial system may be said to have been
+in its zenith; the description therefore of Cuxham Manor in
+Oxfordshire at that date is of special interest. According to
+Professor Thorold Rogers[64] there were two principal tenants, each
+holding the fourth part of a military fee. The prior of Holy Trinity,
+Wallingford, held a messuage, a mill, and 6 acres of land in free
+alms; i.e. under no obligation or liability other than offering
+prayers on behalf of the donor. A free tenant had a messuage and 3-3/4
+acres, the rent of which was 3s. a year. He also had another messuage
+and nine acres, for which he paid the annual rent of 1 lb. of pepper,
+worth about 1s. 3d. The rector of the parish had part of a furrow,
+i.e. one of the divisions of the common arable field, and paid 2d. a
+year for it. Another tenant held a cottage in the demesne under the
+obligation of keeping two lamps lighted in the church. Another person
+was tenant-at-will of the parish mill, at a rent of 40s. a year. The
+rest of the tenants were villeins or cottagers, thirteen of the former
+and eight of the latter. Each of the villeins had a messuage and half
+a virgate, 12 to 15 acres of arable land at least, for which his rent
+was chiefly corn and labour, though there were two money payments, a
+halfpenny on November 12 and a penny whenever he brewed. He had to pay
+a quarter of seed wheat at Michaelmas, a peck of wheat, 4 bushels of
+oats, and 3 hens on November 12, and at Christmas a cock, two hens,
+and two pennyworth of bread. His labour services were to plough, sow,
+and till half an acre of the lord's land, and give his work as
+directed by the bailiff except on Sundays and feast days. In harvest
+time he was to reap three days with one man at his own cost.
+
+Some of these tenants held, besides their half virgates, other plots
+of land for which each had to make hay for one day for the lord, with
+a comrade, and received a halfpenny; also to mow, with another, three
+days in harvest time, at their own charges, and another three days
+when the lord fed them. After harvest six pennyworth of beer was
+divided among them, each received a loaf of bread, and every evening
+when work was over each reaper might carry away the largest sheaf of
+corn he could lift on his sickle.
+
+The cottagers paid from 1s. 2d. to 2s. a year for their holdings, and
+were obliged to work a day or two in the hay-making, receiving
+therefor a halfpenny. They also had to do from one to four days'
+harvest work, during which they were fed at the lord's table. For the
+rest of the year they were free labourers, tending cattle or sheep on
+the common for wages or working at the various crafts usual in the
+village. This manor was a small one, and contained in all twenty-four
+households, numbering from sixty to seventy inhabitants.[65]
+
+On most manors, as in Forncett,[66] which contained about 2,700 acres,
+from the preponderance of arable, the chief source of income to the
+lord was from the grain crops; other sources may be seen from the
+following table of the lord's receipts and expenses in 1272-3:
+
+  RECEIPTS.
+                              L    s.    d.
+  Fixed rents                18    3    7-3/4
+  Farm of market              0    2    6
+  Chevage[67]                 0    8    6
+  Foldage                     0    3    9-1/2
+  Sale of works               5   13    2-3/4
+  Herbage                     1    0    4
+  Hay                         2   12   11
+  Turf, &c.                   1   13    6-1/2
+  Underwood                   5   10    2
+  Grain                      61   12    3-1/4
+  Cider                       1    1   11-1/4
+  Stock                       5    3    0
+  Dairy                       4    3    0-3/4
+  Pleas                      14    0    0
+  Tallage                    16   13    4
+                           ------------------
+                           L128    2    2-3/4
+
+ EXPENSES.
+                              L    s.    d.
+
+  Rents paid and allowed      0    3    2-1/2
+  Ploughs and carts           2   17    4
+  Buildings and walls         4    5   10-1/2
+  Small necessaries           0    7   10-3/4
+  Dairy                       0    4    3-1/4
+  Threshing                   1   15    5-1/2
+  Meadow and autumn expenses  0    1    4
+  Stock                       0   16    7
+  Bailiff                     1   19    0
+  Steward                     1    6    9-1/2
+  Grain                       8    2    4-1/2
+  Expenses of acct.           1    0    8-1/2
+                            ------------------
+                            L23    0    9-3/4
+
+The manor was almost entirely self-sufficing; of necessity, for towns
+were few and distant, and the roads to them bad. Each would have its
+smith, millwright, thatcher, &c., paid generally in kind for their
+services. There was little trade with the outside world, except for
+salt--an invaluable article when meat had to be salted down every
+autumn for winter use, since there were no roots to keep the cattle
+on--and iron for some of the implements. Nearly everything was made in
+the village.
+
+The mediaeval system of tillage was compulsory; even the freeholders
+could not manage their plots as they wished, because all the soil of
+the township formed one whole and was managed by the entire village.
+Even the lord[68] had to conform to the customs of the community. Any
+other system than this, which must have been galling to the more
+enterprising, was impossible, for as the various holdings lay in
+unfenced strips all over the great common fields, individual
+initiative was out of the question. As may be imagined, the great
+number of strips all mixed together often led to great confusion,
+sometimes 2 or 3 acres could not be found at all, and disputes owing
+to careless measurement were frequent.
+
+It is not surprising that the services by which the villeins paid rent
+for their holdings to the lord very early began to be commuted for
+money; it was much more convenient to both parties; and with this
+change from a 'natural economy' to a 'money economy' the destruction
+of the manorial system commenced, though it was to take centuries to
+effect it.
+
+The first money payments apparently date from as early as 900,[69]
+but must then have been very few, and services were the rule in the
+thirteenth and earlier centuries, though at the beginning of the
+twelfth we find a great number of rent-paying tenants.[70] In the
+fourteenth century money began to be more generally available, and the
+process of commutation grew steadily; a process greatly accelerated by
+the destruction of large numbers of tenants who paid rent in services
+by the Black Death of 1348-9, which forced lords of manors to let
+their lands for money or work them themselves with hired labour.
+Before that visitation, however, it appears that commutation of labour
+services for fixed annual payments had made very little progress.[71]
+
+When these services were commuted for money in the thirteenth and
+fourteenth centuries they were put at 1d. a day in winter, and 2d. a
+day in summer, and rather more in harvest[72]; and we may put the
+ordinary agricultural labourers' wages from 1250-1350 all the year
+round at 2d. a day, and from 1350-1400 at 3d., but few were paid in
+this way. Many were paid by the year, with allowances of food besides
+and sometimes clothes, and many were in harvest at all events paid by
+the piece. At Crondal in Hampshire in 1248 a carter by the year
+received 4s., a herdsman 2s. 3d., a day a or dairymaid, 2s.[73] The
+change to money payments was beneficial to both parties; it stopped
+many of the dishonest practices of the lord's bailiff, apart from the
+fact that farming by officials was an expensive method. It meant, too,
+that religious festivals and bad weather would no longer diminish the
+lord's profits; on the other hand, the tenant could devote himself
+entirely to his holding free from annoying labour services.[74]
+
+The state of agriculture at the time of Domesday was apparently very
+low, judging by the small returns of manors,[75] but by the time of
+Edward I it had made considerable progress. During the reign of Henry
+III England had grown in opulence, and continued to do so under his
+great son, who found time from his manifold tasks to encourage
+agriculture and horticulture. Fruit and forest trees, shrubs and
+flowers, were introduced from the continent, and we are told that the
+hop flourished in the royal gardens.[76] At his death England was
+prosperous, the people progressing in comfort, the population
+advancing, the agricultural labourers were increasing in numbers, the
+value of the land had risen and was rising. Then came a reaction from
+which England did not recover for two centuries, and Harrison, who
+wrote his description of England at the end of the sixteenth century,
+says that many of the improvements began to be neglected in process of
+time, so that from Henry IV till the latter end of Henry VII there was
+little or no use for them in England, 'but they remained unknown.'
+
+The Hundred Rolls of Edward I, which embody the results of the labours
+of a commission appointed by that monarch to inquire into encroachments
+on royal lands and royal jurisdiction, show clearly that there had
+been since the Domesday Survey a very great growth in the rural
+population, a sure sign that agriculture was flourishing; and on some
+estates the number of free tenants had increased largely, but the
+burdens of the villeins were not less onerous than they had been.
+
+It was in the thirteenth century that the practice of keeping strict
+and minute accounts became general, and the accounts of the bailiff of
+those days would be a revelation to the bailiff of these.
+
+At the same time we must not forget that the earliest improvements in
+English agriculture were largely due to the monks, who from their
+constant journeys abroad were able to bring back new plants and seeds;
+while it is well known that many of the religious houses, the
+Cistercians especially, who always settled in the remote country, were
+most energetic farmers, their energy being materially assisted by
+their wealth. It is said that the great Becket when he visited a
+monastery did not disdain to labour in the field.
+
+Among other benefits that the landed interest gained at this time was
+the more easy transference of land provided, _inter alia_, by the
+statute of _Quia Emptores_, which led to many tenants selling their
+lands, provided the rights of the lord were preserved, and to a great
+increase consequently of free tenants, many of whom had quite small
+holdings.[77] The amalgamation of holdings by the more industrious and
+skilful has, as we should expect, been a well-marked tendency all
+through the history of English agriculture, and began early. For
+instance, according to the records of S. Paul's Cathedral, John
+Durant, whose ancestor in 1222 held only one virgate in 'Cadendon',
+had in 1279 eight or ten at least. At 'Belchamp', Martin de Suthmere,
+one of the free tenants, held 245 acres by himself and his tenants,
+twenty-two in number, who rendered service to him; one of them being
+de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who held 17 acres under Martin. To such a
+position had the abler of the small holders of a century or so before
+already pushed their way, in spite of the heavy hand of feudalism,
+which did much to hinder individual initiative. At this period and
+until Tudor times England, as regards the cultivated land, was
+essentially a corn-growing country; the greater part of the lord's
+demesne was arable, and the tillage fields of the villeins largely
+exceeded their meadows. For instance, in 1285 the cultivated lands at
+Hawsted in Suffolk were nearly all under the plough; in seven holdings
+there were 968 acres of arable and only 40 of meadow, a proportion of
+24 to 1. No doubt there was plenty of common pasture, but we cannot
+call this cultivated land. The seven holdings were as follows:[78]
+
+                                                   Acres.
+
+                                         Arable.    Meadow.    Wood.
+
+  Thomas Fitzeustace, lord of the manor    240        10        10
+  William Tallemache                       280        12        24
+  Philip Noel                              120         4         7
+  Robert de Ros                             56         3         5
+  Walter de Stanton                         80         3         1
+  William de Camaville                     140         6         8
+  John Beylham                              52         2         3
+                                           ---        --        --
+                                           968        40        58
+
+These were the larger tenants; among the smaller several had no meadow
+at all.
+
+We must not forget that the grazing of the tillage fields after the
+crops were off was of great assistance to those who kept stock; for
+there was plenty to eat on the stubbles. The wheat was cut high, the
+straw often apparently left standing 18 inches or 2 feet high; weeds
+of all kinds abounded, for the land was badly cleaned; and often only
+the upper part of the high ridges, into which the land was thrown for
+purposes of drainage, was cultivated, the lower parts being left to
+natural grass.[79]
+
+The greatest authority for the farming of the thirteenth century is
+Walter of Henley, who wrote, about the middle of it, a work which held
+the field as an agricultural textbook until Fitzherbert wrote in the
+sixteenth century, and much of his advice is valuable to-day. There
+was from his time until the days of William Marshall, who wrote five
+centuries afterwards, a controversy as to the respective merits of
+horses and oxen as draught animals, and it is a curious fact that the
+later writer agreed with the earlier as to the superiority of oxen. 'A
+plough of oxen', says Walter, 'will go as far in the year as a plough
+of horses, because the malice of the ploughman will not allow the
+plough of horses to go beyond their pace, no more than the plough of
+oxen. Further, in very hard ground where the plough of horses will
+stop, the plough of oxen will pass. And the horse costs more than the
+ox, for he is obliged to have the sixth part of a bushel of oats every
+night, worth a halfpenny at least, and twelve pennyworth of grass in
+the summer. Besides, each week he costs more or less a penny a week in
+shoeing, if he must be shod on all four feet;' which was not the
+universal custom.
+
+'But the ox has only to have 3-1/2 sheaves of oats per week (ten
+sheaves yielding a bushel of oats), worth a penny, and the same amount
+of grass as the horse.[80] And when the horse is old and worn out
+there is nothing but his skin, but when the ox is old with ten
+pennyworth of grass he shall be fit for the larder.'[81]
+
+The labourer of the Middle Ages could not complain of lack of
+holidays; Walter of Henley tells us that, besides Sundays, eight weeks
+were lost in the year from holidays and other hindrances.[82]
+
+He advises the sowing of spring seed on clay or on stony land early,
+because if it is dry in March the ground will harden too much and the
+stony ground become dry and open; therefore fore sow early that corn
+may be nourished by winter moisture. Chalky and sandy ground need not
+be sown early. At sowing, moreover, do not plough large furrows, but
+little and well laid together, that the seed may fall evenly. Let your
+land be cleaned and weeded after S. John's Day, June 24, for before
+that is not a good time; and if thistles are cut before S. John's Day
+'for every one will come two or three.' Do not sell your straw; if you
+take away the least you lose much; words which many a landlord to-day
+doubtless wishes were fixed in the minds of his tenants.
+
+Manure should be mixed with earth, for it lasts only two or three
+years by itself, but with earth it will last twice as long; for when
+the manure and the earth are harrowed together the earth shall keep
+the manure so that it cannot waste by descending in the soil, which it
+is apt to do.
+
+'Feed your working oxen before some one, and with chaff. Why? I will
+tell you. Because it often happens that the oxherd steals the
+provender.'
+
+The oxen were also to be bathed, and curried when dry with a wisp of
+straw, which would cause them to lick themselves.
+
+'Change your seed every year at Michaelmas; for seed grown on other
+ground will bring more profit than that which is grown on your own.'
+
+Apparently the only drainage then practised was that of furrow and
+open ditch; and we find him saying that to free your lands from too
+much water, let the marshy ground be well ridged, and the water made
+to run, and so the ground may be freed from water.
+
+Here is his estimate of the cost of wheat growing[83]:
+
+     'You know surely that an acre sown with wheat takes three
+     ploughings, except lands which are sown yearly; and that each
+     ploughing is worth 6d. and the harrowing 1d., and on the acre
+     it is necessary to sow at least two bushels. Now two bushels at
+     Michaelmas are worth at least 12d., and weeding 1/2d., and
+     reaping 5d., and carrying in August 1d., and the straw will pay
+     for the threshing.'[83]
+
+The return was wretched: 'at three times your sowing you ought to have
+6 bushels, worth 3s.' The total cost is thus 3s. 1-1/2d.; and without
+debiting anything for rent and manure, the loss would be 1-1/2d. an
+acre.
+
+The anonymous _Treatise on Husbandry_ of about the same date says,
+however, that 'wheat ought to yield to the fifth grain, oats to the
+fourth, barley to the eighth, beans and peas to the sixth.'[84] In the
+years 1243-8 the average yield of wheat at Combe, Oxfordshire, was 5
+bushels per acre, of barley a little over 5, oats 7. In the Manor of
+Forncett, in various years from 1290 to 1306, wheat yielded about 10
+bushels, oats from 12 to 16, barley 16, and peas from 4 to 12 bushels
+per acre.[85]
+
+As for the dairy, 2 cows, says Walter, should yield a wey, (2 cwt) of
+cheese annually, and half a gallon of butter a week, 'if sorted out
+and fed in pasture of salt marsh;' but 'in pasture of wood or in
+meadows after mowing, or in stubble, it should take 3 cows for the
+same.' Twenty ewes, which it was then the custom to milk, fed in
+pasture of salt marsh, ought to yield the same as the 2 cows. A gallon
+of butter was worth 6d., and weighed 7 lb. And the anonymous treatise
+says each cow ought to yield from the day after Michaelmas until the
+first kalends of May, twenty-eight weeks, 10d. more or less; and from
+the first kalends of May till Michaelmas, twenty-four weeks, the milk
+of a cow should be worth 3s. 6d.; and she should give also 6 stones
+(14 lb. per stone) of cheese, and 'as much butter as shall make as
+much cheese.'[86] It was a common practice all through the Middle
+Ages, and survives in localities to-day, to let out the cows by the
+year, at from 3s. to 6s. 8d. a head, often to the daya or dairymaid,
+the owner supplying the food, and the lessee agreeing to restore them
+in equal number and condition at the end of the term.[87] The
+anonymous treatise tells us that 'if you wish to farm out your stock
+you can take 4s. 6d. clear for each cow and the tithe, and for a sheep
+6d. and the tithe, and a sow should bring you 6s. 6d. a year and
+acquit the tithe, and each hen 9d. and the tithe; and Walter says,
+'When I was bailiff the dairymaids had the geese and hens to farm, the
+geese at 12d. and the hens at 3d.'
+
+Among other information conveyed by these two treatises we learn that
+the poor servants or labourers were accustomed to be fed on the
+diseased sheep, salted and dried; but Walter adds, 'I do not wish you
+to do this.' Nor can we point the finger of scorn at this: for in the
+disastrous season of 1879 numbers of rotten sheep were sold to the
+butcher and consumed by the unsuspecting public without even being
+salted and dried.
+
+He further tells us that 'you can well have 3 acres weeded for 1d.,
+and an acre of meadow mown for 4d., and an acre of waste meadow for
+3-1/2d. And know that 5 men can well reap and bind 2 acres a day of
+each kind of corn, and where each takes 2d. a day then you must give
+5d. an acre.'[88] 'One ought to thresh a quarter of wheat or rye for
+2d. and a quarter of oats for 1d. A sow ought to farrow twice a year,
+having each time at least 7 pigs; and each goose 5 goslings a year and
+each hen 115 eggs and 7 chicks, 3 of which ought to be made capons;
+and for 5 geese you must have one gander, and for 5 hens one cock.'
+The laying qualities of the hen, in spite of the talk of the 200-egg
+bird, were evidently as good then as to-day. In those days of
+self-supporting farms it was the custom to put together the farm
+implements at home, and the farmer is advised that it will be well if
+he can have carters and ploughmen who should know how to work all
+their own wood, though it should be necessary to pay them more.[89]
+The village smith, however, seems, as we should expect, to have done
+most of the iron work that was needed.[90]
+
+These extracts have given the reader some insight into
+thirteenth-century prices, prices which in the case of grain altered
+very little for nearly 300 years: for instance, the average price of
+wheat from 1259 to 1400 was 5s. 10-3/4d. a quarter, and from 1401 to
+1540 5s. 11-3/4d.; of barley, 4s. 3-3/4d. from 1259 to 1400, 3s.
+8-3/4d. from 1401 to 1540; of oats, 2s. 5-3/4d. and 2s. 2-1/4d. in the
+same two periods respectively; of rye, 4s. 5d. and 4s. 7-3/4d.; and of
+beans, 4s. 3-1/2d. and 3s. 9-1/4d.[91] Wheat fluctuated considerably,
+being as we have seen 2s. a quarter at Hawsted in 1243 and in 1290
+14s. 10d., a most exceptional price. Oxen, which were chiefly valued
+as working animals, were about 13s. apiece[92]; cows, 9s. 5d. Farm
+horses were of two varieties: the 'affer' or 'stott', a rough small
+animal, generally worth about 13s. 5d., and the cart-horse, probably
+the ancestor of our shire horses, whose average price was 19s. 4d. A
+good saddle-horse fetched as much as L5. Sheep were from 1s. 2d. to
+1s. 5d. each. In Hampshire in 1248 shoeing ten farm horses for the
+plough for a year cost 5s.; making a gate cost 12d. As Walter of
+Henley said, it cost a penny a week to shoe a horse on all four feet;
+these horses must have been very roughly shod.[93] It is evident, from
+what Walter of Henley says, that horses were not always shod on all
+four feet, and their shoes were generally very light. The roads were
+mere tracks without any metalling, so that there was little necessity
+for heavy shoes; and as Professor Thorold Rogers suggests, it is quite
+possible that the hoofs of our horses have become weaker by reason of
+the continual paring and protection which modern shoeing involves.[94]
+They weighed usually less than half a pound, and cost about 4s. a
+hundred.
+
+The most striking fact about agricultural prices at this date is the
+low price of land compared with that of its products. The annual rent
+of land was from 4d. to 6d.[95] an acre, and it was worth about ten
+years' purchase. Consequently, a quarter of wheat was often worth more
+than an acre of land, a good ox three times as much, a good cart-horse
+four times, while a good war-horse was worth the fee-simple of a small
+farm. A greater breadth of wheat was sown than of any other crop; but
+it seems that none was ever stored except in the castles and
+monasteries, for in spite of successive abundant harvests a bad season
+would send the price up at once. Barley was, as now, chiefly used for
+making beer, which was also made from oats and wheat, of course
+without hops, which were not used till the fifteenth century; and
+sometimes it was made of oats, barley, and wheat, a concoction worth
+3/4d. a gallon in 1283.[96] Cider was also drunk, and was sold at
+Exminster in Devonshire in 1286 at 1/2d. a gallon, and apples fetched
+2d. a bushel. Thorold Rogers[97] says that wheat was the chief food of
+the English labourer from the earliest times until perhaps the
+seventeenth century, when the enormous prices were prohibitive; but
+this statement must be taken with reserve, as must that of Mr.
+Prothero[98] that rye was the bread-stuff of the peasantry. Where the
+labourer's food is mentioned as part of his wages, wheat, barley, and
+rye all occur, wheat and rye being often mixed together as 'mixtil';
+and it is most probable that in one district wheat, in another one of
+the other cereals, formed his chief bread-stuff, according to the crop
+best adapted to the soil of the locality.
+
+Walter of Henley mentions wheat as if it was the chief crop, for he
+selects it as best illustrating the cost of corn-growing[99]; and from
+the enormous number of entries enumerated by Thorold Rogers in his
+mediaeval statistics it was apparently more grown than other cereals.
+The chief meat of the lower classes then, as to-day, was bacon from
+the innumerable herds of swine who roamed in the woods and wastes, but
+in bad years, when food was scarce, the poor ate nuts, acorns, fern
+roots, bark, and vetches.[100]
+
+As the cattle of the Middle Ages were like the mountain cattle of
+to-day, so were the sheep like many of the sheep to be seen in the
+Welsh mountains; yet, unlike the cattle, an attempt seems to have been
+made, judging by the high price of rams, to improve the breed; but
+they were probably poor animals worth from 1s. to 1s. 6d. each, with a
+small fleece weighing about a pound and a half, worth 3d. a lb. or a
+little more.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[64] _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 39. No one can write on
+English agriculture without acknowledging a deep debt to his
+monumental industry, though his opinions are often open to question.
+
+[65] Compare the account of the manors in Huntingdonshire belonging to
+Romsey Abbey given in Page _End of Villeinage in England_, pp. 28 et
+seq.
+
+[66] Davenport, _A Norfolk Manor_, p. 36; and see Hall, _Pipe Roll of
+Bishopric of Winchester_, p. xxv.
+
+[67] Chevage, poll money, paid to the lord.
+
+[68] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 230.
+
+[69] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 117.
+
+[70] Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 307. On the Berkeley
+estates in 1189-1220 money was so scarce with the tenants that the
+rents, apparently even where services had been commuted, were commonly
+paid in oxen.--Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 101. In the
+thirteenth century the labour services of the villeins were stricter
+than in the eleventh. Vinogradoff, _op. cit._ 298.
+
+[71] Page, _End of Villeinage_, p. 39.
+
+[72] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 82.
+
+[73] Hampshire Record Society, i. 64. See Appendix, i.
+
+[74] Hasbach, _English Agricultural Labourer_, p. 14.
+
+[75] Hallam, _Middle Ages_, iii. 361
+
+[76] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 56.
+
+[77] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 273.
+
+[78] Cullum, _History of Hawsted_, 1784 ed., p. 180.
+
+[79] Ballard, _Domesday_, p. 207.
+
+[80] Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 12.
+
+[81] Walter reckons the above food of the horse at 12s. 3d., and of
+the ox at 3s. 1d.; but both are wrong.
+
+[82] Ibid. p. 15.
+
+[83] Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 19.
+
+[84] Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 71.
+
+[85] Davenport, _A Norfolk Manor_, pp. 29 et seq. See also Hall, _Pipe
+Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester_, p. xxvi, which gives an average
+yield of wheat over a large area in 1298-9 at 4.3 bushels per acre.
+
+[86] Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 77.
+
+[87] Thorold Rogers, _Agriculture and Prices_, i. 397; _Archaeologia_,
+xviii. 281.
+
+[88] Walter of Henley, pp. 69, 75. In Lancashire, at the end of the
+thirteenth century, mowing 60-1/2 acres cost 17s. 7-1/2d. _Victoria
+County History, Lancashire, Agriculture_, and _Two Compoti of the
+Lancashire and Cheshire Manors of Henry de Lacy_ (Cheetham Society).
+
+[89] Walter of Henley, p. 63.
+
+[90] _Crondall, Records_, Hampshire Record Society, i. 65.
+
+[91] See Thorold Rogers, various tables in vol. i. of _History of
+Agriculture and Prices_. Compare these with the prices on the Berkeley
+estates from 1281 to 1307, omitting years of scarcity: wheat, 2s. 4d.
+to 5s.; oxen, 10s. to 12s.; cows, 9s. to 10s.; bacon hogs, 5s.; fat
+sheep, 1s. 6d. to 2s.; and in the early part of Edward III's reign,
+wheat, 5s. 4d. to 10s.; oxen, 14s. to 24s. Other prices about the
+same.--Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 160.
+
+[92] If it is true, as generally stated, that the mediaeval ox was
+one-third the size of his modern successor, it is apparent that he was
+a very dear animal. Cattle at this date suffered from the ravages of
+wolves.
+
+[93] _Crondall, Records_, Hampshire Record Society, i. 64.
+
+[94] _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 528.
+
+[95] Seebohm, _Transactions of Royal Historical Society_, New Series,
+xvii. 288, says that rent in the fourteenth century was commonly 4d.;
+the usual average is stated at 6d. an acre.
+
+[96] _Domesday of S. Paul_, Camden Society, p. li.
+
+[97] _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 26.
+
+[98] _Pioneers of Agriculture_, p. 13.
+
+[99] Ed. Lamond, Royal Historical Society, p. 19.
+
+[100] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 93.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.--DECLINE OF AGRICULTURE.--THE BLACK DEATH.--
+STATUTE OF LABOURERS
+
+
+After the death of Edward I in 1307 the progress of English
+agriculture came to a standstill, and little advance was made till
+after the battle of Bosworth in 1485. The weak government of Edward
+II, the long French War commenced by Edward III and lasting over a
+hundred years, and the Wars of the Roses, all combined to impoverish
+the country. England, too, was repeatedly afflicted during the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by pestilences, sometimes caused by
+famines, sometimes coming with no apparent cause; all probably
+aggravated, if not caused, by the insanitary habits of the people. The
+mention of plagues, indeed, at this time is so frequent that we may
+call them chronic.
+
+At this period corn and wool were the two main products of the farmer;
+corn to feed his household and labourers, and wool to put money in his
+pocket, a somewhat rare thing.
+
+English wool, which came to be called 'the flower and strength and
+revenue and blood of England', was famous in very early times, and was
+exported long before the Conquest. In Edgar's reign the price was
+fixed by law, to prevent it getting into the hands of the foreigner
+too cheaply; a wey, or weigh, was to be sold for 120d.[101] Patriotic
+Englishmen asserted it was the best in the world, and Henry II, Edward
+III, and Edward IV are said to have improved the Spanish breed by
+presents of English sheep. Spanish wool, however, was considered the
+best from the earliest times until the Peninsular War, when the Saxon
+and Silesian wools deposed it from its pride of place. Smith, in his
+_Memoirs of Wool_,[102] is of the opinion that England 'borrowed some
+parts of its breed from thence, as it certainly did the whole from one
+place or another.' Spanish wool, too, was imported into England at an
+early date, the manufacture of it being carried on at Andover in
+1262.[103] Yet until the fourteenth century it was not produced in
+sufficient quantities to compete seriously with English wool in the
+markets of the Continent; and it appears to have been the long wools,
+such as those of the modern Leicester and Lincoln, from which England
+chiefly derived its fame as a wool-producing country.
+
+Our early exports went to Flanders, where weaving had been introduced
+a century before the Conquest, and, in spite of the growth of the
+weaving industry in England, to that country the bulk of it continued
+to go, all through the Middle Ages, though in the thirteenth century a
+determined effort was made to divert a larger share of English wool to
+Italy.[104] During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the export
+of wool was frequently forbidden,[105] sometimes for political
+objects, but also to gain the manufacture of cloth for England by
+keeping our wool from the foreigner; but these measures did not stop
+the export, they only hampered it and encouraged much smuggling. It
+commanded what seems to us an astonishing price, for 3d. a lb. in the
+thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is probably equal to nearly 4s. in
+our money. Its value, and the ease with which it could be packed and
+carried, made it an object of great importance to the farmer. In
+1337[106] we have a schedule of the price of wool in the various
+counties of England, for in that year 30,000 sacks of the best wool
+was ordered to be bought in various districts by merchants for Edward
+III, to provide the sinews of war against France. The price for the
+best wool was to be fixed by the king, his council, and the merchants;
+the 'gross' wool being bought by agreement between buyer and seller.
+Of the former the highest price fixed was for the wool of Hereford,
+then and for long afterwards famous for its excellent quality, 12
+marks the sack of 364 lb.; and the lowest for that of the northern
+counties, 5 marks the sack.
+
+Somewhat more than a century afterwards we have another similar list
+of wool prices, when in 1454 the Commons petitioned the king that 'as
+the wools growing within this realm have hitherto been the great
+commodity, enriching, and welfare of this land, and how of late the
+price is greatly decayed so that the Commons were not able to pay
+their rents to their lords', the king would fix certain prices under
+which wools should not be bought. The highest price fixed was for the
+wool of 'Hereford, in Leominster', L13 a sack; the lowest for that of
+Suffolk, L2 12s.[107]; the average being about L4 10s.
+
+The manorial accounts of the Knights' Hospitallers, who then held land
+all over England, afford valuable information as to agriculture in
+1338.[108] From these we gather that the rent of arable land varied
+from 2d. to 2s. an acre; but the latter sum was very exceptional, and
+there are only two instances of it given, in Lincolnshire and Kent.
+Most of the tillage rented for less than 1s. an acre, more than half
+being at 6d. or under, and the average about 6d. On the other hand,
+meadow land is seldom of less value than 2s. an acre, and in
+Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, and Norfolk rose to 3s. This is one of the
+numerous proofs of the great value of meadow land at a time when hay
+was almost the sole winter food of stock; in some places it was eight
+or ten times as valuable as the arable.[109] The pasture on the
+Hospitallers' estates was divided into several and common pasture, the
+former often reaching 1s. an acre and sometimes 2s., the latter rarely
+exceeding 4d. The most usual way, however, of stating the value of
+pasture was by reckoning the annual cost of feeding stock per head,
+cows being valued at 2s., oxen at 1s., a horse at a little less than
+an ox, a sheep at 1d. The reign of Edward III was a great era for
+wool-growers, and the Hospitallers at Hampton in Middlesex had a flock
+of 2,000 sheep whose annual produce was six sacks of wool of 364 lb.
+each, worth L4 a sack, which would make the fleeces weigh a little
+more than 1 lb. each. The profit of cows on one of their manors was
+reckoned at 2s. per head, on another at 3s.; and the profit of 100
+sheep at 20s.[110] The wages paid to the labourers for day work were
+2d. a day, and we must remember that when he was paid by the day his
+wages were rightly higher than when regularly employed, for day labour
+was irregular and casual. The tenants about the same date obtained the
+following prices[111] for some of their stock:--
+
+                                            L   s.  d.
+
+  A good ox, alive, fatted on corn          1   4   0
+       "       "        "  not on corn         16   0
+  A fatted cow                                 12   0
+  A two-year-old hog                            3   4
+  A sheep and its fleece                        1   8
+  A fatted sheep, shorn                         1   2
+       "   goose                                0   3
+  Hens, each[112]                               0   2
+  20 eggs                                       0   1
+
+In the middle of the fourteenth century occurred the famous Black
+Death, the worst infliction that has ever visited England. Its story
+is too well known for repetition, and it suffices to say that it was
+like the bubonic plague in the East of to-day: it raged in 1348-9, and
+killed from one-third to one-half of the people.[113] It is said to
+have effected more important economic results than any other event in
+English history. It is probable that the prices of labour were rising
+before this terrible calamity; the dreadful famine of 1315-6,[114]
+followed by pestilence, when wheat went up to 26s. a quarter, and
+according to the contemporary chroniclers, in some cases much higher,
+destroyed a large number of the population, and other plagues had done
+their share to make labour scarce, but after the Black Death the
+advance was strongly marked. It also accelerated the break-up of the
+manorial system. A large number of the free labourers were swept away,
+and their labour lost to the lord of the manor; the services of the
+villeins were largely diminished from the same cause; many of the
+tenants, both free and unfree, were dead, and the land thrown on the
+lord's hands. Flocks and herds were wandering about over the country
+because there was no one to tend them. In short, most manors were in a
+state of anarchy, and their lords on the verge of ruin. It is not to
+be wondered at, therefore, that they immediately adopted strong
+measures to save themselves and their property and, no doubt they
+thought, the whole country. Englishmen had by this time learnt to turn
+to Parliament to remedy their ills, but as the plague was still raging
+a proclamation was issued of which the preamble states that wages had
+already gone up greatly. 'Many, seeing the necessity of masters and
+great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they get excessive
+wages', and it is, therefore, hard to till the land. Every one under
+the age of 60, it was ordered, free or villein, who can work, and has
+no other means of livelihood, is not to refuse to work for any one who
+offers the accustomed wages; no labourer is to receive more wages than
+he did before the plague, and none are to give more wages under severe
+penalties. But besides regulating wages, the proclamation also insists
+on reasonable prices for food and the necessaries of life: it was a
+fair attempt not only to protect the landlords but the labourers also,
+by keeping both wages and prices at their former rate, so that its
+object was not tyrannous as has been stated.[115] It was at once
+disregarded, a fate which met many of the proclamations and statutes
+of the Middle Ages, which often seem to have been regarded as mere
+pious aspirations.
+
+Accordingly, the Statute of 1351, 25 Edw. III, Stat. 2, c. 1, states
+that the servants had paid no regard to the ordinance regulating
+wages, 'but to their ease and singular covetise do withdraw themselves
+unless they have livery and wages to the double or treble of that they
+were wont to take'. Accordingly, it was again laid down that they were
+to take liveries and wages as before the Black Death, and 'where wheat
+was wont to be given they shall take for the bushel 10d. (6s. 8d. a
+quarter),[116] or wheat at the will of the giver. And that they be
+hired to serve by the whole year or by other usual terms, and not by
+the day, and that none pay in the time of sarcling (weeding) or
+hay-making but a penny a day, and a mower of meadows for the acre 5d.,
+or by the day 5d., and reapers of corn in the first week of August
+2d., and the second 3d., without meat or drink.' And none were to take
+for the threshing of a quarter of wheat or rye more than 2d., and for
+the quarter of beans, peas, and oats more than 1d. These prices are
+certainly difficult to understand. Hay-making has usually been paid
+for at a rate above the ordinary, because of the longer hours; and
+here we find the price fixed at half the usual wages, while mowing is
+five times as much, and double the price paid for reaping, though they
+were normally about the same price.[117]
+
+It is interesting to learn from the statute that there was a
+considerable migration of labourers at this date for the harvest, from
+Stafford, Lancaster, Derby, Craven, the Marches of Wales and Scotland,
+and other places.
+
+Such was the first attempt made to control the labourers' wages by the
+legislature, and like other legislation of the kind it failed in its
+object, though the attempt was honestly made; and if the rate of wages
+fixed was somewhat low, its inequity was far surpassed by the
+exorbitance of the labourers' demands.[118] It was an endeavour to set
+aside economic laws, and its futility was rendered more certain by the
+depreciation of the coinage in 1351, which led to an advance in
+prices, and compelled the labourers to persevere in their demands for
+higher wages.[119]
+
+Both wages and prices, except those of grain, continued to increase,
+and labour services were now largely commuted for money payments,[120]
+with the result that the manorial system began to break up rapidly.
+
+Owing to the dearth of labourers for hire, and the loss of many of the
+services of their villeins, the lords found it very hard to farm their
+demesne lands. It should be remembered, too, that an additional
+hardship from which they suffered at this time was that the quit rents
+paid to them in lieu of services by tenants who had already become
+free were, owing to the rise in prices, very much depreciated. Their
+chief remedy was to let their demesne lands. The condition of the
+Manor of Forncett in Norfolk well illustrates the changes that were
+now going on. There, in the period 1272-1307, there were many free
+tenants as well as villeins, and the holdings of the latter were
+small, usually only 5 acres. It is also to be noticed that in no year
+were all the labour services actually performed, some were always sold
+for money. Yet in the period named there was not much progress in the
+general commutation of services for money payments, and the same was
+the case in the manors, whose records between 1325 and 1350 Mr. Page
+examined for his _End of Villeinage in England_.[121] The reaping and
+binding of the entire grain crop of the demesne at Forncett was done
+by the tenants exclusively, without the aid of any hired labour.[122]
+
+However, in the period 1307-1376 the manor underwent a great change.
+The economic position of the villeins, the administration of the
+demesne, and the whole organization of the manor were revolutionized.
+Much of the tenants' land had reverted to the lord, partly by the
+deaths in the great pestilence, partly because tenants had left the
+manor; they had run away and left their burdensome holdings in order
+to get high wages as free labourers. This of course led to a
+diminution of labour rents, so the landlord let most of the demesne
+for a term of years,[123] a process which went on all over England;
+and thus we have the origin of the modern tenant farmer. A fact of
+much importance in connexion with the Peasants' Revolt, soon to take
+place, was that the average money rent of land per acre in Forncett in
+1378 was 10d., while the labour rents for land, where they were still
+paid by villeins who had not commuted or run away, were, owing to the
+rise in the value of labour, worth two or three times this. We cannot
+wonder that the poor villeins were profoundly discontented.
+
+On this manor, as on others, some of the villeins, in spite of the
+many disadvantages under which they lay, managed to accumulate some
+little wealth. In 1378 and in 1410 one bond tenant had two messuages
+and 78 acres of land; in 1441 another died seized of 5 messuages and
+52 acres; some had a number of servants in their households, but the
+majority were very poor. There are several instances of bondmen
+fleeing from the manor; and the officers of the manor failed to catch
+them. This was common in other manors, and the 'withdrawal' of
+villeins played a considerable part in the disappearance of serfdom
+and the break-up of the system.[124] The following table shows the
+gradual disappearance of villeins in the Manor of Forncett:
+
+  In 1400 the servile families who had land numbered     16
+     1500        "               "             "          8
+     1525        "               "             "          5
+     1550        "               "             "          3
+     1575        "               "             "          0
+
+There is no event of greater importance in the agrarian history of
+England, or which has led to more important consequences, than the
+dissolution of this community in the cultivation of the land, which
+had been in use so long, and the establishment of the complete
+independence and separation of one property from another.[125] As soon
+as the manorial system began to give way, and men to have a free hand,
+the substitution of large for small holdings set in with fresh vigour,
+for we have already seen that it had begun. It was one of the chief
+causes of the stagnation of agriculture in the Middle Ages that it lay
+under the heavy hand of feudalism, by which individualism was checked
+and hindered. Every one had his allotted position on the land, and it
+was hard to get out of it, though some exceptional men did so; as a
+rule there was no chance of striking out a new line for oneself. The
+villein was bound to the lord, and no lord would willingly surrender
+his services. There could be little improvement in farming when the
+custom of the manor and the collective ownership of the teams bound
+all to the same system of farming.[126] In fact, agriculture under
+feudalism suffered from many of the evils of socialism.
+
+But, though hard hit, the old system was to endure for many
+generations, and the modern triumvirate of landlord, tenant, and
+labourer was not completely established in England until the era of
+the first Reform Bill.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[101] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 130. A
+weigh in the Middle Ages was 182 lbs., or half a sack.
+
+[102] Second edition, i. 50 n. See also Burnley, _History of Wool_, p.
+17.
+
+[103] Gross, _Gild Merchant_, ii. 4. It is from the Spanish merino,
+crossed with Leicesters and Southdowns, that the vast Australian
+flocks of to-day are descended.
+
+[104] Cunningham, _op. cit._ i. 628.
+
+[105] Ashley, _Early History of English Woollen Industry_, p. 34.
+
+[106] _Calendar of Close Rolls_, 1337-9, pp. 148-9.
+
+[107] _Rolls of Parliament_, v. 275.
+
+[108] _The Hospitallers in England_, Camden Society.
+
+[109] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 147.
+
+[110] _Hospitallers in England_, p. xxvi.
+
+[111] Ibid. pp. 1, li.
+
+[112] Poultry-keeping was wellnigh universal, judging by the number of
+rents paid in fowls and eggs.
+
+[113] 1348 seems also to have been an excessively rainy year. The wet
+season was very disastrous to live stock; according to the accounts of
+the manors of Christ Church, Canterbury, about this time (_Historical
+MSS. Commission, 5th Report_, 444) there died of the murrain on their
+estates 257 oxen, 511 cows, 4,585 sheep. Murrain was the name given to
+all diseases of stock in the Middle Ages, and is of constant
+occurrence in old records.
+
+[114] The cause of this as usual was incessant rain during the greater
+part of the summer; the chronicles of the time say that not only were
+the crops very short but those that did grow were diseased and yielded
+no nourishment. The 'murrain' was so deadly to oxen and sheep that,
+according to Walsingham, dogs and ravens eating them dropped down
+dead.
+
+[115] See Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 335. Also in an age
+when the idea of Competitive price had not yet been evolved, and when
+regulation by authority was the custom, it was natural and right that
+the Government in such a crisis should try to check the demands of
+both labourers and producers, which went far beyond what employers or
+consumers could pay. Putnam, _Enforcement of the Statute of
+Labourers_, 220.
+
+[116] The average price of wheat in 1351 was 10s. 2-1/2d., which went
+down to 7s. 2d. next year, and 4s. 2-1/2d. the year after; but judging
+by the ineffectiveness of the statute to reduce wages, it probably had
+little effect in causing this fall.
+
+[117] See Appendix I.
+
+[118] Putnam, _op. cit._, 221. The statute for the first ten years,
+however, kept wages from ascending as high as might have been the
+case.
+
+[119] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, i. 543, says that as the plague
+diminished the number of employers as well as labourers, the demand
+for labour could not have been much greater than before, and would
+have had little effect on the rate of if Edward III had not debased
+the coinage. But if the owners did decrease the lands would only
+accumulate in fewer hands, and would still require cultivation.
+
+[120] Page, _End of Villeinage_, pp. 59 et seq.
+
+[121] Ibid. p. 44.
+
+[122] _Transactions_, Royal Historical Society, New Series, xiv. 123.
+
+[123] This had been done before, but was now much more frequent.
+Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 17.
+
+[124] 'After the Black Death the flight of villeins was extremely
+common.'--Page, _op. cit._, p. 40.
+
+[125] Nasse, _Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages_, p. 1.
+
+[126] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 137.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HOW THE CLASSES CONNECTED WITH THE LAND LIVED IN THE MIDDLE AGES
+
+
+The castles of the great landowners have been so often described that
+there is no need to do this again. The popular idea of a baron of the
+Middle Ages is of a man who when he was not fighting was jousting or
+hunting. Such were, no doubt, his chief recreations; so fond was he of
+hunting, indeed, that his own broad lands were not enough, and he was
+a frequent trespasser on those of others; the records of the time are
+full of cases which show that poaching was quite a fashionable
+amusement among the upper classes. But among the barons were many men
+who, like their successors to-day, did their duty as landlords. Of one
+of the Lords of Berkeley in the fourteenth century, it was said he was
+'sometyme in husbandry at home, sometyme at sport in the field,
+sometyme in the campe, sometyme in the Court and Council of State,
+with that promptness and celerity that his body might have bene
+believed to be ubiquitary'. Many of them were farmers on a very large
+scale, though they might not have so much time to devote to it as
+those excellent landlords the monks.
+
+Thomas Lord Berkeley, who held the Berkeley estates from 1326 to 1361,
+farmed the demesnes of a quantity of manors, as was the custom, and
+kept thereon great flocks of sheep, ranging from 300 to 1,500 on each
+manor.[127] The stock of the Bishop of Winchester, by an inquisition
+taken at his death in 1367, amounted to 127 draught horses, 1,556 head
+of black cattle, and 12,104 sheep and lambs. Almost every manor had
+one or two pigeon houses, and the number of pigeons reared is
+astonishing; from one manor Lord Berkeley obtained 2,151 pigeons in a
+single year. No one but the lord was allowed to keep them, and they
+were one of the chief grievances of the villeins, who saw their seed
+devoured by these pests without redress. Their dung, too, was one of
+the most valued manures. Lord Berkeley, like other landlords, went
+often in progress from one of his manors and farmhouses to another,
+making his stay at each of them for one or two nights, overseeing and
+directing the husbandry. The castle of the great noble consumed an
+enormous amount of food in the course of the year; from two manors on
+the Berkeley estate came to the 'standinghouse' of the lord in twelve
+months, 17,000 eggs, 1,008 pigeons, 91 capons, 192 hens, 288 ducks,
+388 chickens, 194 pigs, 45 calves, 315 quarters of wheat, 304 quarters
+of oats; and from several other manors came the like or greater store,
+besides goats, sheep, oxen, butter, cheese, nuts, honey, &c.[128] Even
+the lavish hospitality of the lords, and the great number of their
+retainers, must have had some difficulty in disposing of these huge
+supplies.
+
+The examining of their bailiff's accounts must have taken a
+considerable portion of the landlord's time, for those of each manor
+were kept most minutely, and set forth, among other items, 'in what
+sort he husbanded' the demesne farms, 'what sorts of cattle he kept in
+them, and what kinds of graine he yearly sowed according to the
+quality and condition of the ground, and how those kinds of graine
+each second or third yeare were exchanged or brought from one manor to
+another as the vale corne into an upland soyle, and contrarily'. And
+we are told incidentally he 'set with hand, not sowed his beanes'. He
+was also accustomed to move his live stock from one manor to another,
+as they needed it.
+
+The accounts also stated what days' works were due from each tenant
+according to the season of the year, and at the end of each year there
+was a careful valuation of live and dead stock.[129]
+
+The difference
+between the smaller gentry and the more important yeomen[130] who
+farmed their own land must have been very slight. No doubt both of
+them were very rough and ignorant men, who knew a great deal about the
+cultivation of their land and very little about anything else. We may
+be sure that the ordinary house of both was generally of wood; as
+there is no stone in many parts of England, and bricks were not
+reintroduced till the fourteenth century and spread slowly. Even in
+Elizabeth's reign, Harrison[131] tells us that 'the ancient houses of
+our gentry are yet for the most part of strong timber', and he even
+thinks that houses made of oak were luxurious, for in times past men
+had been contented with houses of willow, plum, and elm, but now
+nothing but oak was good enough; and he quaintly says that the men who
+lived in the willow houses were as tough as oak, and those who lived
+in the oak as soft as willow. There are very few mansions left of the
+time before Edward III, for being of timber they naturally decayed.
+
+In a lease, dated 1152, of a manor house belonging to S. Paul's
+Cathedral,[132] is a description of a manor house which contained a
+hall 35 feet long, 30 feet broad, and 22 feet high; that is, 11 feet
+to the tie beam and 11 feet from that to the ridge board; showing that
+the roof was open and that there were no upper rooms. There was a
+chamber between the hall and the thalamus or inner room which was 12
+feet long, 17 feet broad, and 17 feet high, the roof being open as in
+the hall; and the thalamus was 22 feet long, 16 feet broad, and 18
+feet high. About the same date the Manor house of Thorp was larger,
+and contained a hall, a chamber, tresantia (apparently part of the
+hall or chamber separated by a screen to form an antechamber), two
+private rooms, a kitchen, brew-house, malt-house, dairy, ox shed, and
+three small hen-houses.
+
+The ordinary manor house of the Middle Ages contained three rooms at
+least, of mean aspect, the floor even of the hall, which was the
+principal eating and sleeping room, being of dirt; and when there was
+an upper room or solar added, which began to be done at the end of the
+twelfth century,[133] access to it was often obtained by an outside
+staircase.
+
+If the manor house belonged to the owner of many manors, it was
+sometimes inhabited by his bailiff.
+
+The barns on the demesnes were often as important buildings as the
+manor houses; one at Wickham, belonging to the canons of S. Paul's[134]
+in the twelfth century, was 55 feet long, 13 feet high from the floor
+to the principal beam, and 10-1/2 feet more to the ridge board; the
+breadth between the pillars was 19-1/2 feet, and on each side it had a
+wing or aisle 6-1/2 feet wide and 6-1/2 feet high. The amount of corn
+in the barn was often scored on the door-posts.[135] In the manor
+houses chimneys rarely existed, the fire being made in the middle of
+the hall. Even in the early seventeenth century in Cheshire there were
+no chimneys in the farmhouses, and there the oxen were kept under the
+same roof as the farmer and his family.[136] When chimneys did come in
+they were not much thought of. 'Now we have chimneys our tenderlings
+complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses (colds);' for the smoke not
+only hardened the timbers, but was said by Harrison to be an excellent
+medicine for man. Instead of glass there was much lattice, and that
+made either of wicker or fine rifts of oak in checkerwise, and horn
+was also used. Beds, of course, were a luxury, the owner of the manor,
+his guests, and retainers flung themselves down on the hall floor
+after supper and all slept together, though sometimes rough mattresses
+were brought in.
+
+Furniture was rude and scanty. In 1150 the farm implements and
+household furniture on the Manor of 'Waleton' was valued and consisted
+of 4 carts, 3 baskets, a basket used in winnowing corn, a pair of
+millstones, 10 tubs, 4 barrels, 2 boilers of lead with stoves, 2
+wooden bowls, 3 three-legged tables, 20 dishes or platters, 2
+tablecloths worth 6d., 6 metal bowls, half a load of the invaluable
+salt, 2 axes, a table with trestles (the usual form of table), and 5
+beehives made of rushes.[137] These articles were handed down from one
+generation to another, and in a lease made 150 years afterwards of the
+same manor most of them reappear. The greater part of the furniture,
+until the fifteenth century, was most likely made by migratory
+workmen, who travelled from village to village; for except the rudest
+pieces it was beyond the village carpenter, and shops there were none.
+
+It is not to be expected that when the master lived in this manner the
+lot of the labourer was a very good one. His home was miserably poor,
+generally of 'wattle and dab', sometimes wholly of mud and clay; many
+with only one room for all purposes. A bill is still in existence for
+a house, if it can be called one, built in 1306 for two labourers by
+Queen's College, Oxford, which cost 20s. in all, and was a mere hovel
+without floor, ceiling, or chimney.[138] Their wretched houses appear
+to have been built on the bare earth, and unfloored. Perhaps as time
+went on a rude upper storey was added, the floor of which was made of
+rough poles or hurdles and was reached by a ladder. The furniture was
+miserably poor; a few pots and pans, cups and dishes, and some tools
+would exhaust the list.[139] The goods and chattels of a landless
+labourer in 1431 consisted of a dish, an adze, a brass pot, 2 plates,
+2 augers, an axe, a three-legged stool, and a barrel.[140] Englishmen
+of all classes were hopelessly dirty in their habits; even till the
+sixteenth century they were noted above other countries for the
+profuseness of their diet and their unclean ways. Erasmus spoke of the
+floor of his house as inconceivably filthy. To save fuel, the
+labourer's family in the cold season all lay huddled in a heap on the
+floor, 'pleasantly and hot', as Barclay the poet tells us; and if he
+ever had a bed it was a bundle of fern or straw thrown down, with his
+cloak as a coverlet, though thus he was just as well off as his social
+superiors, for with them the loose cloak of the day was a common
+covering for the night. He was constantly exposed to disease, for
+sanitary precautions were ignored; at the entrance of his hovel was a
+huge heap of decaying refuse, poisoning air and water. Even in the
+sixteenth century a foreigner noticed that 'the peasants dwell in
+small huts and pile up their refuse out of doors in heaps so high that
+you cannot see their houses'.[141] Diseased animals were constantly
+eaten, vegetables were few, and in the winter there was no fresh meat
+for any one, except game and rabbits and, for the well-to-do, fish,
+but we may doubt if the peasant got any but salt fish. The consequence
+was that leprosy and kindred ailments were common; and we do not
+wonder that plagues were frequent and slew the people like flies. The
+peasants' food consisted largely of corn. In the bailiff's accounts of
+the Manor of Woodstock in 1242, six servants at Handborough received
+41-1/2 bushels of corn each, 2 ox herds at Combe received the same, and
+4 servants at Bladon had 36 bushels each. In 1274 at Bosham, and in
+1288 at Stoughton in Sussex, the allowance was the same.[142] The
+writer of the anonymous _Treatise on Husbandry_ says that in his time,
+the thirteenth century, the average annual allowance of corn to a
+labourer was 36 bushels.[143] Fish, too, seem to have formed a large
+portion of his diet; all classes ate enormous quantities of fish,
+before the Reformation, in Lent and on fast days, and the labourer was
+constantly given salt herrings as part of his pay. In 1359, at
+Hawsted, the villeins when working were allowed 2 herrings a day, some
+milk, a loaf, and some drink.[144] Eden[145] says his food consisted
+of a few fish, principally herrings, a loaf of bread, and some beer;
+but we must certainly add pork, which was his stand-by then as
+now.[146] In the fourteenth century, at all events, there were three
+kinds of bread in use--white bread, ration bread, and black bread; and
+it was no doubt the latter that the peasant ate.[147] Clothing was
+dear and cloth coarse, the most valuable personal property consisting
+of clothing and metal vessels. Shirts were the subject of charitable
+gifts.[148] By 37 Edw. III, c. 14, labourers were not to wear any
+manner of cloth but 'blanket and russet wool of 12d.' and girdles of
+linen. If they wore anything more extravagant it was forfeited to the
+king.
+
+To the labourer of modern times the life of his forefathers would have
+seemed unutterably dull. No books, no newspapers, no change of scene
+by cheap excursions, no village school, no politics. The very
+cultivation of the soil by the old three-course system was monotonous.
+But there were bright spots in his existence: the village church not
+only afforded him the consolations of religion but also entertainments
+and society. Religion in the Middle Ages was a part of the people's
+daily life, and its influence permeated even their amusements.
+Miracles and mystery plays, played in the churches and churchyards,
+were a common feature in village life; as were the church ales or
+parish meetings held four or five times a year, where cakes and beer
+were purchased from the churchwarden and consumed for the good of the
+parish. Indeed, there can be no doubt that there was much more
+sociability than to-day, in the country at least. Labour was lightened
+by the co-operation of the common fields; common shepherds and
+herdsmen watched the sheep and cattle of the different tenants, 'a
+common mill ground the corn, a common oven baked the bread, a common
+smith worked at a common forge.' His existence, moreover, was
+enlivened by a considerable number of sports. A statute at the end of
+the fourteenth century (12 Ric. II, c. 6) says he was fond of playing
+at tennis(!), football, quoits, dice, casting the stone, and other
+games, which this statute forbad him, and enacted that he should use
+his bow and arrows on Sundays and holidays instead of such idle sport.
+This is a foretaste of the modern sentiment that seeks to wean him
+from watching football matches and take to miniature rifle clubs. He
+was also, like some of his successors, fond of poaching, though he
+appears to have been rash enough to indulge in it by day. 13 Ric. II,
+c. 13, says he was prone on holidays, when good Christian people be in
+church hearing divine service, to go hunting with greyhounds and other
+dogs, in the parks and warrens of the lord and of others, and
+sometimes these hunts were turned into conferences and conspiracies,'
+for to rise and disobey their allegiance', such as preceded the
+Peasants' Revolt of 1381; and accordingly no one who did not own lands
+worth 40s. a year was to keep a dog to hunt, or ferrets other
+'engines': the first game law on the English statute book.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[127] Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 302. No doubt the riches of
+the Berkeleys were considerably greater than those of many of the
+barons.
+
+[128] _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 166. There is no reason to doubt
+Smyth, as he wrote with the original accounts before him.
+
+[129] _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 156.
+
+[130] The yeoman is said to have made his appearance in the fifteenth
+century, but the small freeholders of the manor before that date were
+to all intents and purposes yeomen. No doubt, as trade grew in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries successful tradesmen bought small
+freeholds in the country and swelled the numbers of yeomen.
+
+[131] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, F.J. Furnivall edn., p. 337.
+
+[132] _Domesday of S. Paul_, Camden Society, p. 129.
+
+[133] Turner, _Domestic Architecture_, i. 59.
+
+[134] _Domesday of S. Paul_, p. 123.
+
+[135] _Historical MSS. Commission Report_, v. 444.
+
+[136] Ormerod, _History of Cheshire_, i. 129.
+
+[137] _Domesday of S. Paul_, p. xcvii.
+
+[138] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_.
+
+[139] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 21.
+
+[140] See Cullum, _History of Hawsted_.
+
+[141] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, Appendix ii, lxxxi. In some
+manors, however, there were careful regulations for public health.
+According to the Durham _Halmote Rolls_, published by the Surtees
+Society, village officials watched over the water supply, prevented
+the fouling of streams; bye-laws were enacted as to the regulation of
+the common place for clothes washing, and the times for emptying and
+cleansing ponds and mill-dams.
+
+[142] Ballard, _Domesday_, Antiquary Series, p. 209.
+
+[143] Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 75.
+
+[144] Cullum, _Hawsted_, 1784 ed., p. 182.
+
+[145] _State of the Poor_, i. 15.
+
+[146] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 32.
+
+[147] See _Knights Hospitallers in England_, Camden Society,
+Introduction.
+
+[148] Thorold Rogers, _op. cit._ i. 66.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR.--SPREAD OF LEASES.--THE PEASANTS'
+REVOLT.--FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO REGULATE WAGES.--A HARVEST HOME.--
+BEGINNING OF THE CORN LAWS.--SOME SURREY MANORS
+
+
+We have seen that the landlords' profits were seriously diminished by
+the Black Death, and they cast about them for new ways of increasing
+their incomes. Arable land had been until now largely in excess of
+pasture, the cultivation of corn was the chief object of agriculture,
+bread forming a much larger proportion of men's diet than now. This
+began to change. Much of the land was laid down to grass, and there
+was a steady increase in sheep farming; thus commenced that revolution
+in farming which in the sixteenth century led Harrison to say that
+England was mainly a stock-raising country. The lords also let a
+considerable amount of their demesne land on leases for years. 'Then
+began the times to alter' says Smyth of the Lord Berkeley of the end
+of the fourteenth century, 'and hee with them, and he began to tack
+other men's cattle on his pasture by the week, month, and quarter, and
+to sell his meadow grounds by the acre. And in the time of Henry IV
+still more and more was let, and in succeeding times. As for the days'
+works of the copyhold tenants, they also were turned into money.'[149]
+Such leases had been used long before this, but this is the date of
+their great increase. In the thirteenth century a lease of 2 acres of
+arable land in Nowton, Suffolk, let the land at 6d. an acre per annum
+for a term of six years.[150] It contains no clauses about
+cultivation; the landlord warrants the said 2 acres to the tenant, and
+the tenant agrees to give them up at the end of the term freely and
+peaceably. The deed was indented, sealed, and witnessed by several
+persons. The impoverished landlords also let much of their land on
+stock and land leases. The custom of stocking the tenants' land was a
+very ancient one: the lord had always found the oxen for the plough
+teams of the villeins. In the leases of the manors of S. Paul's in the
+twelfth century the tenant for life received stock both live and dead,
+which when he entered was carefully enumerated in the lease, and at
+the end of the tenancy he had to leave behind the same quantity.[151]
+It was a common practice also, before the Black Death, for the lord to
+let out cows and sheep at so much per head per annum.[152] The stock
+and land lease therefore was no novelty. In 1410 there is a lease of
+the demesne lands at Hawsted by which the landlord kept the manor
+house and its appurtenances in his own hands, the tenant apparently
+having the farm buildings, which he was to keep in repair. He was to
+receive at the beginning of the term 20 cows and one bull, worth 9s.
+each; 4 stotts, worth 10s. each; and 4 oxen, worth 13s. 4d. each;
+which, or their value in money, were to be delivered up at the end of
+the term. The tenant was also to leave at the end of the lease as many
+acres well ploughed, sown, and manured as he found at the beginning.
+Otherwise the landlord was not to interfere with the cultivation. If
+the rent or any part thereof was in arrear for a fortnight after the
+two fixed days for payment, the landlord might distrain; and if for a
+month, he might re-enter: and both parties bound themselves to forfeit
+the then huge sum of L100 upon the violation of any clause of the
+lease.[153] There is a lease[154] of a subsequent date (the twentieth
+year of Henry VIII), but one which well illustrates the custom now so
+prevalent, granted by the Prior of the Monastery of Lathe in Somerset
+to William Pole of Combe, Edith his wife, and Thomas his son, for
+their lives. With the land went 360 wethers. For the land they paid 16
+quarters of best wheat, 'purelye thressyd and wynowed,' 22 quarters of
+best barley, and were to carry 4 loads of wood and fatten one ox for
+the prior yearly; the ox to be fattened in stall with the best hay,
+the only way then known of fattening oxen. For the flock of wethers
+they paid L6 yearly. The tenants were bound to keep hedges, ditches,
+and gates in repair. Also they were bound by a 'writing obligatory' in
+the sum of L100 to deliver up the wether flock whole and sound, 'not
+rotten, banyd,[155] nor otherwise diseased.' The consequence of the
+spread of leases was that the portion of the demesne lands which the
+lords farmed themselves dwindled greatly, or it was turned from arable
+into grass. Stock and land leases survived in some parts till the
+beginning of the eighteenth century, when it was still the custom for
+the landlord to stock the land and receive half the crop for
+rent.[156] According to the _Domesday of S. Paul_, in the thirteenth
+century, a survey of eighteen manors containing 24,000 acres showed
+three-eighths of the land in demesne, the rest in the hands of the
+tenants. In 1359 the lord of the principal manor at Hawsted held in
+his own hand 572 acres of arable land, worth 4d. to 6d. an acre rent,
+and 50 acres of meadow, worth 2s. an acre.[157] He had also pasture
+for 24 cows, which was considered worth 36s. a year, and for 12 horses
+and 12 oxen worth 48s. a year, with 40 acres of wood, estimated at 1s.
+an acre. In 1387, however, the arable land had decreased to 320 acres,
+but the stock had increased, and now numbered 4 cart horses, 6 stotts
+or smaller horses, 10 oxen, 1 bull, 26 cows, 6 heifers, 6 calves, 92
+wethers, 20 hoggerells or two-year-old sheep, 1 gander, 4 geese, 30
+capons, 26 hens, and only one cock. The dairy of 26 cows was let out,
+according to the custom of the time, for L8 a year; and we are told
+that the oxen were fed on oats, and shod in the winter only.
+
+But if the position of the lords was severely affected by the great
+pestilence that of the villeins was also. The villein himself was
+becoming a copyholder; in the thirteenth century the nature of his
+holding had been written on the court roll, before long he was given a
+copy of the roll, and by the fifteenth century he was a
+copyholder.[158] There was, too, a new spirit abroad in this century
+of disorganization and reform, which stirred even the villeins with a
+desire for better conditions of life. These men, thus rising to a more
+assured position and animated by new hopes, saw all round them hired
+labourers obtaining, in spite of the Statute of Labourers, double the
+amount of wages they had formerly received, while they were bound down
+to the same services as before. The advance in prices was further
+increased by the king's issuing in 1351 an entirely new coinage, of
+the same fineness but of less weight than the old; so that the demands
+of the labourers after the Black Death were largely justified by the
+depreciation in the currency.[159] There had also arisen at this time,
+owing to the increase in the wealth of the country, a new class of
+landlords who did not care for the old system[160]; and it is probably
+these men who are meant by the statute I Ric. II, c. 6, which
+complains that the villeins daily withdrew their services to their
+lords at the instigation of various counsellors and abettors, who made
+it appear by 'colour of certain exemplifications made out of the Book
+of Domesday' that they were discharged from their services, and
+moreover gathered themselves in great routs and agreed to aid each
+other in resisting their lords, so that justices were appointed to
+check this evil. But there were other 'counsellors and abettors' of
+the Peasants' Revolt than the new landlords. One of its most
+interesting features to modern readers is its thorough organization.
+Travelling agents and agitators like John Ball were all over the
+country, money was subscribed and collected, and everything was ripe
+for the great rising of 1381, which was brought to a head by the bad
+grading of the poll tax of King Richard. It has been said that the
+chief grievance of the villeins was that the lords of manors were
+attempting to reimpose commuted services, but judging by the petition
+to the King when he met them at Mile-end there can be no doubt that
+the chief grievance was the continuance of existing services. 'We
+will', said they, 'that ye make us free for ever, and that we be
+called no more bond, or so reputed.' Also, as Walsingham says,[161]
+they were careful to destroy the rolls and ancient records whereby
+their services were fixed, and to put to death persons learned in the
+law.
+
+As every one knows, the revolt was a failure; and whether it
+ultimately helped much to extinguish serfdom is doubtful. It probably,
+like the pestilence, accelerated a movement which had been for some
+time in progress and was inevitable. There is ample evidence to prove
+that there was a very general continuance of predial services after
+the revolt, though they went on rapidly decreasing. One of the chief
+methods adopted by the villeins to gain their freedom was desertion,
+and so common did this become that apparently the mere threat of
+desertion enabled the villein to obtain almost any concession from his
+lord, who was afraid lest his land should be utterly deserted. The
+result was that by the middle of the fifteenth century the abolition
+of labour services was approaching completion.[162] It lingered on,
+and Fitzherbert lamented in Elizabeth's reign the continuance of
+villeinage as a disgrace to England; but it had then nearly
+disappeared, and was unheard of after the reign of James I.[163]
+
+Seven years after the Peasants' Revolt another attempt was made to
+regulate agricultural wages by the statute 12 Ric. II, c. 4, which
+stated that 'the hires of the said servants and labourers have not
+been put on certainty before this time', though we have seen that the
+Act of 1351 tried to settle wages. In the preamble it is said that the
+statute was enacted because labourers 'have refused for a long season
+to work without outrageous and excessive hire', and owing to the
+scarcity of labourers 'husbands' could not pay their rents, a sentence
+which shows the general use of money rents.
+
+The wages were as follows, apparently with food:--
+
+                                                     s.  d.
+
+  A bailiff annually, and clothing once a year       13  4
+  A master hind, without clothing                    10  0
+  A carter,          "        "                      10  0
+  A shepherd,        "        "                      10  0
+  An ox or cow herd  "        "                       6  8
+  Swine herd or female labourer, without clothing     6  0
+  A plough driver, without clothing                   7  0
+
+The farm servants' food would be worth considerably more than the
+actual cash he received; a quarter of wheat, barley, and rye mixed
+every nine weeks was no unusual allowance, which at 4s. 4d. would be
+worth about 25s. a year. He would also have his harvest allowance,
+though the statute above forbids any perquisites, worth about 3s., and
+sometimes it was accompanied by the gift of a pig, some beer, or some
+herrings.[164] His wife also, at a time when women did the same work
+as the men, could earn 1d. a day, and his boy perhaps 1/2d. If his
+wages were wholly paid in money, we may say that in the last half of
+the fourteenth century the ordinary labourer earned 3d. a day, so that
+as corn and pork, his chief food, had not risen at all, he was much
+better off than in the preceding 100 years.
+
+Cullum, in his invaluable _History of Hawsted_, gives us a picture of
+harvesting on the demesne lands in 1389 which shows an extraordinarily
+busy scene. There were 200 acres of all kinds of corn to be gathered
+in, and over 300 people took part; though apparently such a crowd was
+only collected for the two principal days of the harvest, and it must
+be remembered that the towns were emptied into the country at this
+important season. The number of people for one day comprised a carter,
+ploughman, head reaper, cook, baker, brewer, shepherd, daya
+(dairymaid); 221 hired reapers; 44 pitchers, stackers, and reapers
+(not hired, evidently villeins paying their rents by work); 22 other
+reapers, hired for goodwill (_de amore_); and 20 customary tenants.
+This small army of men consumed 22 bushels of wheat, 8 pennyworth of
+beer, and 41 bushels of malt, worth 18s. 9-1/2d.; meat to the value of
+9s. 11-1/2d.; fish and herrings, 5s. 1d.; cheese, butter, milk, and
+eggs, 8s. 3-1/2d.; oatmeal, 5d. salt, 3d.; pepper and saffron, 10d.,
+the latter apparently introduced into England in the time of Edward
+III, and much used for cooking and medicine, but it gradually went out
+of fashion, and by the end of the eighteenth century was only
+cultivated in one or two counties, notably Essex where Saffron Walden
+recalls its use; candles, 6d.; and 5 pairs of gloves 10d.[165]
+
+The presentation of gloves was a common custom in England; and these
+would be presented as a sign of good husbandry, as in the case of the
+rural bridegroom in the account of Queen Elizabeth's visit to
+Kenilworth who wore gloves to show he was a good farmer. Tusser bids
+the farmer give gloves to his reapers. The custom was still observed
+at Hawsted in 1784, and in Eden's time, 1797, the bursars of New
+College, Oxford, presented each of their tenants with two pairs, which
+the recipients displayed on the following Sunday at church by
+conspicuously hanging their hands over the pew to show their
+neighbours they had paid their rent. In this account of the Hawsted
+harvest the large number of hired men and the few customary tenants is
+noteworthy as a sign of the times, for before the Black Death the
+harvest work on the demesne was the special work of the latter.
+
+In the fourteenth century the long series of corn laws was commenced
+which was to agitate Englishmen for centuries, and after an apparently
+final settlement in 1846 to reappear in our day.[166] It was the
+policy of Edward III to make food plentiful and cheap for the whole
+nation, without special regard to the agricultural interest: and by 34
+Edw. III, c. 20, the export of corn to any foreign part except Calais
+and Gascony, then British possessions, or to certain places which the
+king might permit, was forbidden. Richard II, however, reversed this
+policy in answer to the complaints of agriculturists whose rents were
+falling,[167] and endeavoured to encourage the farmer and especially
+the corn-grower; for he saw the landlords turning their attention to
+sheep instead of corn, owing to the high price of labour. Accordingly,
+to give the corn-growers a wider market, he allowed his subjects by
+the statute 17 Ric. II, c. 7, to carry corn, on paying the duties due,
+to what parts they pleased, except to his enemies, subject however to
+an order of the Council; and owing to the interference of the Council
+the law probably became a dead letter, at all events we find it
+confirmed and amended by 4 Hen. VI, c. 5.
+
+The prohibition of export must have been a serious blow to those
+counties near the sea, for it was much easier to send corn by ship to
+foreign parts than over the bad roads of England to some distant
+market.[168] Indeed, judging by the great and frequent discrepancy of
+prices in different places at the same date, the dispatch of corn from
+one inland locality to another was not very frequent. Richard also
+attempted to stop the movement, which had even then set in, of the
+countrymen to the growing towns, forbidding by 12 Ric. II, c. 5, those
+who had served in agriculture until 12 years of age to be apprenticed
+in the towns, but to 'abide in husbandry'.
+
+One of the most unjust customs of the Middle Ages was that which bade
+the tenants of manors, except those who held the _jus faldae_, fold
+their sheep on the land of the lord, thus losing both the manure and
+the valuable treading.[169] However, sometimes, as in Surrey, the
+sheepfold was in a fixed place and the manure from it was from time to
+time taken out and spread on the land.[170]
+
+In the same district horses had been hitherto used for farm work, as
+it was considered worthy of note that oxen were beginning to be added
+to the horse teams. The milk of two good cows in twenty-four weeks was
+considered able to make a wey of cheese, and in addition half a gallon
+of butter a week; and the milk of 20 ewes was equal to that of 3 cows.
+
+On the Manor of Flaunchford, near Reigate, the demesne land amounted
+to 56 acres of arable and two meadows, but there must have been the
+usual pasture in addition to keep the following head of stock: 13
+cows, who in the winter were fed from the racks in the yard; 4 calves,
+bought at 1s. each; 12 oxen for ploughing, whose food was oats and
+hay--a very large number for 56 acres of arable, and they were
+probably used on another manor; 1 stott, used for harrowing; a goat,
+and a sow.
+
+                                                   L   s.   d.
+
+  In 1382 the total receipts of this manor were    8   1   9-1/2
+  The total expenses                               7   0   5
+                                                  --------------
+                                 Profit           L1   1   4-1/2
+                                                  ==============
+
+  Among the receipts were:--
+    For the lord's plough, let to farmers (perhaps
+      this accounts for the large team of oxen kept)    6   8
+    14 bushels of apples                                1   2
+    5 loads of charcoal                                16   8
+    A cow                                              10   0
+  Among the payments:--
+    For keeping plough in repair, and the wages of a
+      blacksmith, one year by agreement                 6   8
+    Making a new plough from the lord's timber              6
+    Mowing 2 acres of meadow                            1   0
+    Making and carrying hay of ditto, with
+      help of lord's servants                               4
+    Threshing wheat, peas, and tares, per quarter           4
+       "      oats, per quarter                             1-1/2
+    Winnowing 3 quarters of corn                            1
+    Cutting and binding wheat and oats, per acre            6
+
+On the Manor of Dorking the harvest lasted five weeks as a rule; the
+fore feet only of oxen used for ploughing, and of heifers used for
+harrowing, were shod. For washing and shearing sheep 10d. a hundred
+was the price; ploughing for winter corn cost 6d. an acre, and
+harrowing 1/2d. 30-1/2 acres of barley produced 41-1/2 quarters; 28
+acres of oats produced 38-1/2 quarters; 13 cows were let for the
+season at 5s. each. In the same reign, at Merstham, the demesne lands
+of 166-1/2 acres were let on lease with all the live and dead stock,
+which was valued at L22 9s. 3d., and the rent was L36 or about 4s. 4d.
+an acre, an enormous price even including the stock.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[149] Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, ii. 5. There is no doubt the
+lease system was growing in the thirteenth century. About 1240 the
+writ _Quare ejecit infra terminum_ protected the person of a tenant
+for a term of years, who formerly had been regarded as having no more
+than a personal right enforceable by an action of covenant.
+Vinogradoff, _Villeinage in England_, p. 330; but leases for lives and
+not for years seem the rule at that date.
+
+[150] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 175.
+
+[151] See _Domesday of S. Paul_, Introduction.
+
+[152] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 25.
+
+[153] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 195.
+
+[154] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 586.
+
+[155] Banyd, afflicted with sheep rot.
+
+[156] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 55.
+
+[157] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 182. Another instance of the difference in
+value between arable and tillage. At the inquisition of the Manor of
+Great Tey in Essex, 1326, the jury found that 500 acres of arable land
+was worth 6d. an acre rent, 20 acres of meadow 3s. an acre, and 10
+acres of pasture 1s. an acre. _Archaeologia_, xii. 30.
+
+[158] Medley, _Constitutional History_, p. 52.
+
+[159] Cunningham, _op. cit._ i. 328, and 335-6.
+
+[160] _Domesday of S. Paul_, p. lvii.
+
+[161] _Hist. Angl._, Rolls Series, i. 455. The other political and
+social causes of the revolt do not concern us here. The attempt to
+minimize its agrarian importance is strange in the light of the words
+and acts above mentioned.
+
+[162] Page, _op. cit._ p. 77.
+
+[163] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 402, 534; _Transactions
+of the Royal Historical Society_, New Series, xvii. 235. Fitzherbert
+probably referred more to villein status, which continued longer than
+villein tenure.
+
+[164] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, i. 278,
+288.
+
+[165] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, p. 233, says the produce of
+an acre of saffron was usually worth L20.
+
+[166] Exportation of corn is mentioned in 1181, when a fine was paid
+to the king for licence to ship corn from Norfolk and Suffolk to
+Norway.--McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, i. 345. As early as the
+reign of Henry II, Henry of Huntingdon says, German silver came to buy
+our most precious wool, our milk (no doubt converted into butter and
+cheese), and our innumerable cattle.--Rolls Series, p. 5. In 1400, the
+_Chronicle of London_ says the country was saved from dearth by the
+importation of rye from Prussia.
+
+[167] Hasbach, _op. cit._. p. 32.
+
+[168] Lord Berkeley, about 1360, had a ship of his own for exporting
+wool and corn and bringing back foreign wine and wares.--Smyth, _Lives
+of the Berkeleys_, i. 365.
+
+[169] Nasse, _Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages_, p. 66.
+
+[170] Customs in some Surrey manors in the time of Richard II,
+_Archaeologia_, xviii. 281.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+1400-1540
+
+THE SO-CALLED 'GOLDEN AGE OF THE LABOURER' IN A PERIOD OF GENERAL
+DISTRESS
+
+
+In this period the average prices of grain remained almost unchanged
+until the last three decades, when they began slowly and steadily to
+creep up, this advance being helped to some extent by defective
+harvests. In 1527, according to Holinshed it rained from April 12 to
+June 3 every day or night; in May thirty hours without ceasing; and
+the floods did much damage to the corn. In 1528 incessant deluges of
+rain prevented the corn being sown in the spring, and grain had to be
+imported from Germany. The price of wheat was a trifle higher than in
+the period 1259-1400; barley, oats, and beans lower; rye higher.[171]
+Oxen and cows were dearer, horses about the same, sheep a little
+higher, pigs the same, poultry and eggs dearer, wool the same, cheese
+and butter dearer. The price of wheat was sometimes subject to
+astonishing fluctuations: in 1439 it varied from 8s. to 26s. 8d.; in
+1440 from 4s. 2d. to 25s. The rent of land continued the same, arable
+averaging 6d. an acre,[172] though this was partly due to the fact
+that rents, although now generally paid in money, were still fixed and
+customary; for the purchase value of land had now risen to twenty
+years instead of twelve.[173] The art of farming hardly made any
+progress, and the produce of the land was consequently about the same
+or a little better than in the preceding period.[174]
+
+At the end of the fourteenth century the ordinary wheat crop at
+Hawsted was in favourable years about a quarter to the acre, but it
+was often not more than 6 bushels; and this was on demesne land,
+usually better tilled than non-demesne land.[175] As for the labourer,
+it is well known that Thorold Rogers calls the fifteenth century his
+golden age, and seeing that his days' wages, if he 'found himself',
+were now 4d. and prices were hardly any higher all round than when he
+earned half the money in the thirteenth century, there is much to
+support his view. As to whether he was better off than the modern
+labourer it is somewhat difficult to determine; as far as wages went
+he certainly was, for his 4d. a day was equal to about 4s. now; it is
+true that on the innumerable holidays of the Church he sometimes did
+not work,[176] but no doubt he then busied himself on his bit of
+common. But so many factors enter into the question of the general
+material comfort of the labourer in different ages that it is almost
+impossible to come to a satisfactory conclusion. Denton paints a very
+gloomy picture of him at this time[177]; so does Mr. Jessop, who says,
+the agricultural labourers of the fifteenth century were, compared
+with those of to-day, 'more wretched in their poverty, incomparably
+less prosperous in their prosperity; worse clad, worse fed, worse
+housed, worse taught, worse governed; they were sufferers from
+loathsome diseases, of which their descendants know nothing; the very
+beasts of the field were dwarfed and stunted; the disregard of to
+sell their corn at low prices to the detriment of the whole kingdom: a
+typical example of the political economy of the time, which considered
+the prosperity of agriculture indispensable to the welfare of the
+country, even if the consumer suffered. Accordingly, it was enacted
+that wheat could be exported without a licence when it was under 6s.
+8d. a quarter, except to the king's enemies. On imports of corn there
+had been no restriction until 1463, when 3 Edw. IV, c. 2 forbade the
+import of corn when under 6s. 8d: a statute due partly to the fear
+that the increase of pasture was a danger to tillage land and the
+national food supply, and partly to the fact that the landed interest
+had become by now fully awake to the importance of protecting
+themselves by promoting the gains of the farmer.[178] It may be
+doubted, however, if much wheat was imported except in emergencies at
+this time, for many countries forbade export. These two statutes were
+practically unaltered till 1571,[179] and by that of 1463 was
+initiated the policy which held the field for nearly 400 years.
+
+Thorold Rogers denounces the landlords for legislating with the object
+of keeping up rents, but, as Mr. Cunningham has pointed out, this
+ignores the fact that the land was the great fund of national wealth
+from which taxation was paid; if rents therefore rose it was a gain to
+the whole country, since the fund from which the revenue was drawn was
+increased.[180]
+
+In spite of the high wages of agricultural labourers, the movement
+towards the towns noticed by Richard II continued. The statute 7 Hen.
+IV, c. 17, asserts that there is a great scarcity of labourers in
+husbandry and that gentlemen are much impoverished by the rate of
+wages; the cause of the scarcity lying in the fact that many people
+were becoming weavers,[181] and it therefore re-enacted 12 Ric. II,
+c. 5, which ordained that no one who had been a servant in husbandry
+until 12 years old should be bound apprentice, and further enacted
+that no person with less than 20s. a year in land should be able to
+apprentice his son. Like many other statutes of the time this seems to
+have been inoperative, for we find 23 Hen. VI, c. 12 (1444), enacting
+that if a servant in husbandry purposed leaving his master he was to
+give him warning, and was obliged either to engage with a new one or
+continue with the old. It also regulated the wages anew, those fixed
+showing a substantial increase since the statute of 1388. By the
+year:--
+
+  A bailiff was to have L1 3s. 4d., and 5s. worth of clothes.
+  A chief hind, carter, or shepherd, L1, and 4s. worth of clothes.
+  A common servant in husbandry, 15s., and 3s. 4d. worth of clothes.
+  A woman servant, 10s., and 4s. worth of clothes.
+  All with meat and drink.
+
+By the day, in harvest, wages were to be:--
+
+  A mower, with meat and drink, 4d.; without, 6d.
+  A reaper or carter, with meat and drink, 3d.; without, 5d.
+  A woman or labourer, with meat and drink, 2d.; without, 4d.
+
+In the next reign the labourer's dress was again regulated for him,
+and he was forbidden to wear any cloth exceeding 2s. a yard in price,
+nor any 'close hosen', apparently tight long stockings, nor any hosen
+at all which cost more than 14d.[182] Yeomen and those below them were
+forbidden to wear any bolsters or stuff of wool, cotton wadding, or
+other stuff in their doublets, but only lining; and somewhat
+gratuitously it was ordered that no one under the degree of a
+gentleman should wear pikes to his shoes.
+
+In 1455 England's Thirty Years' War, the War of the Roses, began, and
+agriculture received another set back. The view that the war was a
+mere faction fight between nobles and their retainers, while the rest
+of the country went about their business, is somewhat exaggerated. No
+doubt, the mass of Englishmen, as in the civil war of the seventeenth
+century, preferred to 'sit still', as Clarendon said, but the business
+of many must have been very much upset. The various armies were
+compelled to obtain their supplies from the country, and with the
+lawless habits of the times plundered friend and foe alike, as
+Cavalier and Roundhead did afterwards; and many a farmer must have
+seen all his stock driven off and his grain seized to feed the
+combatants. For instance, it was said before the battle called Easter
+Day Field that all the tenants of Abbot's Ripton in Huntingdonshire
+were copyholders of the Abbot of Ramsey, and the northern army lay
+there so long that they impoverished the country and the tenants had
+to give up their copyholds through poverty.[183] The loss of life,
+too, must have told heavily on a country already suffering from
+frequent pestilence. It is calculated that about one-tenth of the
+whole population of the country were killed in battle or died of
+wounds and disease during the war; and as these must have been nearly
+all men in the prime of life, it is difficult to understand how the
+effect on the labour market was not more marked. The enclosing of land
+for pasture farms, which we shall next have to consider, was probably
+in many cases an absolute necessity, for the number of men left to
+till the soil must have been seriously diminished.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[171] See table at end of volume. The shrinkage of prices which
+occurred in the fifteenth century was due to the scarcity of precious
+metals.
+
+[172] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iv. 128.
+The rent of arable land on Lord Derby's estate in Wirral in 1522 was a
+little under 6d. a statute acre; of meadow, about 1s. 6d.--_Cheshire
+Sheaf_ (Ser. 3), iv. 23.
+
+[173] Thorold Rogers, _op. cit._ iv. 3.
+
+[174] Thorold Rogers, _op. cit._ iv. 39.
+
+[175] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 187. The amount of seed for the various
+crops was, wheat 2 bushels per acre, barley 4, oats 2-1/2.
+
+[176] By 4 Hen. IV, c. 14, labourers were to receive no hire for holy
+days, or on the eves of feasts for more than half a day; but the
+statute was largely disregarded.
+
+[177] See _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 105: 'The undrained
+neglected soil, the shallow stagnant waters which lay on the surface
+of the ground, the unhealthy homes of all classes, insufficient and
+unwholesome food, the abundance of stale fish eaten, and the scanty
+supply of vegetables predisposed rural and town population to
+disease.'
+
+[178] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 448.
+
+[179] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1852), p. 412. In 1449
+Parliament had decided that all foreign merchants importing corn
+should spend the money so obtained on English goods to prevent it
+leaving the country.--McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, i. 655.
+
+[180] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 191.
+
+[181] Much of the weaving, however, was done in rural districts.
+
+[182] See 3 Edw. IV, c. 5; _Rot. Parl._ v. 105; 22 Edw. IV, c. 1.
+
+[183] Cunningham, _op. cit._ i. 456.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ENCLOSURE
+
+
+We have now reached a time when the enclosure question was becoming of
+paramount importance,[184] and began to cause constant anxiety to
+legislators, while the writers of the day are full of it. Enclosure
+was of four kinds:
+
+  1. Enclosing the common arable fields for grazing, generally
+     in large tracts.
+
+  2. Enclosing the same by dividing them into smaller fields,
+     generally of arable.
+
+  3. Enclosing the common pasture, for grazing or tillage.
+
+  4. Enclosing the common meadows or mowing grounds.
+
+It is the first mainly, and to a less degree the third of these, which
+were so frequent a source of complaint in the fifteenth and sixteenth
+centuries; for the first, besides displacing the small holder, threw
+out of employment a large number of people who had hitherto gained
+their livelihood by the various work connected with tillage, and the
+third deprived a large number of their common rights.
+
+The first Enclosure Act was the Statute of Merton, passed in 1235, 20
+Henry III, c. 4, which permitted lords of manors to add to their
+demesnes such parts of the waste pasture and woods as were beyond the
+needs of the tenants. There is evidence, however, that enclosure,
+probably of waste land, was going on before this statute, as the
+charter of John, by which all Devonshire except Dartmoor and Exmoor
+was deforested, expressly forbids the making of hedges, a proof of
+enclosure, in those two forests.[185] We may be sure that the needs of
+the tenants were by an arbitrary lord estimated at a very low figure.
+At the same time many proceeded in due legal form. Thomas, Lord
+Berkeley, about the period of the Act reduced great quantities of
+ground into enclosures by procuring many releases of common land from
+freeholders.[186] His successor, Lord Maurice, was not so observant of
+legality. He had a wood wherein many of his tenants and freeholders
+had right of pasture. He wished to make this into a park, and treated
+with them for that purpose; but things not going smoothly, he made the
+wood into a park without their leave, and then treated with his
+tenants, most of whom perforce fell in with his highhanded plan; those
+who did not 'fell after upon his sonne with suits, in their small
+comfort and less gaines.'[187] Sometimes the rich made the law aid
+their covetousness, as did Roger Mortimer the paramour of the 'She
+Wolf of France'. Some men had common of pasture in King's Norton Wood,
+Worcestershire, who, when Mortimer enclosed part of their common land
+with a dike, filled the dike up, for they were deprived of their
+inheritance. Thereupon Mortimer brought an action of trespass against
+them 'by means of jurors dwelling far from the said land', who were
+put on the panel by his steward, who was also sheriff of the county,
+and the commoners were convicted and cast in damages of L300, not
+daring to appear at the time for fear of assault, or even death.[188]
+Neither dared they say a word about the matter till Mortimer was dead,
+when it is satisfactory to learn that Edward III gave them all their
+money back save 20 marks. We are told that Lord Maurice Berkeley
+consolidated much of his demesne lands, throwing together the
+scattered strips and exchanging those that lay far apart from the
+manor houses for those that lay near; trying evidently to get the home
+farms into a ring fence as we should term it.[189] In this policy he
+was followed by his successor Thomas the Second, who during his
+ownership of the estate from 1281 to 1320, to the great profit of his
+tenants and himself, encouraged them to make exchanges, so as to make
+their lands lie in convenient parcels instead of scattered strips, by
+which he raised the rent of an acre from 4d. and 6d. to 1s. 6d.[190]
+There is a deed of enclosure made in the year 1250, preserved, by
+which the free men of North Dichton 'appropriated and divided between
+them and so kept for ever in fee all that place called Sywyneland,
+with the moor,' and they were to have licence to appropriate that
+place, which was common pasture (the boundaries of which are given),
+'save, however, to the grantor William de Ros and his heirs' common of
+pasture in a portion thereof named by bounds, with entry and exit for
+beasts after the wheat is carried. The men of North Dichton were also
+to have all the wood called Rouhowthwicke, and to do what they liked
+with it.[191] In return they gave the lord 10 marks of silver and a
+concession as regards a certain wood. It has been noticed that the
+Black Death, besides causing many of the landlords to let their
+demesnes, also made them turn much tillage into grass to save labour,
+which had grown so dear. We have also seen that the statutes
+regulating wages were of little effect, and they went on rising, so
+that more land was laid down to grass. The landowners may be said to
+have given up ordinary farming and turned to sheep raising.
+
+English wool could always find a ready sale, although Spanish sheep
+farming had developed greatly; and the profitable trade of growing
+wool attracted the new capitalist class who had sprung up, so that
+they often invested their recently made fortunes in it, buying up many
+of the great estates that were scattered during the war.[192]
+
+The increase of sheep farming was assisted by the fact that the
+domestic system of the manufacture of wool, which supplanted the guild
+system, led, owing to its rapid and successful growth, to a constant
+and increasing demand for wool. At the same time this development of
+the cloth industry helped to alleviate the evils it had itself caused
+by giving employment to many whom the agricultural changes wholly or
+partially deprived of work. 'It is important to remember, that where
+peasant proprietorship and small farming did maintain their ground it
+was largely due to the domestic industries which supplemented the
+profits of agriculture.'[193]
+
+Much of the land laid down to grass was demesne land, but many of the
+common arable fields were enclosed and laid down. John Ross of Warwick
+about 1460 compares the country as he knew it with the picture
+presented by the Hundred Rolls in Edward I's time, showing how many
+villages had been depopulated; and he mentions the inconvenience to
+travellers in having to get down frequently to open the gates of
+enclosed fields.[194]
+
+Enclosure was really a sure sign of agricultural progress; nearly all
+the agricultural writers from Fitzherbert onwards are agreed that
+enclosed land produced much more than uninclosed. Fitzherbert, in the
+first quarter of the sixteenth century, said an acre of land rented
+for 6d. uninclosed was worth 8d. when enclosed. Gabriel Plattes, in
+the seventeenth century, said an acre enclosed was worth four in
+common. In fact, the history of enclosures is part of the history of
+the great revolution in agriculture by which the manorial system was
+converted into the modern system as we know it to-day of several
+ownership and the triumvirate of landlord, tenant farmer, and
+labourer. No one could have objected to the enclosure of waste; it was
+that of the common arable fields and of the common pasture that
+excited the indignation of contemporaries. They saw many of the small
+holders displaced and the countryside depopulated; many of the
+labourers were also thrown out of employment, for there was no need in
+enclosed fields of the swineherd and shepherd and oxherd who had
+tended the common flocks of the villagers in the old unfenced fields.
+But much of the opposition was founded on ignorance and hatred of
+change; England had been for ages mainly a corn-growing land, and,
+many thought, ought to remain so. As a matter of fact, what much of
+the arable land wanted was laying down to grass; it was worn out and
+needed a rest. The common field system was wasteful; the land, for
+instance, could never be properly ploughed, for the long narrow strips
+could not be cross-ploughed, and much of it must have suffered
+grievously from want of manure at a time when hardly any stock was
+kept in the winter to make manure. The beneficial effect of the rest
+is shown by the fact that at the end of the sixteenth century, when
+some of the land came to be broken up, the produce per acre of wheat
+had gone up largely.[195] Marling and liming the land, too, which had
+been the salvation of much of it for centuries, had gone out partly
+because of insecurity of tenure, partly because in the unsettled state
+of England men knew not if they could reap any benefit therefrom; and
+partly because, says Fitzherbert, men were lazier than their fathers.
+There can be no doubt that enclosures were often accompanied with
+great hardships and injustice. Dugdale, speaking of Stretton in
+Warwickshire,[196] says that in Henry VII's time Thomas Twyford,
+having begun the depopulation thereof, decaying four messuages and
+three cottages whereunto 160 acres of 'errable' land belonged, sold it
+to Henry Smith; which Henry, following that example, enclosed 640
+acres of land more, whereby twelve messuages and four cottages fell to
+ruins and eighty persons there inhabiting, being employed about
+tillage and husbandry, were constrained to depart thence and live
+miserably. By means whereof the church grew to such ruin that it was
+of no other use than for the shelter of cattle. A sad picture, and
+true of many districts, but much of the depopulation ascribed to
+enclosures was due to the devastation of the Civil Wars.
+
+In spite of these enclosures, which began to change the England of
+open fields into the country we know of hedgerows and winding roads,
+great part of the land was in a wild and uncultivated state of fen,
+heath, and wood, the latter sometimes growing right up to the walls of
+the towns.[197] An unbroken series of woods and fens stretched right
+across England from Lincoln to the Mersey, and northwards from the
+Mersey to the Solway and the Tweed; Warwickshire, Northamptonshire,
+and Leicestershire were largely covered by forests, and Sherwood
+Forest extended over nearly the whole of Notts. Cannock Chase was
+covered with oaks, and in the forest of Needwood in Camden's time the
+neighbouring gentry eagerly pursued the cheerful sport of hunting. The
+great forest of Andredesweald, though much diminished, still covered a
+large part of Sussex, and the Chiltern district in Bucks and
+Oxfordshire was thick with woods which hid many a robber. The great
+fen in the east covered 300,000 acres of land in six counties, in
+spite of various efforts to reclaim the land, and was to remain in a
+state of marsh and shallow water till the seventeenth century.
+
+North and west of the great fen was Hatfield Chase, 180,000 acres
+mostly swamp and bog, with here and there a strip of cultivated land,
+much of which had been tilled and neglected; a great part too of
+Yorkshire was swamp, heath, and forest, and of Lancashire marshes and
+mosses, some of which were not drained till recent times. The best
+corn-growing counties were those lying immediately to the north of
+London, stretching from Suffolk to Gloucestershire, and including the
+southern portions of Staffordshire and Leicestershire; Essex was a
+great cheese county; Hants, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, and
+Bedfordshire were famous for malt, and Leicestershire for peas and
+beans. The population of England in 1485 was probably from two to two
+and a half millions. At the time of Domesday it was under two
+millions, and from that date increased perhaps to nearly four millions
+at the time of the Black Death in 1348-9, which swept away from
+one-third to one-half of the people, and repeated wars and pestilences
+seem to have kept it from increasing until Tudor times. Of the whole
+population no fewer than eleven-twelfths were employed in
+agriculture.[198]
+
+It was sought to remedy enclosure and depopulation by legislation, and
+the statute of 4 Hen. VII, c. 19, was passed, which stated in its
+preamble that where in some towns (meaning townships or villages) 200
+persons used to be occupied and lived by their lawful labours, now
+there are occupied only two or three herdsmen, so that the residue
+fall into idleness, and husbandry is greatly decayed, churches
+destroyed, the bodies there buried not prayed for, the parsons and
+curates wronged, and the defence of this land enfeebled and impaired;
+the latter point being wisely deemed one of the most serious defects
+in the new system of farming. Indeed, the encouragement of tillage was
+largely prompted by the desire to see the people fed on good
+home-grown corn and made strong and healthy by rural labour for the
+defence of England. It therefore enacted that houses which within
+three years before had been let for farms with 20 acres of tillage
+land should be kept in that condition, under a penalty of forfeiting
+half the profits to the king or the lord of the fee. Soon after Henry
+VIII ascended the throne came another statute, 6 Hen. VIII, c. 5, that
+all townships, villages, &c., decayed and turned from husbandry and
+tillage into pasture, shall by the owner be rebuilt and the land made
+mete for tillage within one year; and this was repeated and made
+perpetual by a law of the next year.[199]
+
+But legislation was in vain; the price of wool was now beginning to
+advance so that the attraction of sheep farming was irresistible, and
+laws, which asked landowners and farmers to turn from what was
+profitable to what was not, were little likely to be observed,
+especially as the administration of these laws was in the hands of
+those whose interest it was that they should not be observed.
+
+Their ill success, however, did not deter the Parliament from fresh
+efforts. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 13, sets forth the condition of affairs in
+its preamble: as many persons have accumulated into few, great
+multitude of farms and great plenty of cattle, especially sheep,
+putting such land as they can get into pasture, and enhanced the old
+rents and raised the prices of corn, cattle, wool, and poultry almost
+double, 'by reason whereof a mervaylous multitude and nombre of the
+people of this realme be not able to provide drynke and clothes
+necessary for themselves, but be so discoraged with myserie and
+povertie that they fall dayly to thefte and robberye or pitifully dye
+for hunger and colde.' So greedy and covetous were some of these
+accumulators that they had as many as 24,000 sheep; and a good sheep,
+that was used to be sold for 2s. 4d. or 3s. at the most, was now from
+4s. to 6s.; and a stone of clothing wool, that in some shires was
+accustomed to be sold for 18d. or 20d., is now 3s. 4d. to 4s.; and in
+others, where it was 2s. 4d. to 3s. it is now 4s. 8d. to 5s.
+
+It was therefore enacted that no man, with some exceptions, was to
+keep more than 2,000 sheep at one time in any part of the realm,
+though lambs under one year were not to count. The frequency of these
+laws proves their inefficacy, and the conduct of Henry VIII was the
+chief cause of it; for while Parliament was complaining of the
+decrease of tillage he gave huge tracts of land taken from the
+monasteries to greedy courtiers, who evicted the tenants and lived on
+the profits of sheep farming.[200] For the dissolution of the
+monasteries was now taking Place,[201] and the best landowners in
+England, some of whom farmed their own land long after most of the lay
+landlords had given it up or turned it into grass, and whose lands are
+said to have fetched a higher rent than any others, were robbed and
+ruined. Including the dissolution of the monasteries and the
+confiscation of the chantry lands in 1549 by Edward VI, about
+one-fifteenth of the land of England changed hands at this time. The
+transfer of the abbey lands to Henry's favourites was very prejudicial
+to farming; it was a source of serious dislocation of agricultural
+industry, marked by all the inconvenience, injustice, and loss that
+attends a violent transfer of property. It is probable also that many
+of the monastic lands were let on stock and land leases; and the stock
+was confiscated, with inevitable ruin to the tenant as well as the
+landlord.[202] And not only was a serious injury wrought to
+agriculture by the spoliation of a large number of landlords generally
+noted for their generosity and good farming, but with the religious
+houses disappeared a large number of consumers of country produce, the
+amount of which may be gathered from the following list of stores of
+the great Abbey of Fountains at the dissolution: 2,356 horned cattle,
+1,326 sheep, 86 horses, 79 swine, and large quantities of wheat, oats,
+rye, and malt, with 392 loads of hay.[203] It must indeed have seemed
+to many as if the poor farmer was never to have any rest; no sooner
+were the long wars over and pestilences in some sense diminished, than
+the evils of enclosure and the dissolution of the monasteries came
+upon him. Many ills were popularly ascribed to the fall of the
+monasteries; in an old ballad in Percy's _Reliques_ one of the
+characters says, in western dialect:--
+
+     'Chill tell the what, good vellowe,
+     Before the friers went hence,
+     A bushel of the best wheate
+     Was zold vor vorteen pence,
+     And vorty eggs a penny
+     That were both good and newe.'
+
+NOTE.--If any further proof were needed of the constant attention
+given by Parliament to agricultural matters, it would be furnished by
+the Acts for the destruction of vermin.[204] Our forefathers had no
+doubt that rooks did more harm than good, yearly destroying a
+'wonderfull and marvelous greate quantitie of corne and graine'; and
+destroying the 'covertures of thatched housery, bernes, rekes,
+stakkes, and other such like'; so that all persons were to do their
+best to kill them, 'on pain of a grevous amerciament'.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[184] Much the same tendencies were at work in other countries,
+especially in Germany.
+
+[185] Slater, _English Peasantry and Enclosure_, 248.
+
+[186] Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 113.
+
+[187] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1331, p. 127.
+
+[188] _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 141.
+
+[189] Ibid. i. 141.
+
+[190] _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 160.
+
+[191] _Historical MSS. Commission, 6th Report_, p. 359.
+
+[192] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 379.
+
+[193] Ashley, _English Woollen Industry_, pp. 80-1. Broadly speaking,
+there are four stages in the development of industry--the family
+system, the guild system, the domestic system, and the factory system.
+
+[194] _Hist. Reg. Angl._, p. 120.
+
+[195] Gisborne, _Agricultural Essays_, pp. 186-9.
+
+[196] _Antiquities of Warwickshire_ 2nd ed., p. 51.
+
+[197] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 135.
+
+[198] See Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 331; Denton,
+_England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 127.
+
+[199] 7 Hen. VIII, c. 1.
+
+[200] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 489.
+
+[201] Dissolution of small monasteries, 1536; of greater, 1539-40.
+
+[202] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iv. 129.
+
+[203] Dugdale, _Monasticon_, v, 291.
+
+[204] 24 Hen. VIII, c. 10; 8 Eliz. c. 15; 14 Eliz. c. 11; 39 Eliz. c.
+18.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+FITZHERBERT.--THE REGULATION OF HOURS AND WAGES
+
+
+The farming of this period is portrayed for us by Fitzherbert, the
+first agricultural writer of any merit since Walter of Henley in the
+thirteenth century. He was one of the Justices of Common Pleas, and
+had been a farmer for forty years before he wrote his books on
+husbandry, and on surveying in 1523, so that he knew what he was
+writing about; 'there is nothing touching husbandry contained in this
+book but I have had experience thereof and proved the same.' In spite
+of the increase of grazing in his time he says the 'plough is the most
+necessarie instrument that an husbandman can occupy', and describes
+those used in various counties; in Kent, for instance, 'they have some
+go with wheeles as they do in many other places'; but the plough of
+his time is apparently the same as that of Walter of Henley, and
+altered little till the seventeenth century. The rudeness of it may be
+judged from the fact that in some places it only cost 10d. or 1s.
+though in other parts they were as much as 6s. or even 8s. He
+says[205] it was too costly for a farmer to buy all his implements,
+wherefore it is necessary for him to learn to make them, as he had
+done in the Middle Ages before the era of ready-made implements, when
+he always bought the materials and put them together at home. On the
+vexed question of whether to use horses or oxen for ploughing, he says
+it depends on the locality; for instance, oxen will plough in tough
+clay and upon hilly ground, whereas horses will stand still; but
+horses go faster than oxen on even ground and light ground, and are
+'quicke for carriages, but they be far more costly to keep in winter.'
+
+According to him, oxen had no shoes as horses had.[206] Here is his
+description of a harrow: it is 'made of six final peeces of timber
+called harow bulles, made either of ashe or oke; they be two yardes
+long, and as much as the small of a man's leg; in every bulle are five
+sharpe peeces of iron called harow tyndes, set somewhat a slope
+forward.' This harrow, drawn by oxen, was good to break the big clods,
+and then the horse harrow came after to break the smaller clods. It
+differed slightly from the former, some having wooden tines. For
+weeding corn the chief instrument 'is a pair of tongs made of wood,
+and in dry weather ye must have a weeding hoke with a socket set upon
+a staffe a yard long.'[207]
+
+He recommends that grass be mown early, for the younger and greener
+the grass is the softer and sweeter it will be when it is hay, and the
+seeds will be in it instead of fallen out as when left late; advice
+which many slovenly farmers need to-day. He does not approve of the
+custom of reaping rye and wheat high up and mowing them after, but
+advises that they be cut clean; barley and oats, however, should be
+commonly mown. Both wheat and rye were to be sown at Michaelmas, and
+were cast upon the fallow and ploughed under, two London bushels of
+wheat and rye being the necessary amount of seed per acre. In spite of
+his praise of the plough he allows that the sheep 'is the most
+profitablest cattel that a man can have', and he gives a list of their
+diseases, among the things that rot them being a grass called
+sperewort, another called peny grass, while marshy ground, mildewed
+grass, and grass growing upon fallow and therefore full of weeds were
+all conducive to rot. The chief cause, however, is mildew, the sign of
+whose presence is the honeydew on the oak leaves. In buying cattle to
+feed the purchaser is to see that the hair stare not, and that the
+beast lacks no teeth, has a broad rib, a thick hide, and be loose
+skinned, for if it stick hard to his ribs he will not feed[208]; it
+should be handled to see if it be soft on the forecrop, behind the
+shoulder, on the hindermost rib upon the huck bone, and at the nache
+by the tail. Among other diseases of cattle he mentions the gout,
+'commonly in the hinder feet'; but he never knew a man who could find
+a remedy. He was a great advocate of enclosures; for it was much
+better to have several closes and pastures to put his cattle in, which
+should be well quick-setted, ditched, and hedged, so as to divide
+those of different ages, as this was more profitable than to have his
+cattle go before the herdsman (in the common field).
+
+It will be seen from the above that Fitzherbert made no idle boast in
+saying he wrote of what he knew, and much of his advice is applicable
+to-day, though the time is past for the farmer's wife to 'wynowe all
+manner of cornes, to make malte, to shere corne, and in time of nede
+to helpe her husbande to fyll the mucke wayne or dounge carte, dryve
+the plough, lode heye, corne, and such other'; though she may go or
+ride to the market 'to sel butter, cheese, milke, eggs, chekyns,
+hennes, and geese.'[209] It appears that the horses of England at this
+time had considerably deteriorated, for the statute 27 Hen. VIII, c.
+6, mentions the great decay of the breed, the cause it is stated being
+that 'in most places of this Realme little horsis and naggis of small
+stature and valeu be suffered to depasture and also to covour marys
+and felys of very small stature'; therefore owners and farmers of deer
+parks shall keep in every such park two brood mares of 13 'hand
+fulles' (hands) at least. Another statute, 32 Hen. VIII, c. 13, strove
+to remedy this evil by enacting that no entire horse under 15 hands
+was to feed on any forest, chase, waste, or common land.
+
+This statute was a useful one, so also was 21 Hen. VIII, c. 8, which
+forbade for three years the killing of calves between January 1 and
+May 1, under a penalty of 6s. 8d., because so many had been killed by
+'covetous persons' that the cattle of the country were dwindling in
+number. Others, however, were merely meddlesome, and directed against
+that unpopular man the dealer. For instance, owners refusing to sell
+cattle at assessed prices were to answer first in the Star Chamber (25
+Hen. VIII, c. 1); and by 3 and 4 Edw. VI, c. 19, no cattle were to be
+bought but in open fair or market, and not to be resold then alive,
+though a man might buy cattle anywhere for his own use. No person,
+again, was to resell cattle within five weeks after he bought them (5
+Edw. VI, c. 14); and a common drover had by the same Act to have a
+licence from three justices before he could buy and sell cattle. We
+may be sure that these laws were more honoured in the breach than in
+the observance, as they deserved to be.
+
+Hops were said to have been introduced from the Low Countries about
+the middle of Henry VIII's reign; but there can be no doubt that this
+is a mistake. It has been mentioned that they flourished in the
+gardens of Edward I, and a distinguished authority[210] says the hop
+may with probability be reckoned a native of Britain; but it was first
+used as a salad or vegetable for the table, the young sprouts having
+the flavour of asparagus and coming earlier. Hasted, the historian of
+Kent, states[211] that a petition was presented to Parliament against
+the hop plant in 1428 wherein it was called a 'wicked weed'. Harrison
+says, 'Hops in time past were plentiful in this land, afterwards their
+maintenance did cease, and now (cir. 1580) being revived where are
+anie better to be found?'[212] Even then growers had to face foreign
+competition, as the customs accounts prove that considerable
+quantities were imported into England. In 1482 a cwt. was sold for 8s.
+and 1 cwt. 21 lb. for 19s. 6d., an early example of that fluctuation
+in price which has long characterized them.[213] Their average price
+about this time seems to have been 14s. 1/2d. a cwt.
+
+During the Tudor period the number of day labourers increased, largely
+owing to the enclosures having deprived the small holder and commoner
+of their land and rights. But judging by the statutes those paid
+yearly and boarded in the farm house were still most numerous.
+
+In 1495 the hours of labourers were first regulated by law. The
+statute II Hen. VII, c. 22, says that 23 Hen. VI, c. 12,[214] was
+insufficiently observed; and besides increasing wages slightly set
+forth the following hours for work on the farm: the labourer was to be
+at his work from the middle of March to the middle of September before
+5 a.m., and have half an hour for breakfast and an hour and a half for
+dinner and sleep, when sleep was allowed, that is from the middle of
+May to the middle of August; when sleep was not allowed, an hour for
+dinner and half an hour for his nonemete or lunch; and he was to work
+till between 7 and 8 p.m. During the rest of the year he was to work
+from daylight to dark. The attempt to regulate hours, which seem fair
+and reasonable, no doubt met with better success than that to regulate
+wages, for 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3 (1514), says the previous statutes had
+been very much disregarded, and sets down the rates once more:--
+
+  A bailiff's yearly wages, with diet, were to be not more
+    than L1 6s. 8d., and 5s. for clothes.
+
+  A chief hind, carter, or chief shepherd, with diet, not more
+    than L1, and 5s. for clothes.
+
+  A common servant or labourer, with diet, not more than
+    16s. 8d., and 4s. for clothes.
+
+  A woman servant, with diet, not more than 10s., and 4s.
+    for clothes.
+
+By the day, except in harvest, a common labourer from Easter to
+Michaelmas was to have 2d. with food and drink, 4d. without; and from
+Michaelmas to Easter 1-1/2d. with food and drink, and 3d. without. In
+harvest:--
+
+  A mower, with food, 4d. a day; without, 6d.
+  A reaper, with food, 3d. a day; without, 5d.
+  A carter, with food, 3d.; without, 5d.
+  Other labourers, with food, 2-1/2d.; without, 4-1/2d.
+  Women, with food, 2-1/2d.; without, 4-1/2d.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[205] _Booke of Husbandry_ (ed. 1568), fol. 5. The surveyor of
+Fitzherbert's day combined some of the duties of the modern bailiff
+and land agent: he bought and sold for his employer, valued his
+property, and supervised the rents.
+
+[206] _Booke of Husbandry_ (ed. 1568), fol. vi.
+
+[207] Ibid. fol. xv.
+
+[208] _Booke of Husbandry_ (ed. 1568), fol. xxix.
+
+[209] Fitzherbert adds pigs and all manner of cornes, so altogether
+the farmer's wife seems to have done as much as the farmer.
+
+[210] Sir Jas. E. Smith, _English Flora_, iv. 241.
+
+[211] _History of Kent_ (ed. 1778), i. 123.
+
+[212] _Description of Britain_ (Furnivall ed.), p. 325.
+
+[213] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iii. 254.
+
+[214] See above.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+1540-1600
+
+PROGRESS AT LAST.--HOP-GROWING.--PROGRESS OF ENCLOSURE.--HARRISON'S
+'DESCRIPTION'
+
+
+The period we have now reached was one of steady growth in the value
+of land and its products. In 1543 Henry VIII, who had given away or
+squandered, in addition to the great treasure left him by his thrifty
+father, all the wealth obtained from the dissolution of the
+monasteries, debased the coinage in order to get more money into his
+insatiable hands, and prices went up in consequence. But there were
+other causes: the influx of precious metals from newly discovered
+America into Europe had commenced to make itself felt, and the
+population of the country began to grow steadily. Also, it must not be
+forgotten that the seasons, which in the early part of the century had
+been normal, were for the next sixty years frequently rainy and bad.
+It is unnecessary to say that this must have largely helped to raise
+the price of corn. The average price of wheat from 1540-1583 was 13s.
+10-1/2d. a quarter; from 1583-1702, 39s. 0-1/2d. Corn was still
+subject to extraordinary fluctuations: in 1557, Holinshed says before
+harvest wheat was 53s. 4d. a quarter, malt 44s. After harvest wheat
+was 5s., malt 6s. 8d., the former prices being due to a terrible
+drought in England. Oxen in the period 1583-1703 were worth 75s.
+instead of under L1 in the period 1400-1540. Wool was from 9d. to 1s.
+a lb. instead of about 3-1/2d., and all other farm products increased
+with these.[215] Hops were from 1540-1582 about 26s. 8d. a cwt., and
+from 1583-1700, 82s. 9-1/2d. In 1574 Reynold Scott published the first
+English treatise on hops,[216] in which he says, 'one man may well
+keep 2,000 hils, upon every hil well ordered you shall have 3 lb. of
+hoppes at the least, one hundred pounds of these hoppes are commonly
+worth 26s. 8d., one acre of ground and the third part of one man's
+labour with small cost beside, shall yield unto him that ordereth the
+same well, fortie marks yearly and that for ever,' an optimistic
+estimate that many growers to-day would like to see realized. 'In the
+preparation of a hop garden', says the same writer, 'if your ground be
+grasse, it should be first sowen with hempe or beanes which maketh the
+ground melowe, destroyeth weedes, and leaveth the same in good season
+for this purpose.[217] At the end of Marche, repayre to some good
+garden to compound with the owner for choice rootes, which in some
+places will cost 5d. an hundredth. And now you must choose the biggest
+rootes you can find, such as are three or four inches about, and let
+every root be nine or ten inches long, and contain three joints.'
+Holes were then to be dug at least 8 feet apart, one foot square, and
+one foot deep, and in each two or three roots planted and well hilled
+up. Tusser, however, recommended them much closer:
+
+     'Five foot from another each hillock should stand,
+     As straight as a levelled line with the hand.
+     Let every hillock be four foot wide.
+     Three poles to a hillock, I pas not how long,
+     Shall yield the more profit set deeplie and strong.'
+
+Three or four poles were to be set to each hill 15 or 16 feet long,
+unless the ground was very rich, the poles 9 or 10 inches in
+circumference at the butt, so as to last longer and stand the wind
+well. After they were put up, the ground round the poles was to be
+well rammed. Rushes or grass were used for tieing the hops. During
+the growth of the hops, not more than two or three bines were to be
+allowed to each pole; and after the first year the hills were to be
+gradually raised from the alleys between the rows until, according to
+the illustrations in Scott's book, they were 3 or 4 feet high, the
+'greater you make your hylles the more hoppes you shall have upon
+your poals'. When the time for picking came, the bines when cut were
+carried to a 'floore prepared for the purpose', apparently of
+hardened earth, where they were stripped into baskets, and Scott
+thought that 'it is not hurtfull greatly though the smaller leaves be
+mingled with the hoppes'. In wet weather the hops were to be stripped
+in the house. The fire for drying hops was of wood, and some dried
+their hops in the sun, both processes to us appearing very risky; as
+the first would be too quick, and the latter next to impossible in
+September in England. They were sometimes packed in barrels, as
+Tusser tells us, 'Some close them up drie in a hogshead or vat, yet
+canvas or sontage (coarse cloth) is better than that.'
+
+By this time England had largely changed from a corn-growing to a
+stock-raising country; Harrison, writing in the middle of Queen
+Elizabeth's reign, says, 'the soile of Britaine is more inclined
+to feeding and grazing than profitable for tillage and bearing of
+corne ... and such store is there of cattle in everie place that the
+fourth part of the land is scarcely manured for the provision of
+graine.' But this statement seems exaggerated. We know that by
+Harrison's time enclosures had affected but a small area, and the
+greater part of the cultivated land was in open arable fields. The
+yield of corn was now much greater than in the Middle Ages; rye or
+wheat well tilled and dressed now produced 15 to 20 bushels to the
+acre instead of 6 or 8, barley 36 bushels, oats 4 or 5 quarters[218],
+though in the north, which was still greatly behind the rest of
+England, crops were smaller. No doubt this was partly due to the
+much-abused enclosures: the industrious farmer could now do what he
+liked with his own, without hindrance from his lazy or unskilful
+neighbour. Tusser's preference for the 'several' field is very
+decided; comparing it with the 'champion' or common field he says:--
+
+     The countrie inclosed I praise
+     the tother delighteth me not,
+     There swineherd that keepeth the hog
+     there neetherd with cur and his horne,
+     There shepherd with whistle and dog
+     be fence to the medowe and corne,
+     There horse being tide on a balke
+     is readie with theefe for to walke,
+     Where all things in common doth reste
+     corne field with the pasture and meade,
+     Tho' common ye do for the best
+     yet what doth it stand ye in steade?
+     More plentie of mutton and beefe
+     corne butter and cheese of the best
+     More wealth any where (to be briefe)
+     more people, more handsome and prest (neat.)
+     Where find ye? (go search any coaste)
+     than there where enclosure is most.
+     More work for the labouring man
+     as well in the towne as the fielde.
+     For commons these commoners crie
+     inclosing they may not abide,
+     Yet some be not able to bie
+     a cow with her calf by her side.
+     Nor laie (intend) not to live by their wurke,
+     But thievishly loiter and lurke.
+     What footpaths are made and how brode
+     Annoiance too much to be borne,
+     With horse and with cattle what rode
+     is made thorowe erie man's come.
+
+But the rich graziers boasted that they did not grow corn because
+they could buy it cheaper in the market; and they are said to have
+traded on the necessity of the poor farmer to sell at Michaelmas in
+order to pay his rent, and when they had got the corn into their
+hands they raised the price. The corn-dealers of the time were looked
+upon with dislike by every one; many of the dearths then so frequent,
+and nearly always caused by bad seasons, were ascribed to 'engrossers
+buying of corn and witholding it for sale'. By a statute of 1552 the
+freedom of internal corn trade was entirely suppressed, and no one
+could carry corn from one part of England to another without a
+licence, and any one who bought corn to sell it again was liable to
+two months' imprisonment and forfeited his corn. Although we shall
+see that this policy was reversed in the next century, the feeling
+against corn-dealers survived for many years and was loudly
+expressed during the Napoleonic war; indeed, we may doubt if it
+is extinct to-day.
+
+Many of the fruits and garden produce, which had been neglected since
+the first Edward, had by now come into use again, 'not onlie among the
+poor commons, I meane of melons, pompions, gourds, cucumbers,
+radishes, skirets (probably a sort of carrot), parsneps, carrots,
+cabbages, navewes (turnip radishes (?)), turnips,[219] and all kinds
+of salad herbes, but also at the tables of delicate merchants,
+gentlemen, and the nobilitie.'[220]
+
+'Also we have most delicate apples, plummes, pears, walnuts, filberts,
+&c., and those of sundrie sorts, planted within fortie years past, in
+comparison of which most of the old trees are nothing worth: so have
+we no less store of strange fruite, as abricotes, almonds, peaches,
+figges, cornetrees (probably cornels) in noblemen's orchards. I have
+seen capers, orenges, and lemmons, and heard of wild olives growing
+here, besides other strange trees.'[221]
+
+As a proof of the growth of grass in proportion to tillage between
+the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, Eden gives several
+examples,[222] of which the following are significant:--
+
+                                           Arable.     Grass.
+                                           acres.      acres.
+
+  1339. 18 messuages in Norfolk had         160         60
+  1354. a Norfolk manor                     300         59
+  1395. 2 messuages in Warwickshire         400         60
+  1560. 2 messuages in Warwickshire         600        660
+  1567. a Norfolk estate                    200        400
+  1569.    "     manor                       60         60
+
+'Our sheepe are very excellent for sweetness of flesh, and our woolles
+are preferred before those of Milesia and other places.'[223] So
+thought Harrison and many English landowners and farmers too, so that
+legislation was powerless to stop the spread of sheep farming. In 1517
+a commission of inquiry instigated by Wolsey held inquisition on
+enclosures and the decay of tillage, and it seems to have been the
+only honest effort to stop the evil. It was to inquire what decays,
+conversions, and park enclosures had been made since 1489, but the
+result even of this attempt was small. In 1535 a fresh statute, 27
+Hen. VIII, c. 22, stated that the Act limiting the number of sheep to
+be kept had only been observed on lands held of the king, whereon many
+houses had been rebuilt and much pasture reconverted to tillage; but
+on lands holden of other lords this was not the case, therefore the
+king was to have the moiety of the profits of such lands as had been
+converted from tillage to pasture since 4 Hen. VII until a proper
+house was built and the land returned to tillage; but the Act only
+applied to fourteen counties therein enumerated. The enclosing for
+sheep-runs still went on, however, often with ruthless selfishness;
+houses and townships were levelled, says Sir Thomas More, and nothing
+left standing except the church, which was turned into a sheep-house:
+
+     'The towns go down, the land decays,
+     Of corn-fields plain lays,
+     Great men maketh nowadays
+     A sheepcot of the church',
+
+said a contemporary ballad.
+
+Latimer wrote, 'where there were a great many householders and
+inhabitants there is now but a shepherd and his dog.' 'I am sorie to
+report it,' says Harrison,[224] 'but most sorrowful of all to
+understand that men of great port and countenance are so far from
+suffering their farmers to have anie gaine at all that they themselves
+become graziers, butchers, tanners, sheepmasters, and woodmen, thereby
+to enrich themselves.' The Act against pulling down farmhouses was
+evaded by repairing one room for the use of a shepherd; a single
+furrow was driven across a field to prove it was still under the
+plough; to avoid holding illegal numbers of sheep flocks were held in
+the names of sons and servants.[225] The country swarmed with heaps of
+miserable paupers, 'sturdy and valiant' beggars, and thieves who,
+though hanged twenty at a time on a single gallows, still infested all
+the countryside, their numbers being swollen by the dissolution of the
+monasteries and the breaking up of the bands of retainers kept by the
+great nobles.
+
+Rents also were rising rapidly. Latimer's account of his father's farm
+is too well known to be again quoted; his opinions were shared by all
+the writers of the day. Sir William Forrest, about 1540, says that
+landlords now demand fourfold rents, so that the farmer has to raise
+his prices in proportion, and beef and mutton were so dear that a poor
+man could not 'bye a morsell'. 'Howe joyne they lordshyp to
+lordshyppe, manner to manner, ferme to ferme. How do the rych men, and
+especially such as be shepemongers, oppresse the king's people by
+devourynge their common pastures with the shepe so that the poore are
+not able to keepe a cowe, but are like to starve. And yet when was
+beef ever so dere or mutton, wool now 8s. a stone.
+
+'Now', says another, later in the century, 'I can never get a horse
+shoed under 10d. or 12d., when I have also seen the common pryce was
+6d. And cannot your neighbour remember that within these thirty years
+I could bye the best pigge or goose that I could lay my hand on for
+four pence which now costeth 12d., a good capon for 3d. or 4d., a hen
+for 2d., which now costeth me double and triple.'[226]
+
+Parliament, of course, tried to regulate the price of food; an Act of
+1532, 24 Hen. VIII, c. 3, ordained that beef and pork should be 1/2d.
+a lb. and mutton and veal 5/8d. a lb. The decrease in the number of
+cows also received its attention; 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 3,
+states that forasmuch of late years a great number of persons have fed
+in their pastures sheep and cattle with no regard to breeding, so that
+there was great scarcity of stock, therefore for every 60 sheep kept
+one milk cow shall be kept, and for every 120 sheep one calf shall be
+bred, and for every 10 head of horned cattle shall be kept one milk
+cow, and for every two cows so kept one calf shall be bred. The Act
+was to last seven years, but 13 Eliz. c. 25 made it perpetual.
+
+In 1549 came the rising of Robert Kett in Norfolk, the last attempt of
+the English labourer to obtain redress of his wrongs by force of arms,
+though Kett himself belonged to the landlord class and took the side
+of the people probably by accident. The petition of grievances drawn
+up by his followers aimed at diminishing the power of lords of manors
+as regards enclosures, the keeping of dove-cots, and other feudal
+wrongs. 'We pray', said the insurgents, 'that all bondmen may be made
+free, for God made all free with His precious blood-shedding.' The
+rebellion came to nothing, and some of the abuses at which it was
+aimed were dying a natural death, though enclosure often acted hardly
+on the poor man.
+
+The manorial system went on steadily decaying, and by this time the
+demesne lands had much diminished in area on most manors. Many parcels
+had been sold to the new landlord class, who had made their fortunes
+in the towns and, like most Englishmen, desired to become country
+gentlemen.
+
+Much of the demesne had been sold in small lots to well-off tradesmen,
+and as the villeins had become copyholders a large part of the land
+was owned or occupied by yeomen or tenant farmers, who cultivated from
+20 to 150 acres. Many of the labourers also owned or rented cottages
+with 4 or 5 acres attached to them. Such was the rural society at the
+end of the Tudor period. The progress of enclosures helped to destroy
+this, for the labourers gradually ceased to own or occupy land, farms
+increased in size, the ownership of land came to be more and more the
+privilege of the rich, and people flocked in increasing numbers to the
+towns.[227a] In five Norfolk manors in Elizabeth's time only from
+one-seventh to one-tenth was in demesne, and little of what was left
+was farmed by the lord, but let to farmers on leases.[227b] On some
+manors the demesne land lay in compact blocks near the manor house; on
+others it was in scattered strips of various size; in others it lay in
+blocks and strips. The following particulars of a manor in Norfolk
+give a good picture of an estate in 1586-8, the tenants on it, their
+rank, and the size of their holdings:--
+
+  Horstead with Staninghall, 2,746 acres.
+
+  The tenants with messuages in the village were:--
+
+                               Acres.
+
+   1. J. Topliffe, gentleman     280
+   2. F. Woodhouse, Esquire      270
+   3. R. Ward, gentleman         265
+   4. H. Shreve                  180
+   5. A. Pightling, widow        120
+   6. W. Rose's heirs            110
+   7. G. Berde                    60
+   8. A. Thetford, gentleman      60
+   9. T. Pightling                60
+  10. R. Pightling                60
+  11. J. Rose                     40
+  12. R. Lincoln                  40
+  13. W. Jeckell                  20
+  14. W. Bulwer                   20
+  15. E. Newerby, gentleman       15
+  16. T. Barnard                  12
+  17. E. Sparke                   10
+
+There were also 12 tenants without houses, holding from 1 to 20
+acres; the demesne was 230 acres; there were two glebes containing 84
+acres, and town lands of 7 acres. The waste amounted to 350 acres,
+which by 1599 had all disappeared.
+
+On this manor the houses were not collected together in a village as
+usual in most parts of England, but scattered about the estate. In
+two other manors the amount of waste remaining at this period was
+very small, but in three others little had been 'approved' and much
+consequently remained; most of the 'approvements', where made, seem
+to have been of long standing, and all the enclosures made were for
+tillage, not for grass as we should expect. The 350 acres of waste
+that remained at Horstead in 1586-8 was enclosed in 1599 by agreement
+between the lords of the manor and the tenants on the following
+terms:--
+
+  1. Lords to take 80 acres in severalty.
+
+  2. Lords to reserve all rights to treasure trove, minerals,
+     waifs, &c., with right of entry to take the same.
+
+  3. All rights of pasture, shack, and foldage were to be
+     extinguished on all lands in the village.
+
+  4. The tenants were to pay an annual quit rent of L7 14s. 5d.
+     for their shares of the common.
+
+Before a man enclosed he consolidated his holding by exchange, so as
+to bring it into a compact parcel instead of scattered strips, a very
+lengthy process; then he ploughed up the bounds between the strips;
+after which he changed the direction of the ploughing, ploughing the
+land crossways, a very necessary change, as it had all been ploughed
+lengthways for centuries; and lastly he erected his fences: the
+bounds of the strips, however, were sometimes left to show which were
+freehold and which copyhold. On the other hand, there were exceptions
+to the curtailment of the demesne: on an Oxfordshire manor of the
+sixteenth century the greater part of the 64 yard-lands of which it
+consisted had by then passed from the possession of the peasants to
+the private use of the lord of the manor.[228] To each yard-land
+belonged a house and farmyard, 24 to 28-3/4 acres of arable land, a
+share in the commonable meadows which for each occupier came to some 8
+acres, also the right to turn out 8 oxen or cows, or 6 horses and 40
+sheep on to the common pasture. Probably, as in other manors in
+ancient times, each occupier had a right to as much firewood as was
+necessary, and timber for building purposes and fences. The arable
+land lay in numerous small plots of half an acre each and less,
+mingled together in a state of great confusion, and was farmed on the
+four-field system--wheat, beans, oats, fallow--though 200 years before
+the three-field system had been most common in the district. Many of
+the common arable fields evidently often contained, in those days of
+poor cultivation and inefficient drainage, patches of boggy and poor
+land which were left uncultivated.[229] In the rolls of the Manor of
+Scotter in Lincolnshire, in the early part of the sixteenth century,
+no one was to allow his horses to depasture in the arable fields
+unless they were tethered on these bad spots to prevent them wandering
+into the growing corn.[230] Many of the other regulations of this
+manor throw a flood of light on the farming of the day. In 1557 it was
+ordered that no man should drive his cattle unyoked through the
+corn-field under a penalty of 3s. 4d. Every man shall keep a
+sufficient fence against his neighbour under the same penalty. No man
+shall make a footpath over the corn-field, the penalty for so doing
+being 4d. Every one shall both ring and yoke their swine before S.
+Ellen's Day (probably May 3), under a penalty of 6s. 8d., the custom
+of yoking swine to prevent them breaking fences being common until
+recent times. It was the custom in some manors to sow peas in a plot
+especially set apart for the poor. Another rule was that no one should
+bake or brew by night for fear of burning down the flimsy houses and
+buildings. The penalty for ploughing up the balks which divided the
+strips, or meere (marc) furrows as they were called in Lincolnshire,
+was 2d., a very light one for so serious an offence. In 1565 a penalty
+of 10s. was imposed on Thomas Dawson for breaking his hemp, i.e.
+separating the fibre from the bark in his large open chimney on winter
+nights, a habit which the manor courts severely punished owing to the
+risk of fire, for hemp refuse is very inflammable. It 1578 it was laid
+down that every one was to sow the outside portion of their arable
+lands, and not leave it waste for weeds to the damage of his
+neighbours; and that those who were too poor to keep sheep should not
+gather wool before 8 o'clock in the morning, in reference to the
+custom of allowing the poor to pick refuse wool found on bushes and
+thorns, and this rule was to prevent them tearing wool from the sheep
+at night under that pretext. No man was to keep any beasts apart from
+the herdsman, for if the herdsman did not know the animals he could
+not tell them from strays. Every one was to sweep their chimney four
+times a year, for fear of sparks falling on the thatch. No man was to
+suffer the nests of crows or magpies in his ground, but pull them down
+before May Day. In the meadows, before each man began to mow his grass
+he was to mark the exact limits of his own land with 'wadsticks' or
+tall rods, so that there could be no mistake as to boundaries. The
+health of the community and of the live stock also received attention:
+in 1583 one Pattynson was fined 1s. for allowing a 'scabbed' horse to
+go on the common; dead cattle were to be buried the day after death,
+and all unwholesome meat was to be buried.
+
+Harrison praises the farmer of his day highly: 'the soyle is even now
+in these oure dayes growne to be much more fruitfulle; the cause is
+that our country men are grown more skilful and careful throwe
+recompense of gayne.' He was also doing well by means of his skill and
+care; and in spite of the raising of rents by the much-abused
+landlords; for in former times 'for all their frugality they were
+scarcely able to live and pay their rents on rent day without selling
+a cow or a horse'. Such also used to be their poverty, that if a
+farmer went to the alehouse, 'a thing greatly used in those days,' and
+there, 'in a braverie to show what store he had, did caste downe his
+purse and therein a noble or 6 shillings in silver unto them, it was
+very likely that all the rest could not lay downe so much against it.'
+And In Henry's time, though rents of L4 had increased to L40, L50, or
+L100, yet the farmer generally had at the end of his term saved six or
+seven years' rent, besides a 'fair garnish of pewter on his cupboard',
+and odd vessels, also 'three or four feather beds, so manie coverlids
+and carpets of tapestry, a silver salt, a bowle for wine, and a dozzen
+of spoones to furnish up the sute'. His food consisted principally of
+beef, and 'such food as the butcher selleth', mutton, veal, lamb,
+pork, besides souse, brawn, bacon, fruit, fruit pies, cheese, butter,
+and eggs.[231] In feasting, the husbandman or farmer exceeded,
+especially at bridals, purifications of women, and such other
+meetings, where 'it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and
+spent'. But, besides these, there were many poorer farmers who lived
+at home 'with hard and pinching diet'. Wheaten bread was at this time
+a luxury confined to the gentility, the farmer's loaf, according to
+Tusser, was sometimes wheat, sometimes rye, sometimes mastlin, a
+mixture of wheat and rye, though the poorer farmer on uninclosed land
+ate bread made of beans.
+
+The poor ate bread of rye or barley, and in time of dearth of beans,
+peas, and oats, and sometimes acorns.[232] According to Tusser, the
+labourer was allowed roast meat twice a week,
+
+     'Good plowmen looke weekly of custom and right,
+     For roast meate on Sundaies, and Thursdaies at night';
+
+and Latimer calls bacon 'the necessary meate' of the labourer, and it
+seems to have been his great stand-by then as now. The bread and bacon
+were supplemented largely by milk and porridge.[233] The statute, 24
+Hen. VIII, c. 3, says that all food, and especially beef, mutton,
+pork, and veal, 'which is the common feeding of mean and poor
+persons.' was too dear for them to buy, and fixed the price of beef
+and pork at 1/2d. a lb. and of mutton and veal at 5/8d. a lb.; but the
+statute, like others of the kind, was of little avail, and the price
+of beef was in the middle of the sixteenth century about 1d. a lb. or
+8d. in our money. As the average price of wheat at the same date was
+14s. a quarter, or about 112s. in our money, fresh meat was
+comparatively much cheaper, and it is no wonder that even the farmer
+could not afford wheaten bread regularly. Moryson, writing in
+Elizabeth's reign, says 'Englishmen eate barley and rye brown bread,
+and prefer it to white as abiding longer in the stomeck and not so
+soon digested'.[234]
+
+A tithe dispute at North Luffenham in Rutlandshire throws considerable
+light on the financial position of the various classes interested in
+the land about 1576. At the trial several witnesses were examined, who
+all made statements as to the amount of their worldly wealth, and it
+is a noteworthy fact that even the humblest had saved something;
+perhaps because there was no poor law or State pension fund to
+discourage thrift.[235] Thomas Blackburne, a husbandman, who had
+served his master as 'chief baylie of his husbandrie', had at the end
+of a long life saved L40. Another, William Walker, eighty years of
+age, during forty years of service to Mr. John Wymarke had put by L10.
+Robert Sculthorp, who had at one time been a farmer, was worth L26 6s.
+8d., but the size of his farm is unfortunately not told us. Roland
+Wymarke, a gentleman farmer, who had farmed for forty years at North
+Luffenham, was little better off than Thomas Blackburne, the baylie,
+for he estimated his capital at L50. L50, however, must not be taken
+as representing the average wealth of a 'gentleman', though a few
+hundred pounds was then considered a considerable fortune. In 1577
+Thomas Corny, a prosperous landlord at Bassingthorpe, Lincolnshire,
+had a house with a hall, three parlours, seven chambers, a high
+garret, maid's garret, five chambers for yeomen hinds, shepherd, &c.,
+two kitchens, two larders, milk-house, brew-house, buttery, and
+cellar; and it was furnished with tables, carpets, cushions, pictures,
+beds, curtains, chairs, chests, and numerous kitchen and other
+utensils, besides a quantity of plate, which was then looked upon not
+only as a useful luxury but as a safe form of investment. The small
+squire was not nearly so well off as this. In 1527 the house of John
+Asfordby, who was of that degree, contained a hall, parlour, small
+parlour, low parlour, a chamber over the parlour, gallery chamber,
+buttery, and kitchen, and furniture was scanty, but the plate cupboard
+was well filled.[236] A prosperous yeoman was often comparatively
+better off than the small squire. Richard Cust, of Pinchbeck in the
+same county, though his house was small, consisting only of a hall,
+parlour with chamber over, kitchen with chamber over, brew-house,
+milne-house (mill-house), and milk-house, was richer in furniture,
+possessing a folding-table, 4 chairs, 6 cushions, 27 pieces of pewter,
+10 candlesticks, 4 basins, 1 laver, 6 beds, and other articles.[237]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[215] See table at end, and Thorold Rogers's prices in Vol. V. of his
+great work.
+
+[216] 'A perfite platforme of a Hoppegarden', in _Arte of Gardening_,
+by R. Scott, 1574.
+
+[217] Tusser recommends that the hopyard be dug. Thomas Tusser was
+born in Essex, about 1525, and died in 1580. He led a roving life,
+which included a good deal of farming; but the statement that he died
+poor appears to be inaccurate. Much of his advice is not very
+valuable.
+
+[218] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, p. 110.
+
+[219] Usually grown in gardens, until the middle of the seventeenth
+century. Tusser also mentions them.
+
+[220] _Description of Britain_, ii. 324 (Furnivall ed.).
+
+[221] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, ii. 329.
+
+[222] _State of the Poor_, i. 48-9. Blomefield's _Norfolk_, iv. 569,
+i. 51, i. 649. Dugdale, _Warwickshire_, p. 557.
+
+[223] _Description of Britain_, iii. 5.
+
+[224] _Description of Britain_ (ed. Furnivall), ii. 243.
+
+[225] Froude, _History of England_, v. III.
+
+[226] 'A compendious or brief examination of certain ordinary
+complaints', quoted by Eden, _State of the Poor_, 1. 119.
+
+[227a] _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (New Series),
+xix. 103.
+
+[227b] Ibid. xi. 74 sq.
+
+[228] Nasse, _Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages_, p. 9.
+_Archaeologia_, xxxiii. 270.
+
+[229] In the still surviving open fields at Laxton, mentioned above,
+there are certain unploughed portions called 'sicks', or grassy
+patches, never cultivated.--Slater, _op. cit._ p. 9.
+
+[230] _Archaeologia_, xlvi. 374.
+
+[231] _Description of Britain_, ii. 150.
+
+[232] In the reign of Mary, 'the plain poor people did make very much
+of acorns.' Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 181.
+
+[233] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 116.
+
+[234] _Itinerary_, iii. 140.
+
+[235] _Rutland Magazine_, i. 64.
+
+[236] _Victoria County History: Lincolnshire_, ii. 331.
+
+[237] See _Records of Cust Family_, i. 56.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+1540-1600
+
+LIVE STOCK.--FLAX.--SAFFRON.--THE POTATO. THE ASSESSMENT OF WAGES
+
+
+The cattle and sheep of this period have generally been described as
+poor animals, and no doubt they would seem small to us. To Jacob
+Rathgib, a traveller, writing in 1592, they seemed worthy of praise:
+'England has beautiful oxen and cows, with very large horns, low and
+heavy and for the most part black; there is abundance of sheep and
+wethers, which graze by themselves winter and summer without
+shepherds.' The heaviest wethers, according to him, weighed 60 lb. and
+had at the most 6 lb. of wool, a much heavier fleece than is generally
+ascribed to them; others had 4 or 5 lb. Horses were abundant, and,
+though low and small, were very fleet; the riding horses being
+geldings and generally excellent. Immense numbers of swine were in the
+country, 'larger than in any other.' Six years later another
+traveller, Hentzner, noticed that the soil abounded with cattle, and
+the inhabitants were more inclined to feeding than ploughing. He saw,
+too, a Berkshire harvest-home: 'As we were returning to our inn (at
+Windsor) we happened to meet some country people celebrating their
+harvest-home, their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having
+besides an image richly dressed by which perhaps they would signify
+Ceres; this they keep moving about, while men and women, men and
+maid-servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud
+as they can till they arrive at the barn.' Harrison[238] tells us, no
+doubt with patriotic bias, that 'our oxen are such as the like are not
+to be found in any country of Europe both for greatness of body and
+sweetness of flesh, their horns a yard between the tips.' Cows had
+doubled in price in his time, from 26s. 8d. to 53s. 4d. 'Our horses
+are high, but not of such huge greatness as in other places,' yet
+remarkable for the easiness of their pace; and 5 or 6 cart-horses will
+draw 30 cwt. a long journey, and a pack-horse will carry 4 cwt.
+without any hurt,--a statement which is one more proof of the poorness
+of the roads. The chief horse fairs were at 'Ripon, Newportpond,
+Wolfpit, and Harborow,' where horse dealers were as great rogues as
+ever. Pigeons were still the curse of the farmer, and their cotes were
+called dens of thieves.
+
+By the end of the sixteenth century, certainly by the first quarter of
+the seventeenth, the villein, who in the Middle Ages had formed the
+bulk of the population, had disappeared.[239] It is probable that even
+at the beginning of the Tudor period the great majority of the bondmen
+had become free, and that the serf then only formed one per cent. of
+the population, and many of those had left the country and become
+artizans in the towns, for personal serfdom had outlasted demesne
+farming; though even there the heavy hand of the lord was upon them
+and enforced the ancient customs.
+
+In the sixteenth century flax was apparently grown upon most farms,
+the statutes 34 Hen. VIII, c. 4, and 5 Eliz., c. 5, obliging every
+person occupying 60 acres of tillage to have a quarter of an acre in
+flax or hemp, and Moryson says the husbandmen wore garments of coarse
+cloth made at home, so did their wives, and 'in generall' their linen
+was coarse and made at home.[240]
+
+     'Good flax and good hemp to have of her own
+     In Maie a good housewife will see it be sowne',
+
+sings Tusser. The statute of Henry VIII enjoined the sowing of flax
+and hemp because of the great increase of idle people in the realm, to
+which the numerous imports, especially linen cloth, contributed.
+
+Saffron also was much grown, that at Saffron Walden in Essex was said
+to be the best in the world, the profit from it being reckoned at L13
+an acre. Its virtues were innumerable, if we may believe the
+contemporary writers; it flavoured dishes, helped digestion, was good
+for short wind, killed moths, helped deafness, dissolved gravel, and,
+lastly, 'drunk in wine doth haste on drunkenesse.'
+
+The most important novelty of this century was the potato, which the
+colonists, sent out in 1586 by Sir Walter Raleigh, brought from
+Virginia to Ireland, though it had been introduced into Europe by the
+Spaniards before this. According to Gerard, the old English botanist,
+it was, on its first introduction from America, only cultivated in the
+gardens of the nobility and gentry as a curious exotic; and in 1606 it
+occurs among the vegetables considered necessary for a nobleman's
+household.[241] It is curious to find Gerard comparing it to what he
+calls the 'common potato', in reality the sweet potato brought to
+England by Drake and Hawkins earlier in the century. In James I's
+reign the root was considered a great delicacy, and was sold to the
+queen's household at 2s. a lb., an enormous price.
+
+Like most agricultural novelties it spread very slowly, but about the
+middle of the seventeenth century began to be planted out in the
+fields in small patches in Lancashire, whence it spread all over the
+kingdom and to France.[242] At this date it was looked upon as a very
+second-rate article of food, if we may judge by the _Spectator_ (No.
+232), which alludes to it as the diet of beggars. About 1690, Houghton
+says, 'now they begin to spread all the kingdom over,' and recommends
+them boiled or roasted and eaten with butter and sugar.[243] Eden
+notes its increasing popularity during the eighteenth century, and by
+his time (the end of that century) in many parts it was the staple
+article of food for the poor; in Somerset the children mainly
+subsisted on it, and in Devon it was made into bread. Its cultivation
+on a large scale in the field did not, however, spread all over
+England till the Napoleonic war, and the ignorance and prejudice
+against it lasted for long; even Cobbett called it 'the lazy root,'
+and whole potatoes were used for seed regardless of the number of
+eyes.
+
+In 1563 was passed the famous Act, 5 Eliz., c. 4, which Thorold Rogers
+has asserted to be the commencement of a conspiracy for cheating the
+English workman of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to deprive him
+of hope, and to degrade him into irremediable poverty.[244] The
+violence of this language is a prima facie reason for doubting the
+correctness of his assertion, which on examination is found to be
+grossly exaggerated. Under Richard II the justices were authorized to
+fix the rate of wages, provided they did not exceed the maximum fixed
+by Parliament. The Elizabethan statute abolished the maximum and left
+the justices to fix reasonable rates. So far from being an attempt to
+keep wages down it seems to have been an honest effort to regulate
+them according to prices,[245] whereas most previous statutes had
+merely reduced wages. The preamble of the Act states this clearly
+enough, saying that the existing laws with regard to the hiring and
+wages of servants were insufficient; chiefly because the wages 'are in
+dyvers places to small and not answerable to this time respecting the
+advancement of prices in all things that belong to the said servants
+and labourers, the said lawes cannot conveniently without the great
+greefe and burden of the poore labourer and hired man be put in due
+execution.' But as several of these Acts were still beneficial it was
+proposed to consolidate them into one statute in order to banish
+idleness, advance husbandry, and give the labourer decent wages. It
+was enacted therefore that all persons between the ages of twelve
+years and sixty, not being otherwise occupied, 'nor being a gentleman
+born, nor having lands of the yearly value of 40s., nor goods to the
+value of L10,' should be compellable to serve in husbandry with 'any
+person that keepeth husbandry' by the year, and the hours of work were
+re-enacted.
+
+The rates of wages of artificers, husbandmen, &c., were to be
+ascertained yearly by the justices and the sheriff, 'if he
+conveniently may,' at quarter sessions, 'calling unto them such
+discrete and grave persons as they shall thinck meete and conferring
+together respecting the plentie or scarcitie of the tyme and other
+circumstances necessary to be considered,' and the wages fixed were to
+be certified into Chancery. Then proclamations of the wages thus
+determined were to be made in the cities and market towns. Every
+person who gave higher wages than those established by the
+proclamation was to be imprisoned for ten days and fined L5, every
+receiver to be imprisoned twenty-one days. The importance still
+attached to the harvest season is shown by the section that all
+artificers and others were compellable to work in harvest or be put in
+the stocks two days and a night. For the better advancement of
+husbandry and tillage every householder farming 60 acres of tillage or
+more might receive an apprentice in husbandry, but no tradesman or
+merchant might take an apprentice save his own son, unless his parents
+had freehold of the annual value of 40s.; and no person was to use
+'any art mistery or manual occupation now in use' unless he had served
+seven years' apprenticeship to it. There can be no doubt that the
+clauses last quoted confined a large portion of the population to
+agricultural work, but as we know that the people were deserting the
+country and flocking to the towns, this must have seemed to the
+framers of the law very desirable.
+
+This method of fixing wages was in force until 1814, and its repeal
+then was entirely contrary to the opinion of the artizan class; but it
+may be doubted if the magistrates extensively used the powers given
+them by the Act, and wages seem to have been settled generally by
+competition. Several instances remain, however, of wages drawn up
+under this Act. Almost immediately after it was passed, in June 1564,
+the Rutland magistrates met under the Act, and stated that the prices
+of linen, woollen, leather, corn, and other victuals were great, so
+they drew up the following list of wages[246]:--
+
+  A bailiff in husbandry, having charge of two plough lands,
+    at least should have by the year 40s., and 8s.
+    for his livery.
+
+  A chief servant in husbandry, which can eire (plough), sow,
+    mow, thresh, make a rick, thatch and hedge, and can kill
+    and dress a hog, sheep, and calf, by the year 40s., and 6s.
+    for his livery.
+
+  A common servant in husbandry, which can mow, sow, thresh,
+    and load a cart, and cannot expertly make a rick, hedge, and
+    thatch, and cannot kill and dress a hog, sheep, or calf, by
+    the year 33s. 4d., and 5s. for his livery.
+
+  A mean servant in husbandry, which can drive the plough, pitch
+    The cart, and thresh, and cannot expertly sow, mow, thresh,
+    and load a cart, nor make a rick, nor thatch, by the year 24s.,
+    and 5s. for his livery.
+
+The chief shepherd is only to receive 20s. and 5s. for his livery; but
+this must be an error, as in the statutes 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3, and 23
+Hen. VI, c. 12, he was placed next the bailiff as we should expect.
+
+These wages were evidently 'with diet', and show a considerable
+advance on those fixed by 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3.[247] By the day the
+ordinary labourer was to have 6d. in winter, 7d. in summer, and 8d. to
+10d. in harvest time, 'finding himself.' A mower with meat earned 5d.,
+without meat 10d. a day; a man reaper with meat 4d., without 8d.; a
+woman reaper 3d., and 6d.
+
+As the price of corn and meat was three times what it had been in the
+fifteenth century, and the labourers' wages, taking into consideration
+his harvest pay, not quite double, the Rutland magistrates hardly
+observed the spirit of the Act. Rutland, moreover, judging by the
+assessments of the time, was a county where agriculture was very
+flourishing; and thirty years after we find in Yorkshire that the
+winter wages of the labourer were 4d. and the summer 5d. a day: that
+is, he had little more wages than in the fifteenth century, with
+provisions risen threefold. At Chester at the same date his day's
+wages were to be 4d. all the year round.[248] In 1610 the Rutland
+magistrates at Oakham[249] decreed that an ordinary labourer was to
+have 6d. a day in winter and 7d. in summer, the same wages as in 1564,
+yet wheat in that year averaged 32s. 7d. a quarter. A bailiff by the
+year was now advanced to 52s., a manservant of the best sort, equal no
+doubt to the chief servant in husbandry, to 50s., a 'common servant'
+to 40s., and a 'mean servant' to 29s., but all without livery. At
+Chelmsford, in 1651, there was a very different rate fixed, the
+ordinary labourer getting from 1s. to 1s. 2d. a day; but this seems to
+have been exceptional, as at Warwick in 1684 he was only to have 8d.,
+and as late as 1725 in Lancashire 9d. to 10d. a day.[250] In 1682, by
+the Bury St. Edmunds assessment, a common labourer got 10d. a day in
+winter and 1s. in summer, and a reaper in harvest 1s. 8d. By the year
+a bailiff was paid L6, a carter L5, and a common servant L3 10s., of
+course with food.[251] These figures clearly prove that the wages
+fixed by the magistrates were often terribly inadequate, though it
+must be said in their defence that the great rise in prices probably
+struck them as abnormal and not likely to last. It should be
+remembered, too, that besides his wages the labourer and his family
+had often bye industries such as weaving to fall back upon, and in
+most parts of England still a piece of common land to help him.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[238] _Description of Britain_, iii. 2.
+
+[239] _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (New Series),
+xvii. 235.
+
+[240] Moryson, _Itinerary_ (ed. 1617), iii. 179.
+
+[241] _Archaeologia_ xiii. 371.
+
+[242] In 1650 it was much cultivated about London.
+
+[243] _Collections on Husbandry and Trade_, ii. 468.
+
+[244] _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 398.
+
+[245] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, ii. 38. The Statute of
+Labourers of 1351 made the same effort, see p. 43.
+
+[246] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iv. 120;
+and _Work and Wages_, p. 389.
+
+[247] See above.
+
+[248] Thorold Rogers, _Work and Wages_, pp. 390-1.
+
+[249] _Archaeologia_, xi. 200.
+
+[250] Thorold Rogers, _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 396.
+
+[251] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 215. It is strange to find food reckoned
+so highly; if the common labourer at Hawsted received his food, he was
+only paid 5d. a day in winter, and 6d. in summer; if one man's food
+was reckoned at half his wages, how far did the other half go in
+feeding and clothing his family?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+1600-1700
+
+CLOVER AND TURNIPS.--GREAT RISE IN PRICES. MORE ENCLOSURE.--A FARMING
+CALENDAR
+
+
+The seventeenth century was one of considerable progress in English
+agriculture. The decay of common-field farming was enabling individual
+enterprise to have its way. The population was rapidly growing; by
+1688 the returns of the hearth tax prove that the northern counties
+were nearly as thickly populated as the southern, and prices during
+the first half were continually rising, though after that they
+remained almost stationary, since the effect of the influx of precious
+metals from the New World was exhausted. In the first half of the
+century John Smyth ascribes the advance of rents to the Castilian
+voyages opening the New World, whereby such floods of treasure have
+flowed into Europe that the rates of Christendom are raised near
+twentyfold'.
+
+But the greatest agricultural event of the century was the
+introduction of clover and the encouragement of turnips as grown in
+Holland, by Sir Richard Weston, about 1645. No doubt the turnip was
+already well known in England. Tusser and Fitzherbert both mention it,
+apparently as a garden root only; but Gerard in his _Herbal_, 1597,
+says it grew in fields 'and divers vineyards or hoppe gardens in most
+places of England', which certainly points to an effort having been
+made generally to use it as a field crop whenever an enclosed space
+gave it some protection from the depredations of the common herds.
+However, its cultivation must have declined, as long after this it was
+regarded as a novelty as a field crop in most parts of England.[252]
+In Holland it had been used in the field universally, and this use
+with that of 'great', as it was called, or broad clover, Weston
+pressed on the English farmer. But their progress was wofully slow. At
+Hawsted in Suffolk clover and turnips were first sown about 1700, and
+the eastern portion of England was far ahead of the north and west; as
+late as 1772 Arthur Young wrote that 'sainfoin, cabbages, potatoes,
+and carrots are not common crops in England; I do not imagine above
+half or at most two-thirds of the nation cultivate clover.'[253] Yet
+their introduction must have been of the greatest benefit to the
+farmer and the public; his stock of hay was increased, he could
+utilize his fallows, and keep a much larger head of stock through the
+winter, who would give him a greater quantity of manure. Every one
+where turnips were grown could now have fresh meat during the winter.
+The slow progress of these great blessings is perhaps the strongest
+testimony in our history of the innate conservatism of the farmer. The
+green crop was for long considered to be suited only to the garden,
+and as our forefathers were prejudiced against the spade it was
+difficult to get such crops cultivated even there; but it should also
+be remembered that no crop was possible in the common fields which did
+not come to maturity before Lammas, unless some special agreement was
+made as to it.[254] Clover, Sir Richard Weston said, thrives best when
+sown on the worst and barrenest ground, which was to be pared and
+burnt, and unslaked lime added to the ashes. Then it was to be well
+ploughed and harrowed, and about 10 lb. of seed sown per acre in the
+end of March or in April. 'It will stand five years, and then when
+ploughed up will yield three or four years running rich crops of
+wheat, and then a crop of oats, after which you may sow clover again.'
+
+In the seventeenth century the practice of liming and marling, which
+had been largely discontinued since the fourteenth century, was
+revived (Westcote, in his _View of Devon_ in 1630, calls liming, &c.,
+a new invention), and there was also a great improvement in
+implements. Patents were taken out for draining machines in 1628, for
+new manures in 1633-6, ploughs 1623-7 and 1634, mechanical sowing
+1634-9. Only six were taken out, however, between 1640 and 1760 that
+concerned agriculture.[255] The Civil War checked the improvement, for
+though the great mass of the people had nothing to do with either
+party, the country was of necessity in a very unsettled state, and
+both sides plundered indiscriminately. Yet in some parts, as in
+Devonshire, so many of the able men served in the two armies, that few
+but old men, women, and children were left to manage the farms, and
+even they were afraid to grow more than enough to supply themselves
+since both armies seized the crops.[256] These bad effects lasted for
+some time afterwards; Chapple, a Devonshire land agent of the
+eighteenth century, says he had talked with people who remembered the
+state of husbandry in the last ten or twelve years of the reign of
+Charles II, when in many parts of Devonshire an acre or two of wheat
+was esteemed a rarity.
+
+That the rate of progress in the century was not more rapid is
+attributed by Blyth to several causes[257]:--
+
+  1. Want of leases, by which tenants were deprived of security.
+
+  2. Discouragement to flood (irrigate) land, from the risk of
+     law suits with neighbours.
+
+  3. Intermixture of different properties in common fields.
+
+  4. Unlimited pasturage on commons, by which they were overstocked.
+
+  5. The want of a law compelling all men to kill moles.
+
+  6. The excessive number of water-mills, to the great destruction
+     of much gallant land.
+
+The average price of wheat during the seventeenth century was 41s. a
+quarter, of barley 22s., and oats 14s. 8-1/2d. Oxen averaged about L5
+apiece, cows much less, about L3, and there was not much change in
+their value during the century. Sheep were about 10s. 6d., and a
+cart-horse in the first half of the century from L5 to L10, in the
+second half from L8 to L15. Beef rose from 2d. a lb. in the early part
+of the century to 3d. at the close of it. Wool remained stationary at
+from 9d. to 1s. per lb.
+
+[258]A proclamation of 1633 fixed the
+following prices for London poulterers and victuallers:--
+
+                                     s.   d.
+
+  Best turkey-cock                   4    4
+  Duck                                    8
+  Best hen                           1    0
+  3 eggs                                  1
+  1 lb. best fresh butter in winter       6
+  1 lb. best fresh butter in summer       5
+  1 lb. best salt butter                  4-1/2
+  Best fat goose                      2   0
+   "   crammed capon                  2   6
+   "   pullet                         1   6
+   "   chicken                            6
+
+According to the _Manydown Manor Rolls_ the Wootton churchwardens in
+1600 paid from 8s. to 11s. for calves, 4s. 4d. for a fat lamb, 8s. for
+a sheep, 6s. 8d. for a barren ewe, 6d. for a couple of chickens, 1s.
+6d. for 500 faggots.[259]
+
+After the restoration in 1660 another period of prosperity set
+in,[260] and altogether the century was a prosperous one for farmers
+and manufacturers. The newly established Royal Society materially
+helped agriculture. 'Since his majesty's most happy restoration the
+whole land hath been fermented and stirred up by the profitable hints
+it hath received from the Royal Society, by which means parks have
+been disparked, commons enclosed, woods turned into arable, and
+pasture lands improved by clover, St. foine, turnips, cole-seed, and
+many other good husbandries, so that the food of cattle is increased
+as fast, if not faster, than the consumption, and by these means the
+rent of the kingdom is far greater than ever it was.'[261] The century
+was distinguished also for the curious number of cycles of good and
+bad seasons; 1646-50 were years of prolonged dearth, wheat reaching an
+enormous price, and 1661-2, were famine years, while the end of the
+century was long famous for its barren years.
+
+With the prices of produce rents rose enormously. Very early in the
+century[262] rents of arable land had increased ninefold, since the
+fifteenth century, and by 1688 Davenant and King estimated the average
+rent of arable land in England at 5s. 6d. per acre and of permanent
+grass at 8s. 8d. Perhaps this is too high an estimate, as on the
+Belvoir estate of 17,837 acres in 1692 the rental all round was 3s.
+9-1/4d. an acre for land above the average in quality, though it must
+be remembered that the Earls and Dukes of Rutland were indulgent
+landlords.
+
+The _History of Hawsted_ affords a valuable index of the increase of
+rents at this period.[263] In 1500 the average rent was 1s. 4d. an
+acre; in 1572, 39 acres of arable, meadow, and pasture were let for
+2s. 3d. an acre, the landlord, it is interesting to notice, reserving
+the right of hawking, netting rabbits, hunting, and fowling; and about
+the same date other lands on the estate were let at 1s. 3d. and 1s.
+6d. an acre, so that there had not generally been much advance since
+1500, which is what we should expect, as the great rise took place at
+the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
+centuries. In 1589, therefore, it is not surprising to find that 40
+acres of meadow and pasture let at 5s. an acre, and in 1611 some
+buildings and 155 acres of park at 11s. an acre. In 1616, 366 acres of
+arable and pasture and 39 acres of meadow were valued at 12s. an acre
+for letting, and the Hall Farm of 175 acres (8-1/2 acres meadow) at
+10s.; and Great Pipers Farm of 138 acres (8 meadow) at 7s., while
+meadow and pasture near the mansion was valued at 21s. an acre.
+
+In 1658 the rent of the Hall Farm had advanced from 10s. an acre to
+about 13s., though in 1682 it went down to 11s. 6d.[264] According to
+the survey of the Manor of Manydown in Hampshire in 1650, meadow land
+was worth 20s. an acre, pasture 8s. to 10s., arable from 2s. to 10s.,
+the latter showing a great variation in quality.[265] In 1723 Bryers
+Wood Farm at Hawsted, which had been let in 1620 for L15, was let at
+L29 5s. These rents are considerably higher than the estimate of
+Davenant and King; but it must be remembered that they were for land
+in the parts of England, where farming was at its best, and they, in
+accounting for the whole country, had to take into consideration a
+vast amount of land in the north and west which was worth very little.
+In the Rawlinson Collection[266] in the Bodleian Library is a rental
+of Lord Kingston's estate in north Nottinghamshire in 1689, the rents
+averaging 10s. an acre; but this was an exceptionally good estate,
+much of the property being meadow and pasture. The farmhouses also
+were above the average, while in two of the parishes the tenants had
+rights of common, and in two others the tenancies were tithe free.
+There was very little arable land on the estate, three small holdings
+letting for 6s. 8d. an acre; and some of the pasture land was let at
+14s., 15s. 6d., and even 18s. an acre. The largest farm, Saundby Hall,
+of 607 acres, nearly all meadow and pasture, was 9s. 10d. an acre. The
+cottages were fortunate in having pieces of land attached to them. In
+Saundby, Richard Ffydall rented a cottage and 2 acres of arable land
+for L1 13s. 4d.; Widow Johnson a cottage and yard for 13s. 4d.;
+William Daubney a cottage with 6-1/2 acres of arable and 5-1/2 acres
+of pasture for L7 18s. 6d. A farm in Scrooby, consisting of a
+messuage, cottage, and 113 acres of arable, meadow, and pasture, only
+let at L23.
+
+As to the freehold value of land, in 1621, according to D'Ewes, it was
+worth from sixteen to twenty years' purchase; yet, in 1688, Sir Josiah
+Child said that lands now sell at twenty years' purchase, which fifty
+or sixty years before sold at eight or ten; and he also states, 'the
+same farms or lands to be now sold would yield treble and in some
+cases six times the money they were sold for fifty years ago'.[267]
+Davenant puts land at twelve years' purchase in 1600, at eighteen
+years in 1688.[268] In 1729 the price of land was said to be
+twenty-seven years' purchased.[269]
+
+The legislation against laying down tillage to grass was continued
+until the end of the sixteenth century. The statute 39 Eliz., c. 1,
+repealed 4 Hen. VII, c. 19, and all other Acts against pulling down
+houses, and provided that a house of husbandry should be a house that
+hath or hath had 20 acres of arable land. All such houses which had
+been destroyed during the last seven years were to be rebuilt, and if
+destroyed more than seven years only one-half was to be rebuilt; but
+to each of them at least 40 acres of land were to be attached.
+
+The next statute, 39 Eliz., c. 2, sets forth once more the advantages
+of tillage, viz. the increase and multiplying of people for service in
+the wars, and in time of peace the employment of a greater number of
+people, the keeping of people from poverty, the dispersal of the
+wealth of the kingdom in many hands, and 'the standing of this realm
+upon itself without depending upon foreign countries'[270]; and
+therefore enacts that lands converted from tillage to pasture shall be
+restored to tillage within three years, and lands then in tillage
+should be so continued; but this was only to extend to twenty-three
+counties, and omitted most of those in the south-west. At the
+beginning of the seventeenth century a reaction set in; the price of
+corn had risen immensely and continued to do so, the price of wool
+remained stationary, and tillage was as profitable as grass. In 1620
+Coke speaks of the man who only kept a shepherd and a dog as one who
+never prospered. In 1624 several of the tillage laws were
+repealed.[271]
+
+As an example of the unenclosed fields, at the end of the sixteenth
+century, we may take the common fields at Daventry, which were three
+in number, containing respectively 368, 383, and 524 acres, divided
+into furlongs, a term which had now a very wide signification, each of
+which was subdivided into lands nearly always half an acre in extent,
+several of these lands when adjoining being often held now by the same
+owner. One furlong may be taken as an example. It was 37 acres 1 rood
+in extent, and contained ninety-six lands, owned by seventeen people.
+The meadows were divided still more minutely, some of the smaller
+portions being only a quarter of an acre each. The largest meadow
+contained 50 acres, divided among fifty-three people. In the manor,
+besides the arable and meadow, there were 300 acres of common
+pasture, a park, and a small wood. There were forty-one freeholders
+and many leasehold tenants, the average freehold being 34 acres, the
+average leasehold only half an acre, small holdings being the usual
+feature of the unenclosed township.
+
+In the seventeenth century the price of wool ceased to operate as a
+cause of enclosure, but in many parts the change to pasture continued,
+owing to the rise in price of cattle and of wages. The same reason,
+too, for laying down land to grass that had been so powerful in the
+preceding centuries still existed, the common arable fields needed
+rest from continual cropping and poor manuring, while good crops of
+corn could be grown from the virgin soil of the newly enclosed waste.
+The preamble of the Durham decrees clearly states this: 'the land is
+wasted and worn with continual ploweing, and thereby made bare,
+barren, and very unfruitful.'[272] We may, therefore, take Coke's
+words as inapplicable to many districts. In the seventeenth century
+there were several methods of enclosing. Sometimes the lord of the
+manor enclosed and left the land of the tenants still in common; or a
+tenant enclosed piece by piece; or enclosures were made by Act of
+Parliament, the earliest of which for common fields was passed in the
+time of James I, a method at this period very seldom used; or there
+was an agreement between lord and tenants often authorized by the
+Courts of Chancery or Exchequer.
+
+Besides enclosure, another process was going on, the consolidation of
+farms by the amalgamation of small holdings into larger ones.
+Farmhouses, as we see them to-day, began to appear on the holdings
+thus consolidated, instead of being grouped together in villages. A
+writer in 1604 says, 'we may see many of their houses built alone like
+raven's nests, no birds building neere them' so unwonted was the sight
+of isolated dwellings in most places at the time.
+
+However, in 1630 Charles I went back to the policy of his forefathers
+and issued letters to certain of the Midland counties ordering all
+enclosures of the last two years to be removed, and Commissions were
+issued to inquire into the matter in 1632, 1635, and 1636,[273] the
+chief evil feared from enclosures being depopulation, and enclosers
+were prosecuted in the Court of Star Chamber.
+
+The assertion that enclosures ceased during the seventeenth century
+has been proved inaccurate by modern research, and there is no doubt
+that they went on continuously. In 1607, in the Midlands, the
+enclosing of land produced serious armed resistance, probably because
+the Midland counties were then the great corn-growing district of
+England, and the change to pasture and the consolidation of farms
+displaced a larger population there than elsewhere. Between 1628 and
+1630 enclosures in Leicestershire, for instance, were very numerous,
+no less than 10,000 acres being enclosed in that time, most of which
+was converted to pasture. The attempt of the Government to check the
+movement, initiated by Charles I, seems to have had considerable
+effect, but died away with the Civil War, and though other attempts
+were made under the Commonwealth they came to nothing, and from this
+time enclosures went on unchecked by the Government,[274] and were
+soon to have its active support. Yet there was a vast amount still in
+common field: the whole of the cultivated land of England in 1685 was
+stated by King and Davenant to amount to not much more than half the
+total area, and of this cultivated portion three-fifths was still
+farmed on the old common-field system. Northamptonshire,
+Leicestershire, Rutland, Huntingdonshire, and Bedfordshire were
+comparatively unenclosed.[275] From the books and maps of the day 'it
+is clear that many routes which now pass through an endless succession
+of orchards, corn-fields, hay-fields, and bean-fields then ran through
+nothing but heath, swamp, and warren. In the drawings of an English
+landscape made in that age for the Grand Duke Cosmo scarce a hedgerow
+is to be seen.... At Enfield, hardly out of sight of the smoke of the
+capital, was a region of five-and-twenty miles in circumference which
+contained only three houses and scarcely any enclosed fields.'[276]
+The enclosure of these areas was to be mainly the work of the latter
+half of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth
+centuries.
+
+The amount of enclosure in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the first
+half of the seventeenth centuries was, according to the latest
+research, much, and perhaps very naturally, exaggerated by
+contemporaries. Between 1455-1607 the enclosures in twenty-four
+counties are said to have amounted to some 500,000 acres, or 2.76 of
+their total area,[277] but the evidence for this is by no means
+conclusive. However, there seems no reason to doubt that the enclosure
+of this period was but a faint beginning of that great outburst of it
+that marked the agrarian revolution of the middle of the eighteenth
+century, and that it was mainly confined to the Midland counties, Mr.
+Johnson, in his recent Ford Lectures, has stated that the enclosure of
+the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not accompanied by very
+much direct eviction of freeholders or bona fide copyholders of
+inheritance; yet the small holder suffered in many ways, e.g. by the
+lord disproving the hereditary character of the copyhold, or by
+changing copyholds of inheritance into copyholds for lives or leases
+for lives or years. He and his successors could then refuse to renew
+at the termination of lives or years except on payment of a
+practically prohibitory fine. In short, though there was not much
+violation of legal right there was much injustice, and enclosure,
+though its effects were exaggerated at this period, certainly tended
+to displace the small landholder. It does not appear, however, that
+the moderate-sized proprietors were seriously affected. Many of the
+larger freeholders and copyholders on manors enclosed on their own
+account, and perhaps increased at the expense of the very large and
+the very small. Indeed, the decrease of small landowners was chiefly
+due to political and social causes. The old self-sufficing,
+agricultural economy of England, which we have seen beginning to break
+up in the fourteenth century, was becoming thoroughly disintegrated.
+The capitalist class was increasing; the successful merchant and
+lawyer were acquiring land and becoming squires; there was an intense
+land hunger. Simon Degge, wilting of Staffordshire in 1669, says that
+in the previous sixty years half the lands had changed owners, not so
+much as of old they were wont to do, by marriage, but by purchase; and
+he notices how many lawyers and tradesmen have supplanted the
+gentry.[278]
+
+In fact, there was a much freer disposal of lands from the end of the
+fifteenth century, when the famous Taltarum's case enabled entailed
+estates to be barred, until the Restoration, than there has been
+before or since. For these two hundred years the courts of law and
+parliament resisted every effort to re-establish the system of
+entails; the owners of land constantly multiplied, and this tendency
+must have counteracted the displacement of the small holder by
+enclosure. Sir Thomas Smith, writing towards the end of the sixteenth
+century, says that it was the yeomen who bought the lands of
+'unthrifty gentlemen;' and Moryson tells us that 'the buyers
+(excepting lawyers) are for the most part citizens and vulgar
+men'.[279] It became one of the boasts of England that she had a large
+number of yeomen farming their own land. During the Civil War,
+however, it became important to landowners to protect their properties
+in the interest of children and descendants from forfeiture for
+treason. The judges lent their aid, and the system of strict family
+settlements was devised, under which the great bulk of the estates in
+England are now held. This system favoured the accumulation of lands
+in a few hands and the aggregation of great estates, and was largely
+responsible for the disappearance of the small freeholder.
+
+In reviewing the progress of agriculture in the seventeenth century,
+the drainage of the fen country of Lincolnshire and the adjoining
+counties must not be forgotten. It had been for centuries the scene of
+drainage operations on a more or less extended scale, few of which,
+however, met with success; but in the seventeenth century the growing
+value of land caused a serious revival of these efforts. Attempts made
+under Elizabeth and James I had only succeeded in rescuing a certain
+amount of land for pasture,[280] but in the reign of Charles I the
+scheme of Cornelius Vermuyden was more successful. His system,
+however, was defective, and in the reign of Charles II the Bedford
+Level was in a lamentable state and in danger of reverting to its
+primitive condition. Many of the works too were destroyed by the
+'stiltwalkers', and in 1793 Maxwell states that out of 44,000 acres of
+fen land in Huntingdonshire only 8,000 or 10,000 were productive[281];
+and in 1794 Stone tells us that the commons round the Isle of
+Axholme were chiefly covered with water.[282] Still to Vermuyden and
+his contemporaries must be assigned the credit of the first
+comprehensive scheme for rescuing these fertile lands from the waters
+that covered them.
+
+At the commencement of this important century an old calendar of
+1606[283] clearly sets forth the farming work of the year:--
+
+January and February are the best months for ploughing for peas,
+beans, and oats, and to have peas soon in the year following sow them
+in the wane of the moon at S. Andrewstide before Christmas; which may
+be compared to Tusser's advice for February,
+
+     'Go plow in the stubble, for now is the season
+     For sowing of fitches of beans and of peason.'
+
+'Clean grounds of all such rubbish as briars, brambles, blackthorns,
+and shrubbs' (then more often choking the ground than now), which are
+to be fagoted as good fuel for baking and brewing.
+
+'Do not plough in rainy weather, for it impoverisheth the earth.'
+
+March and April. Take up colts from grass to be broken. Sow beans,
+peas, and oats. In these months are all grounds where cattle went in
+the last winter to be furthed (apparently managed) and cleared and the
+mole-hills scattered, that the fresh spring of grass may grow better.
+All hedges and ditches to be made betwixt 'severals', evidently
+enclosures as distinguished from common fields. From March 25 to May 1
+summer pastures are to be spared, that they may have time to get head
+before summer cattle be put in. In the meantime such cattle are to be
+bestowed in meadows till May Day, and after that date such meadows are
+to be cleansed and spared until the crops of hay be taken off. From
+now till midsummer sell fat cattle and sheep, and with the money buy
+lean cattle and sheep. Sow barley.
+
+May and June. Sort all cattle for their summer pasture on May Day,
+viz. draught oxen by themselves, milch cows by themselves, weaning
+calves, yearlings, two-year-olds, three- and four-year-olds, every
+sort by themselves, which being divided in pasture fitting for them
+will make larger and fairer cattle. Separate the horses in the same
+way. Wash sheep and shear four or five days after, which done the wool
+is to be well wound and weighed, and safely laid up in some place
+where there is not too much air or it will lose weight, nor where it
+is damp or it will increase too much in weight. Cleanse winter corn
+from thistles and weeds.
+
+July and August. First of all comes hay-making. In August wean lambs,
+and put them in good pasture, and in winter put them in fresh pasture
+until spring, and then put them with the 'holding' sheep.
+
+In these months is corn to be 'shornne or mowen downe' (the writer, it
+is to be noticed, has no preference for either method); and after the
+corn is carried put draught horses and oxen into the averish (corn
+stubble), to ease other pastures; and after them put hogs in. Gather
+crabs in woods and hedgerows for making verjuice.
+
+September and October. Have all plows and harrows neat and fit for
+sowing of wheat, rye, mesling (wheat and rye mixed), and vetches.[284]
+
+Pick hops. Buy store cattle, both steers and heifers, of three or four
+years old, which being well wintered at grass, or on straw at the barn
+doors, will be the sooner fed the summer following, and they will
+sooner feed after straw than grass.
+
+From October to May are calves to be reared, because then they be more
+hardly bred and become the stronger cattle. Feed brawns, bacons,
+lards, and porkets on mast if there is any, if not on corn. 'In these
+months cleanse poundes or pools, this season being the driest;' an
+extraordinary assertion, unless the climate has changed, seeing that
+according to the monthly averages from 1841-1906, taken at the Royal
+Observatory, Greenwich, October is the wettest month in the year.[285]
+
+November and December. Sort all kinds of sheep until Lady Day, viz.
+wethers by themselves, and weaning lambs by themselves; and do not put
+rams to the ewes before S. Lukestide, October 18, for those lambs fall
+about March 25, and if they fall before then the scarcity of grass and
+the cold will so nip and chill them that they will die or be
+weaklings. It is good at this time to take draught cattle and horses
+from grass into the house before any great storms begin. Thrash corn
+now after it hath had a good sweat in the mow, and so dried again, and
+give the straw to the draught oxen and cattle at the standaxe or at
+the barn doors for sparing of hay, advice which Tusser also gives:
+
+     'Serve rie straw out first, then wheat straw and peas,
+     Then ote straw and barley, then hay if ye please.'
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[252] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, pp. 77 sq., and Gerard, _Herbal_ (ed.
+1633), p. 232.
+
+[253] About 1684, John Worlidge wrote to Houghton that sheep fatted on
+clover were not such delicate meat as the heath croppers, and that
+sheep fatten very well on turnips. Houghton, _Collection for
+Improvement of Husbandry_, iv. 142. This is said to be the first
+notice of turnips being given to sheep.
+
+[254] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, p. 77. One of the proofs of the rarity
+of vegetables among the poorer classes of England, especially in the
+Middle Ages, is the fact that rents paid in kind never included them.
+
+[255] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1892, p. 19.
+
+[256] Chapple, _Review of Risdon's Survey of Devon_ (1785), p. 17 n.
+_Victoria County History: Devonshire, Agriculture_.
+
+[257] Blyth was a great advocate of enclosure. 'Live the commoners do
+indeed', he says, 'very many in a mean, low condition, with hunger and
+ease. Better do these in Bridewell. What they get they spend. And can
+they make even at the year's rent?'
+
+[258] Rymer, _Foedera_ (Orig. ed.), xix. 512.
+
+[259] _Manydown Manor Rolls_, Hampshire Record Society, p. 172.
+
+[260] Thorold Rogers, _Work and Wages_, p. 459.
+
+[261] Houghton, _Collections, &c._, ii. 448.
+
+[262] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. p. vii.
+Cf. p. 139 infra.
+
+[263] Cullum, _Hawsted_, pp. 196 et seq. In the Hawsted leases, at the
+end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, it is
+noteworthy that there were, at a time of repeated complaints against
+laying down land to pasture, clauses against breaking up pasture land.
+
+[264] In 1677 there were complaints of a fall in rents.
+
+[265] _Manydown Manor Rolls_, Hampshire Record Society, pp. 178 et
+seq.
+
+[266] Rawl. A. 170, No. 101.
+
+[267] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, ii. 483.
+
+[268] Ibid. ii. 630.
+
+[269] Ibid. iii. 147. The rental of the lands in England in 1600 was
+estimated by Davenant at L6,000,000, in 1688 at L14,000,000; and in
+1726 by Phillips at L20,000,000. Ibid. iii. 133. In 1850, Caird
+estimated it at L37,412,000.
+
+[270] With what horror would those legislators have contemplated
+England's position to-day, when a temporary loss of the command of the
+sea would probably ruin the country.
+
+[271] 21 Jac. 1, c. 28.
+
+[272] _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (New Series),
+xix. 116.
+
+[273] _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (New Series),
+xix. 127.
+
+[274] Ibid. 130.
+
+[275] See article in _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_
+(New Series), xix.
+
+[276] Macaulay, _History of England_, ch. iii.
+
+[277] _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, xvii. 587. Considering that
+the legislature of the sixteenth century was against enclosure and
+depopulation, it is hard to understand 31 Eliz., c. 7, which forbade
+cottages to be erected unless 4 acres of land were attached thereto,
+in order to avoid the great inconvenience caused by the 'buyldinge of
+great nombers and multitude of cottages, which are daylie more and
+more increased in many partes of this realme'. How was it that
+cottages had increased so much in rural districts, which are of course
+alluded to, in spite of enclosure?
+
+[278] Harwood, _Erdeswick_.
+
+[279] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 44.
+
+[280] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 187.
+
+[281] _General View of Hunts._, p. 8.
+
+[282] _General View of Lincoln_, p. 29.
+
+[283] _Farming Calendar_, from an original MS., printed in
+_Archaeologia_, xiii. 373 et seq.
+
+[284] Cf. Tusser:
+
+'October for wheat-sowing calleth as fast';
+
+and
+
+'When wheat upon eddish (stubble), ye mind to bestowe Let that be the
+first of the wheat ye do sowe';
+
+and
+
+'Who soweth in raine, he shall reap it with tears'.
+
+[285] The writer of the diary probably meant this work should be done
+in September.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE GREAT AGRICULTURAL WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--FRUIT
+GROWING. A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ORCHARD
+
+
+The seventeenth century is distinguished by a number of agricultural
+writers whose works, as they afford the best account of the farming of
+the time, we may be pardoned for freely quoting. The best known of
+them were, Sir John Norden, Gervase Markham, Sir Richard Weston,
+Blythe, Hartlib, Sir Hugh Plat, John Evelyn, John Worlidge, and
+Houghton.
+
+Sir John Norden printed his _Surveyor's Dialogue_ in 1608, which is in
+the form of a conversation between a farmer and a surveyor, the former
+at the outset telling the latter that men of his profession were then
+very unpopular because 'you pry into men's titles and estates, and
+oftentimes you are the cause that men lose their land, and customs are
+altered, broken, and sometimes perverted by your means. And above all,
+you look into the values of men's lands, wherefore the lords of manors
+do reckon their tenants to a higher rent, and therefore not only I but
+many poore tenants have good cause to speak against the
+profession'.[286]
+
+The surveyor attributes the increase in prices to farmers outbidding
+one another for farms, for the rents of farms and prices grow
+together; a statement which seems to have been quite true and disposes
+of the assertion that the landlords raised the rents unfairly, for
+they were quite entitled to what rent they could get in the open
+market, the farmers being presumably wise enough not to offer rents
+which would preclude a profit. He further blames the farmer of his day
+for being discontented with his lot: in former times 'farmers and
+their wives were content with mean dyet and base attire and held their
+children to some austere government, without haunting alehouses,
+taverns, dice, and cards; now the husbandman will be equal to the
+yeoman, the yeoman to the gentleman, the gentleman to the squire, and
+there is at this day thirty times as much vainely spent in a family of
+like multitude and quality as was in former ages'; a complaint that
+has been common in all ages. Contrary to what is the practice to-day,
+and apparently to common sense, the surveyor recommends that open
+drains be made as narrow above as at the bottom, at the most not more
+than a foot and a half broad.[287] Hops, he says, were then grown in
+Suffolk, Essex, and Surrey, 'in your loose and spongie grounds,
+trenched.' 'Carret' roots were raised in Suffolk and Essex, and
+beginning to increase in all parts of the realm[288]; but if he
+alludes to their cultivation in the open field the statement must be
+taken with considerable qualification, as they were not so grown
+generally until the end of the eighteenth century or the beginning of
+the next.
+
+Kent was then, as now, the great fruit county of England; 'above all
+others I think the Kentishmen be most apt and industrious in planting
+orchards with pippins and cherries, especially near the Thames about
+Feversham and Sittingbourne.' But Devon and Hereford were also famous;
+Westcote about 1630 says the Devonshire men had of late much enlarged
+their orchards, and 'are very curious in planting and grafting all
+kinds of fruit'[289]; and John Beale in 1656 tells us Hereford 'is
+reputed the orchard of England'[290]; while Hartlib says there were
+many orchards in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.[291] He calls
+'Tandeane' near Taunton the Paradise of England, where the husbandry
+was excellent, the land fruitful by nature and improved by the art and
+industry of the farmers; 'they take extraordinary pains in soyling,
+ploughing, and dressing their lands, and after the plow there goeth
+some three or four with mattocks to break the clods and to draw up the
+earth out of the furrows that the lands may lye round, and that the
+water annoy not the seed (the water evidently often lying long in the
+furrows between the great high ridges), and to that end they most
+carefully cut gutters and trenches in all places. And for the better
+enriching of their ploughing lands they cut up, cast, and carry in the
+unplowed headlands and places of no use. Their hearts, hands, eyes,
+and all their powers concurre in one to force the earth to yield her
+utmost fruit; and the crops of wheat that rewarded this industry were
+sometimes 8 and 10 quarters to an acre.
+
+A short pamphlet called the _Fruiterer's Secrets_, published in London
+in 1604, imparts some interesting and curious information about fruit
+growing.[292] There were then four sorts of cherries in England,
+Flemish,[293] English, Gascoyne, and black, and the preserving of them
+from birds, always a burden on the grower, the author says can be done
+by a gun or a sling; the worst enemies being jays and bullfinches, who
+ate stones and all. Stone fruit should be gathered in dry weather, and
+after the dew is off, for if gathered wet it loses colour and becomes
+mildewed. If nettles newly gathered are laid at the bottom of the
+basket and on the top of the fruit, they will hasten the ripening of
+fruit picked unripe, and make it keep its colour.
+
+Those English farmers who still shake their apples from the trees to
+fall and be bruised on the ground had better listen to the careful
+directions for placing the ladder on the trees where it will do no
+damage, as to the use of the gathering hook so that the branches can
+be brought within easy reach of the picker on his ladder, the wearing
+of a gathering apron, and the emptying of it gently into the baskets.
+Green fern has the same effect on pears packed for carriage as nettles
+on stone fruit; while apples should be packed in wheat, or better
+still in rye straw. For long journeys the American system of packing
+in barrels is anticipated, the apples being carefully put in by hand,
+and the barrels lined at both ends with straw, but not at the sides to
+avoid heating, while holes should be bored at either end to prevent
+heat. Pippins, John Apples, Pearmains, and other 'keepers' need not be
+turned until the week before Christmas, and again at the end of March,
+when they must be turned oftener; but never touch fruit during a frost
+or a thaw, or in rainy weather, or it will turn black.
+
+Hartlib, a few years after, reckoned no less than 500 sorts of apples
+in England, though doubtless many of these were identical, since the
+same apple often has two or three names in one parish. The best for
+the table were the Jennetings, Harvey Apple, Golden Pippin, Summer and
+Winter Pearmains, John Apple, &c.; for cider the Red Streak (the great
+favourite), Jennet Moyle, Eliot, Stocking Apple, &c. He was told that
+in Herefordshire a tenant bought the farm he rented with the fruit
+crop of one year; L10 to L15 having been given per acre for cherries
+and more for apples and pears. Pears for the table were the Windsor,
+'Burgamet,' 'Boon Christians'! Greenfield, and others; and for perry,
+which John Beale, a well-known writer of the day considered 'a weak
+drink, fit for our hindes and generally refused by our gentry as
+breeding wind in the stomack', the Horse Pear, Bosbury, Choak,
+&c.[294] There were many kinds of plums, among them the Mistle Plum,
+Damazene, Violet, and Premorden.
+
+Four kinds of grafting were practised: in the cleft, and in the bark,
+the two most usual ways; shoulder or whip grafting, and grafting by
+approach,[295] the last 'where the stock you intend to graft on and the
+tree from which you take your graft stand so near together that they
+may be joined, then take the sprig you intend to graft and pare away
+about three inches in length of the rind and wood near unto the very
+pith, and cut also the stock on which you intend to graft the same
+after the same manner that they may evenly join each other, and so
+bind them and cover them with clay or wax.' Inoculation was also
+practised, 'when the sap is at the fullest in the summer, the buds you
+intend to inoculate being not too young but sufficiently grown.' For
+transplanting the middle of October is recommended, and the wise
+advice added, 'plant not too deep,' and in clay plant as near the
+surface as possible, for the roots will seek their way downward but
+rarely upward; and in transplanting 'you may prune the branches as
+well as the roots of apples and pears, but not of plums.' The best
+distance apart in an orchard for apples and pears was considered to be
+from 20 to 30 feet, the further apart the more they benefit from the
+sun and air, a piece of advice which many a subsequent planter has
+neglected. For cherries and plums 15 to 20 feet was thought right.
+Worlidge's directions for pruning are minute and careful, and should
+be well hammered into many slovenly farmers to-day.
+
+Cider-making was performed much as it is in old-fashioned farms
+to-day, by mashing the apples in a trough by means of a millstone set
+edgeways, and then pressing the juice out through hair mats, the
+juice, says Hartlib, 'having been let stand a day or two and the black
+scum that ariseth in that time taken off they tunne it, and in the
+barrels it continueth to work some days longer, just as beer useth to
+do.[296] Another method was to put the fruit in a clean vessel or
+trough, and bruise or crush it with beetles, then put the crushed
+fruit in a bag of hair-cloth and press it.[297] After the cider was in
+the barrels there was placed in them a linen bag containing cloves,
+mace, cinnamon, ginger, and lemon peel which was said to make the
+cider taste as pleasantly as Rhenish wine.
+
+Worlidge gives us what is perhaps the first mention of a poultry farm,
+and strangely enough it seems to have paid. 'I have been credibly
+informed that a good farm hath been wholly stocked with poultry,
+spending the whole crop upon them and keeping severall to attend them,
+and that it hath redounded to a very considerable improvement'.[298]
+Incubators of a very rude sort were used, three or four dozen eggs
+being placed in a 'lamp furnace made of a few boards', and hatched by
+the heat of a lamp or candle.
+
+It must strike the reader that the accusation levelled against the
+English farmer, of having made little progress in his art from the
+Middle Ages to the commencement of the reign of George III is hardly
+warranted. Their knowledge and skill in their business were evidently
+such as to make considerable progress inevitable, and then as now they
+were in some cases assisted by their landlords, as in Herefordshire,
+where Lord Scudamore, after the assassination of his friend the Duke
+of Buckingham, devoted his energies to the culture of fruit, and with
+other public-spirited gentlemen turned that county into 'one entire
+orchard', besides improving the pastures and woods[299]; though
+Hartlib laments that gentlemen try so few experiments for the
+advancement of agriculture, and that both landowners and farmers
+instead of communicating their knowledge to each other kept it
+jealously to themselves.[300] The chief hindrance to landlord and
+tenant was that the heavy hand of ancient custom lay upon them, with
+its antiquated communistic system of farming, which still in the
+greater part of the land of England utterly prevented good husbandry
+and stifled individual effort. It was one of these Herefordshire
+gentlemen. Rowland Vaughan, who in 1610 wrote what is probably the
+first account of irrigation in England, though the art was mentioned
+by Fitzherbert and must have been known in Devon and Hampshire long
+before his time; indeed, it is another instance of the then isolation
+of country districts that he speaks as if he had made a new discovery.
+He tells us that 'having sojourned two years in his father's house,
+wearied in doing nothing and fearing his fortunes had been overthrown,
+he cast about what was best to be done to retrieve his reputation'.
+And one day he saw from a mole-hill on the side of a brook on his
+property a little stream of water issuing down the working of the
+mole, which made the ground 'pleasing green', and from this he was led
+on to what he calls 'the drowning of his lands'. This was so
+successful that he improved the value of his estate from L40 to L300 a
+year, and his neighbours, who of course had first scoffed at him, came
+to learn from him. Not many years after 'drowning' was said to have
+become one of the most universal and advantageous improvements in
+England.[301] Vaughan says that he had counted as many as 300 persons
+gleaning in one field after harvest, and that in the mountains near
+eggs were 20 a penny, and a good bullock 26s. 3d., but this was a
+backward region.[302]
+
+Between 1617 and 1621 the price of wheat fell from 43s. 3d. to 21s. a
+quarter, and immediately affected the payment of rent.[303] Mr. John
+Chamberlain, in February, 1620, wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton, 'We are
+here in a strange state to complain of plenty, but so it is that corn
+beareth so low a price that farmers are very backward to pay their
+rents and in many places plead disability: for remedy whereof the
+Council have written letters into every shire to provide a granary
+with a stock to buy corn and keep it for a dear year.' Sir Symonds
+D'Ewes notes in his diary that 'at this time (1621) the rates of all
+sorts of corn were so extremely low as it made the very prices of land
+fall from twenty years' purchase to sixteen or seventeen. For the best
+wheat was sold for 2s. 8d. and 2s. 6d. the bushel, the ordinary at 2s.
+Barley and rye at 1s. 4d. and 1s. 3d. the bushel, and the worser of
+those grains at a meaner rate, the poorer sort that would have been
+glad but a few years before of coarse rye bread, did now usually
+traverse the markets to find out the finer wheats as if nothing else
+would please their palates'. Instead of being glad that they were for
+once having a small share of the good things of this world, he
+rejoices that their unthankfulness and daintiness was soon punished by
+high prices and dearness of all sorts of grain.[304] The year 1630 was
+the commencement of a series of dear seasons, when for nine
+consecutive years the price of wheat did not fall below 40s. a quarter
+and actually touched 86s. The restraints laid on corn-dealers had,
+since the principles of commerce were being better understood, been
+modified in 1624, but the high prices revived the old hatred against
+them, and we find Sir John Wingfield writing from Rutland that he has
+'taken order that ingrossers of corne shall be carefullie seen unto
+and that there is no Badger (corn-dealer) licensed to carry corne out
+of this countrye nor any starch made of any kind of graine'. He adds
+that he had 'refrayned the maulsters from excessive making of mault,
+and had suppressed 20 alehouses'.[305] However, the senseless policy
+of preventing trade in corn received a severe blow from the statute 15
+Car. II, c. 7, which enacted that when corn was under 48s. persons
+were to be allowed to buy and store corn and sell the same again
+without penalty, provided they did not sell it in the same market
+within three months of buying it, a statute which Adam Smith said
+contributed more to the progress of agriculture than any previous law
+in the statute book.
+
+Gervase Markham, who was born about 1568 and died in 1637, gives us a
+description of the day's work of the English farmer. He is to rise at
+four in the morning, feed his cattle and clean his stable. While they
+are feeding he is to get his harness ready, which will take him two
+hours. Then he is to have his breakfast, for which half an hour is
+allowed. Getting the harness on his horses or cattle, he is to start
+by seven to his work and keep at it till between two and three in the
+afternoon. Then he shall bring his team home, clean them and give them
+their food, dine himself, and at four go back to his cattle and give
+them more fodder, and getting into his barn make ready their food for
+next day, not forgetting to see them again before going to his own
+supper at six. After supper he is to mend shoes by the fireside for
+himself and his family, or beat and knock hemp and flax, or pitch and
+stamp apples or crabs for cider or verjuice, or else grind malt, pick
+candle-rushes, or 'do some husbandry office within doors till it
+befall eight o'clock'. Then he shall take his lantern, visit his
+cattle once more, and go with all his household to rest. The farm
+roller of this time, according to Markham, was made of a round piece
+of wood 30 inches in circumference, 6 feet long, having at each end a
+strong pin of iron to which shafts were made fast.[306] He mentions
+wooden and iron harrows, but this refers only to the tines, the wooden
+ones being made of ash. From an illustration of a harrow which he
+gives, it appears it was much like Fitzherbert's and many used to-day:
+a wooden frame, with the teeth set perhaps more closely than ours; the
+single harrow 4 feet square drawn by one horse, the double harrow 7
+feet square by two oxen at least. Wheat he says, when the land is dug
+15 inches deep, and the seed dibbled in, will produce twelve times as
+much as when ploughed; but he admits the 'intricacy and trouble' of
+this method.[307] As to the question of mowing or reaping corn, he is
+of opinion that though 'it is a custom in many countries of this
+kingdom not to sheare the wheat but to mow it, in my conceit it is not
+so good, for it both maketh the wheate foule and full of weede'.
+Barley, however, should be mown close to the ground, though many reap
+it; oats too were to be mown. His directions for planting an
+orchard[308] are interesting, both as showing the kinds of fruit then
+grown, the number of different sorts planted together, and the growth
+of the olive in England.[309] The orchard, he says, should be a
+square, divided into four quarters by alleys, and in the first quarter
+should be apples of all sorts, in the second pears and wardens of all
+sorts, in the third quinces and chestnuts, in the fourth medlars and
+services. A wall is the best fence, and on the north wall, 'against
+which the sunne reflects, you shall plant the abricot, verdochio,
+peache, and damaske plumbe; against the east side the white muskadine
+grape, the pescod plumbe, and the Emperiale plumbe; against the west,
+the grafted cherries and the olive tree; and against the south side
+the almond and the figge tree.' As if this extraordinary mixture were
+not enough, 'round about the skirts of the alleys' were to be planted
+plums, damsons, cherries, filberts and nuts of all sorts, and the
+'horse clog' and 'bulleye', the two latter being inferior wild plums.
+Plums were to be 5 feet apart, apples and other large fruit 12 feet.
+
+Young trees should be watered morning and evening in dry summers, and
+old ones should have the earth dug away from the upper part of the
+roots from November to March, then the earth, mixed with dung or soap
+ashes, replaced. Moss was carefully to be scraped off the trees with
+the back of an old knife, and, to prevent it, the trees manured with
+swine's dung. Minute distinctions are given as to pruning and washing
+the trees with strong brine of water and salt, either with a garden
+pump placed in a tub or with 'squirtes which have many hoales', the
+forerunner of modern spraying.
+
+Cider was then mostly made in the west, as in Devonshire and Cornwall,
+and perry in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire; but he leaves out
+Herefordshire, where it was certainly made at this time.[310]
+
+A curious help to fattening beasts, says Markham, is a lean horse or
+two kept with them, for the beasts delight to feed with them.
+Fattening cattle were to have first bite at the pastures, then draught
+cattle, and then sheep; after Midsummer, when there is an
+extraordinary sweetness in the grass, suffer the cattle to eat the
+grass closer till Lammas (August 1). Though some do not hold with him,
+he thinks reading and writing not unprofitable to a husbandman, but
+not much material 'to his bailiff'; for there is more trust in an
+honest score chalked on a trencher than 'in a commen writen scrowle'.
+Landowners derived a good income from their woods and coppices. An
+acre of underwood of twenty-one years' growth, was at this time worth
+from L20 to L30; of twelve years' growth, L5 to L6; but on many of the
+best lands it was only cut every thirty years.[311]
+
+In 1742-3 oak timber was worth from 15d. to 18d. per cubic foot and
+ash about 10d. During the Napoleonic war oak sold for 4s. 6d. a foot.
+
+In Blyth's _Improver Improved_ we have one of the first accounts of
+covered drains. The draining trench was to be made deep enough to go
+the bottom of the 'cold spewing moist water' that feeds the flags and
+the rushes; as for the width 'use thine own liberty' but be sure make
+it as straight as possible. The bottom was to be filled in with
+faggots or stones to a depth of 15 inches, a method in some parts
+retained till comparatively modern times, with the top turf laid upon
+them grass downward, and the drain filled in with the earth dug out of
+it.
+
+A country gentleman at this date could keep up a good establishment on
+an income which to-day would compel him to live economically in a
+cottage. From the accounts of Mr. Master, a landowner near
+Chiselhurst, it appears that a man with an income of L300 or L400 a
+year could live in some luxury, keep a stud of horses, and a
+considerable number of servants.[312] Some of them had no scruples
+about adding to their incomes by turning corn-dealers, even selling
+such small quantities as pecks of peas, bushels of rye, and half pecks
+of oatmeal. From the accounts of one of them, Henry Best,[313] of
+Elmswell, we learn many valuable details concerning farming in
+Yorkshire about 1641. It was the custom to put the ram to the ewes
+about October 18, but Best did so about Michaelmas, and generally used
+one ram to 30 or 40 ewes, and he considered it necessary that the ewes
+should be two-shear. 'Good handsome ewes', he says, could have been
+bought at Kilham fair for 3s. 6d. each, a price far below the average
+of the time. As for wages, mowers of grass had 10d. a day, and found
+their own food and their scythes, which cost them about 2s. 3d. each.
+Haymakers got 4d. a day, and had to 'meat themselves' and find their
+own forks and rakes. Shearers or reapers were paid from 8d. to 10d.,
+and found their own sickles; binders and stackers, 8d.; mowers of
+'haver', or oats, 10d., a good mower cutting 4 acres a day. In 1641 he
+sold oats for 14s. a quarter, best barley for 22s., rye 27s. 6d.,
+wheat 30s.[314] The roads were dreadful, and produce nearly all sent
+to market on pack-horses. 'Wee seldome send fewer than 8 horse loads
+to the market at a time, and with them two men, for one man cannot
+guide the poakes (sacks) of above four horses. When wee sende oats to
+the market wee sack them up in 3 bushel poakes and lay 6 bushels on a
+horse; when wee sende wheate, rye, or masseldene (rye and wheat) and
+barley to market wee put it into mette poakes (2 bushel sacks),
+sometimes into half quarter sacks, and these we lay on horses that are
+short coupled and well backed.' When the servants got to market they
+were charged a halfpenny a horse for stabling and hay, but if they
+dined at the inn they paid nothing for their horses, and their dinners
+cost them 4d. a head. Butter was sold by the lb., or the 'cake' of 2
+lb., and in the beginning of Lent was 5d. a lb., by April 20, 3d., in
+the middle of May, 2-1/2d. When William Pinder took 50 acres of land
+'of my Lord Haye' he paid a fine of L60 and a rent of L40; but this
+must have been an extremely choice piece of land, for arable land
+rented apparently at less than 3s. an acre.[315] The rent of a cottage
+was usually 10s. a year, 'though they have not so much as a yard or
+any backe side belonging to them.' There is more evidence, if such
+were needed, of the beneficial effect of enclosure, which was said to
+treble the value of pasture. Good meadow land fetched a great price:
+'The medow Sykes is about 5 acres of grounde, and was letten in the
+year 1628 at L6 per annum, and in 1635 at L6 13s. 4d.
+
+The requirements of a foreman on a farm were that he could sow, mow,
+stack peas, go well with 4 horses, and be accustomed to marketing; and
+for this when hired by the year he received 5 marks, and perhaps half
+a crown as earnest money. The next man got 50s., the next 46s. 6d.,
+the fourth 35s. 'Christopher Pearson had the first year he dwelt here
+L3 5s. 0d. wages per annum and 5s. to a God's penny (earnest money);
+next year he had L4 wages, and he was both a good seedsman,' before
+the invention of drills a very valuable qualification, 'and did sow
+all our seed both the years. When you are about to hire a servant you
+are to call them aside and talk privately with them concerning their
+wage, and if the servants stand in the churchyard they usually call
+them aside and walk to the back side of the church and there treat of
+their wage. I heard a servant asked what he could do, who made this
+answer:
+
+     "I can sowe,
+     I can mowe,
+     And I can stacke;
+     And I can doe
+     My master too
+     When my master turns his backe".'
+
+If we are to judge by the food provided for the thatchers, who were
+little better than ordinary labourers, the Yorkshire farm-hand fared
+well on plenty of simple food, his three meals a day consisting of
+butter, milk, cheese, and either eggs, pies, or bacon, sometimes
+porridge instead of milk.
+
+Probably, however, few country gentlemen were such industrious farmers
+as Best; many of them passed their days mostly in hunting and fowling
+and their evenings in drinking, though we know too that there were
+exceptions who did not care for this rude existence. Deer hunting, and
+we must add deer poaching, was the great sport of the wealthy, but the
+smaller gentry had to be content with simpler forms of the chase. For
+fox hunting each squire had his own little pack, and hunted only over
+his own estate and those of his friends. He had also the otter, the
+badger, and the hare to amuse him. Fowling was conducted, as in the
+Middle Ages, by hawk or net, for the shot gun had not yet come into
+use, and was forbidden by an old law.[316] The partridge and pheasant,
+as now, were the chief game birds. After the Restoration the country
+gentlemen seem to have been infected by the dissipation of the Court,
+and farming was left to the tenant farmer and yeoman: 'our gentry',
+says Pepys, 'have grown ignorant of everything in good husbandry.'
+
+The middle of the seventeenth century was the Golden Age of the
+yeoman who owned and farmed his land; even at the end of the Stuart
+period, when their decline had already begun, Gregory King estimated
+their numbers at 160,000 families, or about one-seventh of the
+population. The class included all those between the man who owned
+freehold land worth 40s. a year and the wealthier yeoman who was
+hardly distinguishable from the small gentleman. Owning their own
+land they were a sturdy and independent class, and they 'took a jolly
+pride in voting as in fighting on the opposite side of the
+neighbouring squire'. 'The yeomanry', wrote Fuller, 'is an estate of
+people almost peculiar to England;' he 'wears russet clothes but
+makes golden payment, having tin in his buttons and silver in his
+pocket He seldom goes abroad, and his credit stretches farther than
+his travel.' The tenant farmers were nearly as numerous, King
+estimating them at 150,000 families; economically they were about on
+a level with the yeoman, their social standing, however, was
+considerably inferior.
+
+The greatest improvement of the seventeenth century, the introduction
+from Holland of turnips and clover, was over-estimated by its author,
+Sir Richard Weston; for he tells his sons that by sowing flax,
+turnips, and clover they might in five years improve 500 acres of poor
+land so as to bring in L7,000 a year.[317] To bring about this
+desirable consummation, he provides his sons with accounts as to the
+cost, one of which shows the cost of growing an acre of flax and the
+profit thereon, though this gentleman's estimates are clearly
+optimistic:
+
+                    DR.                          L   s.  d.
+
+  Devonshiring, i.e. paring and burning          1   0   0
+  Lime                                           0  12   0
+  Ploughing and harrowing                        0   6   0
+  3 bushels of seed                              2   0   0
+  Weeding                                        0   1   0
+  Pulling and binding                            0  10   0
+  Grassing the seed from the flax                0   6   0
+  Watering, drying, swinging, and beating        4  10   0
+                                                ----------
+                                                L9   5   0
+                                                ==========
+
+                    CR.                          L   s.  d.
+
+  900 lb. of flax                               40   0   0
+                                                 9   5   0
+                                               -----------
+                            Balance profit     L30  15   0
+                                               ===========
+
+Turnips were to come after flax, and were to be given to the cows as
+they did in Flanders; that is, wash them clean, put them in a trough
+where they were to be stamped together with a spitter or small spade;
+and the turnips were to be followed by clover. All these, says Weston,
+were already grown in England, but 'there is as much difference
+between what groweth here and there as is between the same thing which
+groweth in a garden and that which groweth wild in the fields'.
+Worlidge soon after recommended that clover be sown on barley or oats
+about the end of March or in April, and harrowed in, or by itself; and
+says, with optimism equal to Weston's, one acre of clover will feed
+you as many cows as 6 acres of ordinary grass and make the milk
+richer.[318]
+
+It has been noticed that the price of wool altered little during the
+century, and from the private accounts of Sir Abel Barker[319] of
+Hambleton, in the County of Rutland, we learn that in 1642 he sold his
+wool to his 'loving friend Mr. William Gladstone' for L1 a tod, though
+by 1648 it had gone up to 29s., a good price for those days. During
+the Civil War some of Barker's horses were carried off for the service
+of the State, and he values them at L8 a piece, a fair price then.
+Some years later, for mowing 44 acres of grass he sets down in his
+account L2 7s. 0d., for making the same L2 3s. 0d., and stacking it
+3s.
+
+Simon Hartlib, a Dutchman by birth and a friend of John Milton,
+published his _Legacy_ in 1651, containing both rash statements and
+useful information. We certainly cannot believe him when he states
+that pasture employs more hands than tillage. His estimate of a good
+crop of wheat was from 12 to 16 bushels per acre, and he speaks
+strongly of the great fluctuations in prices, for he had known barley
+sell at Northampton at 6d. a bushel, and within 12 months at 5s., and
+wheat in London in one year varied from 3s. 6d. to 15s. a bushel. The
+enormous number of dovecotes was still a great nuisance, and the
+pigeons were reckoned to eat 6,000,000 quarters of grain annually.
+Hartlib recommends his countrymen to sow 'a seed commonly called Saint
+Foine, which in England is as much as to say Holy Hay,' as they do in
+France: especially on barren lands, advice which some of them
+followed, and in Wilts., soon after, sainfoin is said to have so
+improved poor land that from a noble (6s. 8d.) per acre, the rent had
+increased to 30s.[320] They were also to use 'another sort of fodder
+which they call La Lucern at Paris for dry and barren grounds'. So
+wasteful were they of labour in some parts that in Kent were to be
+seen 12 horses and oxen drawing one plough.[321]
+
+The use of the spade was long looked askance at by English husbandmen;
+old men in Surrey had told Hartlib that they knew the first gardeners
+that came into those parts to plant cabbages and 'colleflowers', and
+to sow turnips, carrots, and parsnips, and that they gave L8 an acre
+for their land. The latter statement must be an exaggeration, as it is
+equivalent to a rent of about L40 in our money; but we may give some
+credence to him when he says that the owner was anxious lest the spade
+should spoil his ground, 'so ignorant were we of gardening in those
+days.' Though it was not the case in Elizabeth's time, by now the
+licorice, saffron, cherries, apples, pears, hops, and cabbages of
+England were the best in the world; but many things were deficient,
+for instance, many onions came from Flanders and Spain, madder from
+Zealand, and roses from France.[322] 'It is a great deficiency in
+England that we have not more orchards planted. It is true that in
+Kent, and about London, and in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and
+Worcestershire[323] there are many gallant orchards, but in other
+country places they are very rare and thin, I know in Kent some
+advance their ground from 5s. per acre to L5 by this means', and 30
+acres of cherries near Sittingbourne had realized L1,000 in one year.
+His recipe for making old fruit trees bear well savours of a time
+when old women were still burnt as witches. 'First split his root,
+then apply a compost of pigeon's dung, lees of wine, or stale wine,
+and a little brimstone'. The tithes of wine in Gloucestershire were
+'in divers parishes considerably great', and wine was then made in
+Kent and Surrey, notably by Sir Peter Ricard, who made 6 or 8
+hogsheads yearly.[324] There is no doubt that the vine has been grown
+in the open in England from very early times until comparatively
+recent ones. The Britons were taught to plant it by the Romans in A.D.
+280.[325] In Domesday there are 38 examples of vineyards, chiefly in
+the south central counties. Neckham, who wrote in the twelfth century,
+says the vineyard was an important adjunct to the mediaeval
+mansion.[326] William of Malmesbury praised the vines and wine of
+Gloucestershire; and says that the vine was either allowed to trail on
+the ground, or trained to small stakes fixed to each plant. Indeed,
+the mention of them in mediaeval chronicles is frequent.
+
+Two bushels of green grapes in 1332 fetched 7s. 6d.[327] Richard II
+planted vines in great plenty, according to Stow, within the upper
+park of Windsor, and sold some part to his people. The wine made in
+England was sweetened with honey, and probably flavoured and coloured
+with blackberries.[328] At the dissolution of the monasteries there
+was a vineyard at Barking Nunnery. 'We might have a reasonable good
+wine growing in many places of this realme', says Barnaby Googe, about
+1577, 'as doubtless we had immediately after the Conquest, tyll,
+partly by slothfulnesse, partly by civil discord long continued, it
+was left, and so with time lost.... There is besides Nottingham an
+ancient house called Chylwel in which remaineth yet as an ancient
+monument in a great wyndowe of glasse, the whole order of planting,
+proyning, stamping, and pressing of vines. Upon many cliffes and hills
+are yet to be seen the rootes and old remaines of vines.' Plot, in his
+_Natural History of Staffordshire_,[329] says 'the vine has been
+improved by Sir Henry Lyttelton at Over (Upper) Arley, which is
+situate low and warm, so that he has made wine there undistinguishable
+from the best French by the most judicious palates, but this I suppose
+was done only in some over hot summer, and Dr. Bathurst made very good
+claret at Oxon in 1685, a very mean year for the purpose.' In 1720 the
+famous vineyard at Bath of 6 acres, planted with the 'white muscadene'
+and the 'black Chester grape,' produced 66 hogsheads of wine worth L10
+a hogshead, but in unfavourable years grew very little.'[330] Mr.
+Peter Collinson, writing from Middlesex in 1747, says, 'the vineyards
+turn to good profit, much wine being made this year in England;' and
+again in 1748, 'my vineyards are very ripe; a considerable quantity of
+wine will this year be made in England.'[331] However, the attempt
+made to grow vines on the undercliff at Ventnor at the end of the
+eighteenth century by Sir Richard Worsley ended in dismal failure, and
+it is probable that the English climate in its normal years seldom
+produced good grapes out of doors whatever it may have done in
+exceptionally hot ones, unless we assume that it has changed
+considerably, for which there is little ground.
+
+Hartlib was no friend of commons; they made the poor idle and trained
+them for the gallows or beggary, and there were fewest poor where
+there were fewest commons,[332] as in Kent--a statement re-echoed by
+many observant writers; he also recommends enclosures, because they
+gave warmth and consequent fertility to the soil. He tells us that an
+effort had been made by James I to encourage the growth of mulberry
+trees and the breeding of silkworms, the lords-lieutenant of the
+different counties being urged to see to it, but it had little
+effect.[333]
+
+The number of different sorts of wheat was by this time considerable.
+Hartlib gives the white, red, bearded ('which is not subject to
+mildews as others'); some sorts with two rows, others with four and
+six; some with one ear on a stalk, others with two; the red stalk
+wheat of Bucks; winter wheat and summer wheat. There were also twenty
+varieties of peas that he knew, and the white, black, naked. Scotch,
+and Poland oats. Markham adds the whole straw wheat, the great brown
+pollard, the white pollard, the organ, the flaxen, and the chilter
+wheat.
+
+There was a sad lack of enterprise in the breeding of stock now and
+for many generations before; indeed, it may be doubted if this
+important branch of farming, except perhaps in the case of sheep, was
+much attended to until the time of Bakewell and the Collings. In
+Elizabeth's time a Frenchman had twitted England with having only
+3,000 or 4,000 horses worth anything, which was one of the reasons
+that induced the Spaniards to invade us.[334] 'We are negligent, too,
+in our kine, that we advance not the best species.'
+
+The size of cattle at this date, however, seems to have been greater
+than is often stated. The Report of the Select Committee on the
+Cultivation of Waste Lands in 1795, states that the average weight,
+dressed, of cattle at Smithfield in 1710 was only 370 lb.,[335] yet
+the Household Book of Prince Henry at the commencement of the
+seventeenth century says that an ox should weigh 600 lb. the four
+quarters, and cost about L9 10s., a sheep about 45 lb., so that the
+latter were apparently relatively smaller than the oxen. In 1603 oxen
+were sold at Tostock in Suffolk weighing 1,000 lb. apiece, dead
+weight.[336] According to the records of Winchester College, the oxen
+sold there in the middle of the century averaged, dressed, about 575
+lb.; in 1677, 35 oxen sold there averaged 730 lb. 'Some kine,' it was
+said at the end of the century, 'have grown to be very bulky and a
+great many are sold for L10 or L12 apiece; there was lately sold near
+Bury a beast for L30, and 'twas fatted with cabbage leaves. An ox near
+Ripon weighed, dressed, 13-1/4 cwt.'[337] They were, of course,
+chiefly valued as beasts of draught, and no doubt the one Evelyn saw
+in 1649, 'bred in Kent, 17 foot in length, and much higher than I
+could reach,' was a powerful animal for this purpose. The young ones
+were taught to draw by yoking two of them, together with two old ones
+before and two behind, with a man on each side the young ones, 'to
+keep them in order and speak them fair,' for if much beaten they
+seldom did well: for the first two or three days they were worked only
+three or four hours a day, but soon they worked as long as the older
+ones, that is from 6 to 11, then a bait of hay and rest till 1, with
+work again till 5, at least in Lancashire. They were kept in the yoke
+till nine or ten years old, then turned on to the best grass in May,
+and sold to the butcher.[338]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[286] _Surveyor's Dialogue_ (ed. 1608), p. 2.
+
+[287] _Surveyor's Dialogue_, p. 188.
+
+[288] Ibid. p. 207.
+
+[289] _Victoria County History: Devon, Agriculture_.
+
+[290] _Herefordshire Orchards a Pattern for All England_ (ed. 1724).
+
+[291] See infra, p. 136.
+
+[292] These extracts are from the original edition in the Bodleian
+Library.
+
+[293] 'The Flanders cherry excels', says Worlidge, _Syst. Agr._, p.
+97.
+
+[294] Bradley, in 1726, gives a long list of pears all with French
+names, hardly any of which are now known in England.
+
+[295] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 107.
+
+[296] _Annotation upon the Legacie of Husbandry_, 1651, p. 105.
+
+[297] Markham, i. 174 (ed. 1635).
+
+[298] _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 152.
+
+[299] Evelyn, _Pomona_ (ed. 1664), p. 2.
+
+[300] _Compleat Husbandman_ (ed. 1659), p. 75.
+
+[301] _Most Approved and Long Experienced Waterworks_. London, 1610.
+
+[302] See Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_ (ed. 1669), p. 155.
+
+[303] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 23.
+
+[304] _Life of Sir S. D'Ewes_, i. 180.
+
+[305] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1629-31, p. 414.
+
+[306] _Whole Art of Husbandry_ (ed. 1635), i. 50.
+
+[307] Ibid. i. 100.
+
+[308] Ibid. i. 121.
+
+[309] An astonishing statement; cf. Denton, _England in the Fifteenth
+Century_, p. 56, Neckham, _De Natura Rerum_, cap. clxvi. and above, p.
+93.
+
+[310] _Whole Art of Husbandry_ (ed. 1635), i. 173.
+
+[311] _Whole Art of Husbandry_ (ed. 1635), ii. 144. and MS. accounts
+of Mr. Chevallier of Aspall Hall, Suffolk.
+
+[312] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. 28.
+
+[313] _Farming and Account Books of Henry Best of Elmswell_, 1641,
+Surtees Society, xxxiii. 157.
+
+[314] Ibid. p. 99.
+
+[315] _Farming and Account Books of Henry Best of Elmswell_, 1641.
+Surtees Society, xxxiii. 124. Many districts in the north of England
+were still much behind the rest of the country.
+
+[316] Trevelyan, _England under the Stuarts_, 8 sq. Though, as we have
+seen, p. 157, the writer of the _Fruiterer's Secrets_ recommends the
+gun for scaring birds in 1604.
+
+[317] _The Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders_ (ed. 1652), p. 18.
+
+[318] _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 26.
+
+[319] MS. accounts of Sir Abel Barker, in the possession of G.W.P.
+Conant, Esq.
+
+[320] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 28.
+
+[321] _Compleat Husbandman_ (1659), p. 5.
+
+[322] Ibid. p. 9.
+
+[323] Cf. supra, p. 136.
+
+[324] _Compleat Husbandman_ (1659), p. 23.
+
+[325] _Archaeologia_, i. 324; iii. 53.
+
+[326] _De Natura Rerum_, Rolls Ser., lxi.
+
+[327] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, 57 n.
+
+[328] Ibid.
+
+[329] Ed. 1686, p. 380.
+
+[330] R. Bradley, _A General Treatise of Husbandry_ (ed. 1726), ii.
+52.
+
+[331] Tooke, _History of Prices_ i. 44. Brandy was made in the
+eighteenth century from grapes grown in the Beaulieu vineyards in
+Hampshire, and a bottle of it long kept at the abbey.--_Hampshire
+Notes and Queries_, vi. 62. There are two vineyards to-day, of 2-3/4
+and 4 acres respectively, on the estates of the Marquis of Bute in
+Glamorganshire; but a vintage is only obtained once in four or five
+years from them, and they are not profitable.
+
+[332] _Compleat Husbandman_, 1659, p, 42.
+
+[333] _Compleat Husbandman_, 1659, p. 57.
+
+[334] Ibid. p. 73.
+
+[335] In this apparently repeating Davenant's statement. See
+McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_, 1852, p. 271.
+
+[336] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. 332.
+
+[337] Houghton, _Collections for Improvement of Husbandry_, i. 294.
+
+[338] Ibid., _Collections for Husbandry and Trade_ (ed. 1728), iv.
+336.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE EVILS OF COMMON FIELDS.--HOPS.--IMPLEMENTS.--MANURES.--GREGORY
+KING--CORN LAWS
+
+
+From what has been said in the preceding pages, it will be gathered
+that a vast amount of compassion has been wasted on the enclosure of
+commons, for it is abundantly evident from contemporary writers that
+there were a large number of people dragging out a miserable existence
+on them, by living on the produce of a cow or two, or some sheep and a
+few poultry, with what game they could sometimes catch, and refusing
+regular work. Dymock, Hartlib's contemporary, questions 'whether
+commons do not rather make poore by causing idlenesse than maintaine
+them;' and he also asks how it is that there are fewest poor where
+there are fewest commons.
+
+In the common fields, too, there was continual strife and contention
+caused by the infinite number of trespasses that they were subject
+to.[339] The absence of hedges, too, in these great open fields was
+bad for the crops, for there was nothing to mitigate drying and
+scorching winds, while in the open waste and meadows the live stock
+must have sadly needed shelter and shade, 'losing more flesh in one
+hot day than they gained in three cool days.' Worlidge, a Hampshire
+man, joins in the chorus of praise of enclosures, for they brought
+employment to the poor, and maintained treble 'the number of
+inhabitants' that the open fields did; and he gives further proof of
+the enclosure of land in the seventeenth century, when he mentions
+'the great quantities of land that have within our memories lain open,
+and in common of little value, yet when enclosed have proved excellent
+good land.' Why then was this most obvious improvement not more
+generally effected? Because there was a great impediment to it in the
+numerous interests and diversity of titles and claims to almost every
+common field and piece of waste land in England, whereby one or more
+envious or ignorant persons could thwart the will of the
+majority.[340] Another hindrance, he says, was that many roads passed
+over the commons and wastes, which a statute was needed to stop.
+
+In the seventeenth century hop growing was not nearly so common in
+England as in the preceding, when Harrison had said, in his
+_Description of Britain_, 'there are few farmers or occupiers in the
+country which have not gardens and hops growing of their own, and
+those far better than do come from Flanders.' There seems, indeed, to
+have been a prejudice against the hop; Worlidge[341] says it was
+esteemed an unwholesome herb for the use it was usually put to, 'which
+may also be supplied with several other wholesome and better herbs.'
+John Evelyn was very much against them, probably because he was such
+an advocate of cider: 'It is little more than an age,' he says, 'since
+hopps transmuted our wholesome ale into beer, which doubtless much
+altered our constitutions. That one ingredient, by some not unworthily
+suspected, preserving drink indeed, and so by custom made agreeable,
+yet repaying the pleasure with tormenting diseases, and a shorter
+life, may deservedly abate our fondness for it, especially if with
+this be considered likewise the casualties in planting it, as seldom
+succeeding more than once in three years.'[342] The City of London
+petitioned against hops as spoiling the taste of drink.
+
+Yet its cultivation is said to have advanced the price of land to L40,
+L50, and sometimes L100 an acre, the latter an almost incredible price
+if we consider the value of money then. There were not enough planted
+to serve the kingdom, and Flemish hops had to be imported, though not
+nearly so good as English. A great deal of dishonesty, moreover, was
+shown by the foreign importers, so that in 1603 a statute (1 Jac. I,
+c. 18) was passed against the 'false packinge of forreine hops,' by
+which it appears that the sacks were filled up with leaves, stalks,
+powder, sand, straw, wood, and even soil, for increasing the weight,
+by which English growers it is said lost L20,000 a year. Such hops
+were to be forfeited, and brewers using them were to forfeit their
+value. The chief cause of their decrease was that few farmers would
+take the trouble and care required to grow them, in spite of the often
+excellent prices, which at Winchester at this date averaged from 50s.
+to 80s. a cwt., sometimes, however, reaching over 200s., as in 1665
+and 1687, though then as now they were subject to great fluctuations,
+and in 1691 were only 31s. Many, too, were discouraged by the fact
+'they are the most of any plant that grows subject to the various
+mutations of the air, mildews sometimes totally destroying them,' no
+doubt an allusion to the aphis blight. Hop yards were often protected
+at this early date by hedges of tall trees, usually ash or poplar, the
+elm being disapproved of as contracting mildews. Markham[343] says
+that Hertfordshire then contained as good hops as he had seen
+anywhere, and there the custom was 250 hills to every rood, 'and every
+hill will bear 2-1/2 lb., worth on an average 4 nobles a cwt. (a noble
+= 6s. 8d.);' hills were to be 6 ft. apart at least, poles 16 to 18 ft.
+long and 9 or 10 inches in circumference at the butt, of ash, oak,
+beech, alder, maple or willow.
+
+Some planted the hills in 'plain squares chequerwise, which is the
+best way if you intend to plough with horses between the hills. Others
+plant them in form of a quincunx, which is better for the hop, and
+will do very well where your ground is but small that you may overcome
+it with either the breast plough or spade.' The manure recommended by
+Worlidge was good mould, or dung and earth mixed. The hills were like
+mole-hills 3 feet high, and sometimes were large enough to have as
+many as 20 poles, so that some hop yards must have looked very
+different then from what they do now, even when poles are retained;
+but from two to five poles per hill was the more usual number.
+Cultivation was much the same as in Reynold Scott's time, and picking
+was still done on a 'floor' prepared by levelling the hills, watering,
+treading, and sweeping the ground, round which the pickers sat and
+picked into baskets, but the hop crib was also used.
+
+It was considered better not to let the hops get too ripe, as the
+growers were aware of the value of a fresh, green-looking sample; and
+Worlidge advises the careful exclusion of leaves and stalks, though
+Markham does not agree with him. Kilns were of two sorts: the English
+kiln made of wood, lath, and clay; the French of brick, lime, and
+sand, not so liable to burn as the former and therefore better.[344]
+One method of drying was finely to bed the kiln with wheat straw laid
+on the hair-cloth, the hops being spread 8 inches thick over this,
+'and then you shall keepe a fire a little more fervent than for the
+drying of a kiln full of malt,' the fire not to be of wood, for that
+made the hops smoky and tasted the beer, but of straw! Worlidge,
+strangely, recommended the bed of the kiln to be covered with tin, as
+much better than hair-cloth, for then any sort of fuel would do as
+well as charcoal, since the smoke did not pass through the hops.
+
+Besides Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Leicestershire,
+and Rutlandshire; Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire were recommended by
+Markham for hop growing, the great hop counties of to-day being passed
+over by him.
+
+The growth of hemp and flax had by this time considerably decayed,
+owing to the want of encouragement to trade in these commodities, the
+lack of experience in growing them, and the tithes which in some years
+amounted to more than the profits.[345] An acre of good flax was worth
+from L7 to L12; but if 'wrought up fit to sell in the market' from L15
+to L20.
+
+Woad was considered a 'very rich commodity', but according to Blyth it
+robbed the land if long continued upon it, although if moderately used
+it prepared land for corn, drawing a 'different juice from what the
+corn requires'. It more than doubled the rent of land, and had been
+sold at from L6 to L20 a ton, the produce of an acre. John Lawrence,
+who wrote in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, says woad
+was in his time cultivated by companies of people, men, women, and
+children, who hired the land, built huts, and grew and prepared the
+crop for the dyer's use, then moved on to another place.[346]
+
+There were proofs that man's inventive genius was at work among farm
+implements. Worlidge mentions[347] an engine for setting corn,
+invented by Gabriel Plat, made of two boards bored with wide holes 4
+in. apart, set in a frame, with a funnel to each hole. It was fitted
+with iron pins 5 in. long to 'play up and down', and dibble holes into
+which the corn was to go from the funnels. This machine was so
+intricate and clumsy that Worlidge found no use for it. However, he
+recommends another instrument which certainly seems to anticipate
+Tull's drill, though Tull is said to have stated when Bradley showed
+him a cut of it that it was only a proposal and it never got farther
+than the cut.[348] It consisted of a frame of small square pieces of
+timber 2 inches thick; the breadth of the frame 2 feet, the height 18
+inches, length 4 feet, placed on four good-sized wheels. In the middle
+of the frame a coulter was fixed to make a furrow for the corn, which
+fell through a wooden pipe behind, that dropped the corn out of a
+hopper containing about a bushel, the fall of the corn from the hopper
+being regulated by a wooden wheel in its neck. The same frame might
+contain two coulters, pipes, and hoppers, and the instrument could be
+worked with one horse and one man. It was considered a great advance
+on sowing broadcast, and by the use of it 'you may also cover your
+grain with any rich compost you shall prepare for that purpose, either
+with pigeon dung, dry or granulated, or any other saline or lixirial
+(alkaline, or of potash) substance, which may drop after the corn from
+another hopper behind the one that drops the corn, or from a separate
+drill'. The corn thus sown in rows was found easier to weed and hoe,
+so that it is clear that this advantage was well understood before
+Tull's time.
+
+There was a great diversity of ploughs at this date, almost every
+county having some variation.[349] The principal sorts were the
+double-wheel plough, useful upon hard land, usually drawn with horses
+or oxen two abreast, the wheels 18 in. to 20 in. high. The one-wheel
+plough, which could be used on almost any sort of land; it was very
+'light and nimble', so that it could be drawn by one horse and held by
+one man, and thus ploughed an acre a day.
+
+Then there was a 'plain plough without either wheel or foot', very
+easy to work and fit for any lands; a double plough worked by four
+horses and two men, of two kinds, one ploughing a double furrow, the
+other a double depth.
+
+There were also ploughs with a harrow attached, others constructed to
+plough, sow, and harrow, but not of much value; and a turfing plough
+for burning sod. Carts and waggons were of many sorts, according to
+the locality, the greater wheels of the waggon being usually 18 feet
+in circumference the lesser 9 feet. A useful implement was the
+trenching plough used on grass land to cut out the sides of trenches
+or drains, with a long handle and beam and with a coulter or knife
+fixed in it and sometimes a wheel or wheels. The following is a list
+of other implements then considered necessary for a farm.
+
+  _For the field._
+
+    Harrows          Mole spear        Beetles
+    Forks            Mole traps        Roller
+    Sickles          Weedhooks         Cradle scythe
+    Reaphooks        Pitchforks        Seedlip[350]
+    Sledds           Rakes
+
+  _For the barn and stable._
+
+    Flails           Pannels (pillions)   Pails
+    Winnowing fan    Pack-saddles         Mane combs
+    Sieves           Cart lines           Goads
+    Sacks            Ladders              Yokes
+    Bins             Corn measures        Wanteyes[351]
+    Curry combs      Brooms               Suffingles (surcingles?)
+    Whips            Skeps (baskets)      Screens for corn.
+    Harness
+
+  _For the meadows and pastures._
+
+    Scythes          Pitchforks           Cutting spade for hayrick
+    Rakes            Fetters and clogs    Horse-locks.
+                     Besides many tools.
+
+A considerable variety of manures were in use, chalk, lime, marl,
+fuller's earth, clay, sand, sea-weed, river-weed, oyster shells, fish,
+dung, ashes, soot, salt, rags, hair, malt dust, bones, horns, and the
+bark of trees. Of the oyster shells Worlidge says, 'I am credibly
+informed that an ingenious gentleman living near the seaside laid on
+his lands great quantities, which made his neighbours laugh at him (as
+usually they do at anything besides their own clownish road or custom
+of ignorance),' and after a year or two's exposure to the weather
+'they exceedingly enriched his land for many years after.' The bones
+then used were marrow-bones and fish bones, or 'whatever hath any
+oiliness or fatness in it', but the bones of horses and other animals
+were also used, burnt before being applied to the land, crushing not
+being thought of till many years after.
+
+In 1688 Gregory King,[352] who was much more accurate than most
+statisticians of his time, gave the following estimate of the land of
+England and Wales:--
+
+                                   Acres.                Per acre.
+
+  Arable                         9,000,000 worth to rent 5s. 6d.
+  Pasture and meadow            12,000,000   "      "    8s. 8d.
+  Woods and coppices             3,000,000   "      "    5s.
+  Forests and parks              3,000,000   "      "    3s. 8d.
+  Barren land                   10,000,000   "      "    1s.
+  Houses, gardens, churches, &c. 1,000,000
+  Water and roads                1,000,000
+                                ----------
+                      Total:    39,000,000
+
+He valued the live stock of England and Wales at L18-1/4 millions, and
+estimated the produce of the arable land in England at:
+
+                 Million          Value
+                bushels.       per bushel.
+
+    Wheat          14            3s. 6d.
+    Rye            10            2s. 6d.
+    Barley         27            2s. 0d.
+    Oats           16            1s. 6d.
+    Peas            7            2s. 6d.
+    Beans           4            2s. 6d.
+    Vetches         1            2s. 6d.
+
+The same statistician drew up a scheme of the income and expenditure
+of the 'several families' in England in 1688, the population being
+5-1/2 millions[353]:--
+
+    No. of
+   families             Class.                          Income.
+   in class.
+
+      160          Temporal lords                   L3,200  0  0
+      800          Baronets                            880  0  0
+      600          Knights                             650  0  0
+    3,000          Esquires                            450  0  0
+   11,000          Gentlemen                           280  0  0
+    2,000          Eminent merchants                   400  0  0
+    8,000          Lesser merchants                    198  0  0
+   10,000          Lawyers                             154  0  0
+    2,000          Eminent clergy                       72  0  0
+    8,000          Lesser clergy                        50  0  0
+                   Yeoman:
+   40,000            Freeholders of the better sort     91  0  0
+  120,000            Freeholders of the lesser sort     55  0  0
+  120,000          (Tenant) farmers                     42 10  0
+   50,000          Shopkeepers and tradesmen            45  0  0
+   60,000          Artisans                             38  0  0
+  364,000          Labouring people and outservants     15  0  0
+  400,000          Cottagers and paupers                 6 10  0
+
+He calculated that the freeholder of the better sort saved on an
+average L8 15s. 0d. a year per family of 7; and the lesser sort L2
+15s. 0d. a year with a family of 5-1/2. The tenant farmer with a
+family of 5, only saved 25s. a year, while labouring families who, he
+said, averaged 3-1/2 (certainly an under estimate), lost annually 7s.,
+and cottagers and paupers with families of 3-1/4 (also an under
+estimate) lost 16s. 3d. a year. It will thus be seen that the tenant
+farmers, labourers, and cottagers, the bulk of those who worked on the
+land, were very badly off; the tenant farmer saved considerably less
+than the artisan. It will also be noticed that the rural population of
+England was about three-quarters of the whole.[354]
+
+The winter of 1683-4 was marked by one of the severest frosts that
+have ever visited England. Ice on the Thames is said to have been
+eleven inches thick; by Jan. 9 there were streets of booths on it; and
+by the 24th, the frost continuing more and more severe, all sorts of
+shops and trades flourished on the river, 'even to a printing press,
+where the people and ladies took a fancy to have their names printed
+and the day and year set down when printed on the Thames.' Coaches
+plied, there was bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and
+interludes, tippling 'and other lewd places'--a regular carnival on
+the water.[355] Altogether the frost which began at Christmas lasted
+ninety-one days and did much damage on land, many of the trees were
+split as if struck by lightning, and men and cattle perished in some
+parts. Poultry and other birds and many plants and vegetables also
+perished. Wheat, however, was little affected, as the average price
+was under 40s. a quarter. In 1692 a series of very bad seasons
+commenced, lasting, with a break in 1694, until 1698, always known as
+the 'ill' or 'barren' seasons, and the cause was the usual one in
+England, excessive cold and wet. In 1693 wheat was over 60s. a
+quarter, and in Kent turnips were made into bread for the poor.[356]
+The difference in the price of farm produce in various localities was
+striking, and an eloquent testimony to the wretched means of
+communication. At Newark, for instance, in 1692-3 wheat was from 36s.
+to 40s. a quarter, while at Brentford it touched 76s.; next year in
+the same two places it was 32s. and 86s. respectively. In 1695-6 hay
+at Newark was 13s. 4d. a ton, at Northampton it was from 35s. to 40s.
+
+In 1662 was passed the famous statute of parochial settlement, 14 Car.
+II, c. 12, which forged cruel fetters for the poor, and is said to
+have caused the iron of slavery to enter into the soul of the English
+labourer.[357] The Act states, that the reason for passing it was the
+continual increase of the poor throughout the kingdom, which had
+become exceeding burdensome owing to the defects in the law. Poor
+people, moreover, wandered from one parish to another in order 'to
+settle where there is the best Stocke, the largest commons or wastes
+to build cotages, and the most woods for them to burn and
+destroy.'[358] It was therefore determined to stop these wanderings,
+and most effectually was it done. Two justices were empowered to
+remove any person who settled in any tenement under the yearly value
+of L10 within forty days to the place where he was last legally
+settled, unless he gave sufficient security for the discharge of the
+parish in case he became a pauper.
+
+It is true that certain relaxations were subsequently made. The Act of
+1691, 3 W. & M., c. 2, allowed derivative settlements on payment of
+taxes for one year, serving an annual office, hiring for a year, and
+apprenticeship; while the Act of 1696, 8 & 9 Wm. III, c. 30, allowed
+the grant of a certificate of settlement, under which safeguard the
+holder could migrate to a district where his labour was required, the
+new parish being assured he would not become chargeable to it, and
+therefore not troubling to remove him till there was actual need: but
+the statute acted as an effectual check on migration and prevented the
+labourer carrying his work where it was wanted.[359] It became the
+object of parishes to have as few cottages and therefore as few poor
+as possible. In 'close' parishes, i.e. where all the land belonged to
+one owner, as distinguished from 'open' ones where it belonged to
+several, all the cottages were often pulled down so that labourers
+coming to work in it had to travel long distances in all weathers. We
+shall see further relaxation in the law in 1795, but it was not until
+modern times that this abominable system was destroyed. The
+agricultural labourer's difficulty in building a house was aggravated
+by the statute 31 Eliz., c. 7, before noticed, which in order to
+restrain the building of cottages enacted that none, except in towns
+and certain other places, were to be built unless 4 acres of land were
+attached to them, under a penalty of L10, and 40s. a month for
+continuing to maintain it. This Act was not repealed until the reign
+of George III. However, it seems to have been frequently winked at. In
+Shropshire, for instance, the fine often was only nominal; in the
+seventeenth century orders authorizing the building of cottages on the
+waste were freely given by the Court of Quarter Sessions, and orders
+were also made by the Court for the erection of cottages
+elsewhere.[360]
+
+At the restoration of Charles II the corn laws had practically been
+unaltered since 1571,[361] when it had been enacted that corn might be
+exported from certain ports in certain ships at all times when
+proclamation was not made to the contrary, on a payment of 12d. a
+quarter on wheat and 8d. a quarter on other grain. Now both export and
+import were subjected to heavy duties, but these caused such high
+prices in corn that they were reduced in 1663; yet high duties were
+again imposed in 1673, which continued until the revolution. Then,
+owing to good crops and low prices, which brought distress on the
+landed interest, a new policy was introduced: export duties were
+abolished and the other extreme resorted to, viz. a bounty on export
+of 5s. in the quarter as long as the home price did not exceed 48s. At
+the same time import duties remained high, and this system lasted till
+1773. Never had the corn-growers of England been so thoroughly
+protected, yet, owing to causes over which the legislators had no
+control, namely bountiful seasons, the prices of wheat for the next
+seventy years was from 15 to 20 per cent. cheaper than in the previous
+forty. Modern economists have described this system as one of the
+worst instances of a class using their legislative power to subsidize
+themselves at the expense of the community. As a matter of fact it was
+the firm conviction of the statesmen and economists of the time, that
+husbandry, being the main industry and prop of England, and the
+foundation on which the whole political power of the country was
+based, should receive every encouragement. At all events, in many ways
+the policy was successful.[362] It encouraged investment in land, and
+materially assisted the agricultural improvement for which the
+eighteenth century was noted, the export too employed English
+shipping, and thus aided industry. Arthur Young said it was the
+singular felicity of this country to have devised a plan which
+accomplished the strange paradox of at once lowering the price of corn
+and encouraging agriculture, for by the system in vogue till 1773 if
+corn was scarce it was imported, while if there was a glut at home
+export was assisted so that great fluctuations in price were
+prevented.[363] It seemed of the utmost importance to men of that time
+that England should be self-supporting and independent of possible
+adversaries for the necessaries of life; the wisdom of the policy was
+never questioned, and was accepted by statesmen of every party.[364]
+To blame the landowners for adopting what seemed the wisest course to
+every sensible person is merely an instance of partisan spite.
+
+At the Peace of Paris in 1763 the question as to whether England or
+France was to be the great colonizing country of the world was finally
+settled, and a great development of English trade ensued. It was
+accompanied by a great increase of population, exports of corn were
+largely reduced, and the balance began to incline the other way, so
+that the next Act of importance was that of 1773 which permitted the
+import of foreign wheat at a nominal duty of 6d. a quarter when it was
+over 48s., but prohibited export and the bounty on export when wheat
+was at or above 44s. This was the nearest approach to free trade
+before 1846.
+
+The time, however, was not yet ripe for this, and the nominal duty on
+imports was too small for landlords and farmers, so that in 1791 the
+price when the same nominal duty was to come into force was raised to
+54s., while between 50s. and 54s. a duty of 2s. 6d. was imposed, and
+under 50s. a duty of 24s. 3d.; and export was allowed without bounty
+when wheat was under 46s. Export of corn, however, by this time had
+become a matter of little moment, England having definitely ceased to
+be an exporting country after 1789.
+
+Not only were English landowners after the Restoration anxious to
+protect their corn, but they also took alarm at the imports of Irish
+cattle which they said lowered English rents, so that in 1665 and 1680
+(18 Car. II, c. 2, and 32 Car. II, c. 2) laws were framed absolutely
+prohibiting the import of Irish cattle, sheep, and swine, as well as
+of beef, pork, bacon, and mutton, and even butter and cheese. The
+statute 12 Car. II, c. 4, also virtually excluded Irish wool from
+England by duties amounting to prohibition. It was not until 1759 that
+free imports of cattle from Ireland were allowed for five years,[365]
+a period prolonged by 5 Geo. III, c. 10, and a statute of 1772.
+
+In 1699 wool was allowed to be shipped from six specified ports in
+Ireland to eight specified ports in England,[366] and by 16 Geo. II,
+c. 11, wool might be sent from Ireland to any port in England under
+certain restrictions.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[339] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_ (ed. 1669), p. 10.
+
+[340] Ibid. p. 124.
+
+[341] Ibid. p. 124.
+
+[342] _Pomona_ (ed. 1664), p. 1.
+
+[343] Ed. 1635, Book i, p. 175.
+
+[344] Markham, _op. cit._ i. 188.
+
+[345] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 38. Plot, however, in his
+_Natural History of Staffordshire_, 1686, says hemp and flax were sown
+in small quantities all over the county, p. 109.
+
+[346] _New System of Agriculture_ (ed. 1726), p. 113. Woad is still
+grown 'in some districts in England' (Morton, _Cyclopaedia of
+Agriculture_, ii. 1159), but in the Agricultural Returns of 1907
+apparently occupies too small an acreage to entitle it to a separate
+mention.
+
+[347] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 43.
+
+[348] Tull, in his _Horseshoeing Husbandry_ (p. 147), speaks of the
+drill as if already in use.
+
+[349] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 205.
+
+[350] The seedlip was a long-shaped basket suspended from the sower's
+shoulder and was usually made of wood.
+
+[351] Horse-girths for securing pack-saddles.
+
+[352] Houghton, about the same time, said England contained 28 to 29
+million acres, of which 12 millions lay waste (_Collections_, iv. II).
+In 1907 the Board of Agriculture returned the total area of England
+and Wales, excluding water, at 37,130,344 acres.
+
+[353] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 228.
+
+[354] If we allow that most of the two last classes enumerated were
+country folk. For the decline of the yeoman class, see chap. xviii.
+
+[355] Evelyn's _Diary_.
+
+[356] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 23.
+
+[357] Fowle, _Poor Law_, p. 63.
+
+[358] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 66, says, 'the abuses complained of in
+the preamble (of the Act) did actually exist.'
+
+[359] Hasbach, _op. cit._ pp. 67, 134, says the statute of 1662 did
+not entail so much evil by hindering migration as is generally
+supposed.
+
+[360] _Shropshire County Records_: Abstracts of the orders made by the
+Court of Quarter Sessions, 1638-1782, pp. xxiv, xxv.
+
+[361] See above, p. 70. 13 Eliz., c. 13. McCulloch, _Commercial
+Dictionary_ (1852), p. 412.
+
+[362] Cunningham, _English Industry and Commerce_, ii. 371.
+
+[363] _Political Arithmetic_, pp. 27-34, 193, 276.
+
+[364] Lecky, _England in the Eighteenth Century_, vi. 192.
+
+[365] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, iii. 311.
+
+[366] Ibid. ii. 706; iii. 221, 293.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+1700-1765
+
+GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.--CROPS.--CATTLE.--
+DAIRYING.--POULTRY.--TULL AND THE NEW HUSBANDRY.--BAD TIMES.
+--FRUIT-GROWING
+
+
+The history of agriculture in the eighteenth century is remarkable for
+several features of great importance. It first saw the application of
+capital in large quantities to farming, the improvements of the time
+being largely initiated by rich landowners whom Young praises rightly
+as public-spirited men who deserved well of their country, though
+Thorold Rogers attributes a meaner motive for the improvement of their
+estates, namely, their desire not to be outshone by the wealthy
+merchants.[367] They were often ably assisted by tenant farmers, many
+of whom were now men with considerable capital, for whom the smaller
+farms were amalgamated into large ones. After the agricultural
+revolution of the latter half of the century, the tendency to
+consolidate small holdings into large farms grew apace and was looked
+on as a decided mark of progress. This agricultural revolution was
+largely a result of the industrial revolution that then took place in
+England. Owing to mechanical inventions and the consequent growth of
+the factory system, the great manufacturing towns arose, whence came a
+great demand for food, and, to supply this demand, farms, instead of
+being small self-sufficing holdings just growing enough for the
+farmer and his family and servants, grew larger, and became
+manufactories of corn and meat. The century was also remarkable for
+another great change. England, hitherto an exporting country, became
+an importing one. The progress of the century was furthered by a band
+of men whose names are, or ought to be, household words with English
+farmers: Jethro Tull, Lord Townshend, Arthur Young, Bakewell, Coke of
+Holkham, and the Collings. Further the century witnessed a great
+number of enclosures, especially when it was drawing to its close.
+According to the Report of the Committee on Waste Lands in 1797, the
+number of Enclosure Acts was: under Anne, 2 Acts, enclosing 1,439
+acres; under Geo. I, 16 Acts, enclosing 17,960 acres; under Geo. II,
+226 Acts, enclosing 318,778 acres; from 1760 to 1797, 1,532 Acts,
+enclosing 2,804,197 acres.
+
+The period from 1700 to 1765 has been called the golden age of the
+agricultural classes, as the fifteenth century has been called the
+golden age of the labourer, but the farmer and landlord were often
+hard pressed; rates were low, wages were fair, and the demand for the
+produce of the farm constant owing to the growth of the population,
+yet prices for wheat, stock, and wool were often unremunerative to the
+farmer, and we are told in 1734, 'necessity has compelled our farmers
+to more carefulness and frugality in laying out their money than they
+were accustomed to in better times.'[368] The labourer's wages varied
+according to locality. The assessment of wages by the magistrates in
+Lancashire for 1725 remains, and according to that the ordinary
+labourer earned 10d. a day in the summer and 9d. in the winter months,
+with extras in harvest, and this may be taken as the average pay at
+that date. Threshing and winnowing wheat by piece-work cost 2s. a
+quarter, oats 1s. a quarter. Making a ditch 4 feet wide at the top, 18
+inches wide at the bottom, and 3 feet deep, double set with quicks,
+cost 1s. a rood (8 yards), 10d. if without the quick.[369] The
+magistrates remarked in their proclamation on the plenty of the times
+and were afraid that for the northern part of the county, which was
+then very backward, the wages were too liberal. Wheat was,
+unfortunately, that year 46s. 1d. a quarter, but a few years before
+and after that date it was cheap--20s., 24s., 28s. a quarter--and
+fresh meat was only 3d. a lb., so that their wages went a long
+way.[370] A considerable portion of the wages was paid in kind, not
+only in drink but in food, though this custom became less frequent as
+the century went on.[371]
+
+As for his food, Eden tells us[372] that the diet of Bedford workhouse
+in 1730 was much better than that of the most industrious labourer in
+his own home, and this was the diet: bread and cheese or broth for
+breakfast, boiled beef hot or cold, sometimes with suet pudding for
+dinner, and bread and cheese or broth for supper. This must have been
+sufficiently monotonous, and we may be sure the labourer at home very
+seldom had boiled beef for dinner; but in the north he was much
+cleverer than his southern brother in cooking cereal foods such as
+oatmeal porridge, crowdie (also of oatmeal), frumenty or barley milk,
+barley broth, &c.[373]
+
+The village of the first half of the eighteenth century contained a
+much better graded society than the village of to-day. It had few
+gaps, so that there was a ladder from the lowest to the highest ranks,
+owing to the existence of many small holders of various degree, soon
+to be diminished by enclosure and consolidation.[374]
+
+There was a great increase in the number of live stock owing to the
+spread, gradual though it was, of roots and clover, which increased
+the winter food; 'of late years,' it was said in 1739, 'there have
+been improvements made in the breed of sheep by changing of rams, and
+sowing of turnips, grass seeds, &c.'[375] Crops, too, were improving;
+and enclosed lands about 1726 were said to produce over 20 bushels of
+wheat to the acre.[376]
+
+Though the number of Enclosure Acts at the beginning of the century
+was nothing like the number at the end, the process was steadily going
+on, often by non-parliamentary enclosure, and was approved by nearly
+every one. Some, however, were opposed to it. John Cowper, who wrote
+an essay on 'Enclosing Commons' in 1732, said, a common was often the
+chief support of forty or fifty poor families, and even though their
+rights were bought out they were under the necessity of leaving their
+old homes, for their occupation was gone; but he says nothing of the
+well-known increased demand for labour on the enclosed lands. The
+force of his arguments may be gauged from his answer to Lawrence's
+statement that enclosure is the greatest benefit to good husbandry,
+and a remedy for idleness. On the contrary, says he, who among the
+country people live lazier lives than the grazier and the dairyman?
+All the dairyman has to do is to call his cows together to be milked!
+
+Worlidge in 1669 had lamented that turnips were so little grown by
+English farmers in the field, and that it was a plant 'usually
+nourished in gardens',[377] and in a letter to Houghton in 1684, he is
+the first to mention the feeding of turnips to sheep.[378] However, in
+1726 it was said that nothing of late years had turned to greater
+profit to the farmer, who now found it one of his chief treasures; and
+there were then three sorts: the round which was most common, the
+yellow, and the long.[379] For winter use they were to be sown from
+the beginning of June to the middle of August, on fallow which had
+been brought to a good tilth, the seed harrowed in with a bush harrow,
+and if necessary rolled. When the plants had two or three leaves each
+they were to be hoed out, leaving them five or six inches apart,
+though some slovenly farmers did not trouble to do this; but there is
+no mention of hoeing between the rows. The fly was already recognized
+as a pest, and soot and common salt were used to fight it. Folding
+sheep in winter on turnips was then little practised, though Lawrence
+strongly recommends it. According to Defoe,[380] Suffolk was
+remarkable for being the first county where the feeding and fattening
+of sheep and other cattle with turnips was first practised in England,
+to the great improvement of the land, 'whence', he says, 'the practice
+is spread over most of the east and south, to the great enriching of
+farmers and increase of fat cattle.' There were great disputes as to
+collecting the tithe, always a sore subject, on turnips; and the
+custom seems to have been that if they were eaten off by store sheep
+they went tithe free, if sheep were fattened on them the tithe was
+paid.[381]
+
+Clover, the other great novelty of the seventeenth century, was now
+generally sown with barley, oats, or rye grass, about 15 lb. per acre.
+This amount, sown on 2 acres of barley, would next year produce 2
+loads worth about L5. The next crop stood for seed, which was cut in
+August, the hay being worth L9, and the seed out of it, 300 lb., was
+sold much of it for 16d. a lb., the sum realized in that year from the
+2 acres being L30, without counting the aftermath. At this time most
+of the seed was still imported from Flanders.[382] Much of the common
+and waste land of England, not previously worth 6d. an acre, had been
+by 1732 vastly improved through sowing artificial grasses on it, so
+that various people had gained considerable estates.[383]
+
+Carrots were also now grown as a field crop in places, especially near
+London, two sorts being known, the yellow and red, used chiefly by
+farmers for feeding their hogs.[384] Of wheat the names were many, but
+there were apparently only seven distinct sorts, the Double-eared,
+Eggshell, Red or Kentish, Great-bearded, Pollard, Grey, and Flaxen or
+Lammas.[385] The growth of saffron had declined, though the English
+variety was the best in the world, according to Lawrence, and except
+in Cambridgeshire and about Saffron Walden it was little known.
+
+Though it was still some time before the days of Bakewell, increased
+attention was given to cattle-breeding; it was urged that a
+well-shaped bull be put to cows, one that had 'a broad and curled
+forehead, long horns, fleshy neck, and a belly long and large.'[386]
+Such in 1726 was the ideal type of the long-horns of the Midland and
+the north, but it was noticed that of late years and especially in the
+north the Dutch breed was much sought after, which had short horns and
+long necks, the breed with which the Collings were to work such
+wonders. The then great price of L20 had been given for a cow of this
+breed. Bradley, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, and a well-known
+writer on agriculture, divided the cattle of England into three sorts
+according to their colour: the black, white, and red.[387] The black,
+commonly the smallest, was the strongest for labour, chiefly found in
+mountainous countries; also bred chiefly in Cheshire, Yorkshire,
+Lancashire, and Derbyshire, sixty years before this, and in those days
+Cheshire cheese came from these cattle, apparently very much like the
+modern Welsh breed.[388] The white were much larger, and very common
+in Lincolnshire at the end of the seventeenth century. They gave more
+milk than the black sort but went dry sooner. They were also found in
+Suffolk and Surrey.
+
+The red cattle were the largest in England, their milk rich and
+nourishing, so much so that it was given specially to consumptives.
+They were first bred in Somerset, where in Bradley's time particular
+attention was paid to their breeding, and were evidently the ancestors
+of the modern Devons. About London these cows were often fed on
+turnips, given them tops and all, which made their milk bitter. They
+were also found in Lincolnshire and some other counties, where 'they
+were fed on the marshes', and Defoe saw, in the Weald of Kent, 'large
+Kentish bullocks, generally all red with their horns crooked inward.'
+Bradley gives the following balance sheet for a dairy of nine cows:[389]
+
+            DR.                                       L   s. d.
+
+  6 months' grass keep at 1s. 6d. per week per head   17 11  0
+  6 months' winter keep (straw, hay, turnips, and
+     grains) at 2s. per week per head                 23  8  0
+                                                     ---------
+                                                     L40 19  0
+                                                     =========
+            CR.
+  13,140 gallons of milk                             136 17  6
+                                                      40 19  0
+                                                     ---------
+                                    Balance (profit) L95 18  6
+                                                     =========
+
+A correspondent, however, pointed out to Bradley that this yield and
+profit was far above the average, which was about L5 a cow, on whom
+Bradley retorted that it could be made, though it was exceptional.
+
+In the eighteenth century the great trade of driving Scottish cattle
+to London began, Walter Scott's grandfather being the pioneer. The
+route followed diverged from the Great North Road in Yorkshire in
+order to avoid turnpikes, and the cattle, grazing leisurely on the
+strips of grass by the roadside, generally arrived at Smithfield in
+good condition.[390]
+
+Defoe tells us that most of the Scottish cattle which came yearly
+into England were brought to the village of S. Faiths, north of
+Norwich, 'where the Norfolk graziers go and buy them. These Scots
+runts, coming out of the cold and barren highlands, feed so eagerly on
+the rich pasture in these marshes that they grow very fat. There are
+above 40,000 of these Scots cattle fed in this county every year. The
+gentlemen of Galloway go to England with their droves of cattle and
+take the money themselves.'[391] It was no uncommon thing for a
+Galloway nobleman to send 4,000 black cattle and 4,000 sheep to
+England in a year, and altogether from 50,000 to 60,000 cattle were
+said to come to England from Galloway yearly. Gentlemen on the Border
+before the Union got a very pretty living by tolls from these cattle;
+and the Earl of Carlisle made a good income in this way.
+
+Cattle were sometimes of a great size. In 1697, in the park of Sir
+John Fagg near Steyning, Defoe saw four bullocks of Sir John's own
+breeding for which was refused in Defoe's hearing L26 apiece. They
+were driven to Smithfield and realized L25 each, having probably sunk
+on the way, but dressed they weighed 80 stone a quarter![392] These
+weights must have been very exceptional, but go to prove that cattle
+then could be grown to much greater size than is generally credited. A
+good price for a bullock in the first half of the eighteenth century
+was from L7 to L10.
+
+The best poultry at the same date (1736) were said to be 'the
+white-feathered sort', especially those that had short and white legs,
+which were esteemed for the whiteness of their flesh; but those that
+had long yellow legs and yellow beaks were considered good for
+nothing.[393] Care was to be used in the choice of a cock, for those
+of the game kind were to be avoided as unprofitable. Bradley gives a
+balance sheet for 12 hens and 2 cocks who had a free run in a farmyard
+and an orchard:[394]
+
+               DR.                         L   s.  d.
+
+  39 bushels of barley                     3   5   0
+  Balance, profit                             16   0
+                                          ----------
+                                          L4   1   0
+                                          ==========
+
+               CR.                         L   s.  d.
+
+  Eggs (number unfortunately not given)    1   5   0
+  20 early chickens at 1s.                 1   0   0
+  72 late chickens at 6d.                  1  16   0
+                                          ----------
+                                          L4   1   0
+                                          ==========
+
+He also recommends that in stocking a farm of L200 a year the
+following poultry should be purchased:
+
+                                    L  s. d.
+
+  24 chickens at 4d.                   8  0
+  20 geese                          1  0  0
+  20 turkeys                        1  0  0
+  24 ducks                            12  0
+  6 pair of pigeons                   12  0
+
+The best way to fatten chickens, according to Bradley, was to put them
+in coops and feed them with barley meal, being careful to put a small
+quantity of brickdust in their water to give them an appetite.[395]
+
+On this farm were 20 acres of cow pasture besides common, and this
+with some turnips kept 9 cows, which gave about three gallons of milk
+a day at least, the milk being worth 1d. a quart. His pigs were of the
+'Black Bantham' breed, which were better than the large sort common in
+England, for the flesh was much more delicate.
+
+Suffolk was famous for supplying London with turkeys.[396] Three
+hundred droves of turkeys, each numbering from 300 to 1000, had in one
+season passed over Stratford Bridge on the road from Ipswich to
+London. Geese also travelled on foot to London in prodigious numbers
+from Norfolk, Suffolk, and the Fen country, often 1,000 to 3,000 in a
+drove, starting in August when harvest was nearly over, so that the
+geese might feed on the stubble by the way; 'and thus they hold on to
+the end of October, when the roads begin to be too stiff and deep for
+their broad feet and short legs to march on.' There was, however, a
+more rapid method of getting poultry to the great market, by means of
+carts of four stages or stories, one above another, to carry the birds
+in, drawn by two horses, which by means of relays travelled night and
+day, and covered as much as 100 miles in two days and one night, the
+driver sitting on the topmost stage.
+
+Hop growing in 1729, according to Richard Bradley, paid well; he says,
+'ground never esteemed before worth a shilling an acre per annum, is
+rendered worth forty, fifty, or sometimes more pounds a year by
+planting hops judiciously. An acre of hops shall bring to the owner
+clear profit about L30 yearly; but I have known hop grounds that have
+cleared above L50 yearly per acre.' At this date 12,000 acres in
+England were planted with hops.
+
+The great market for hops was Stourbridge Fair, once the greatest mart
+in England and still preserving much of its former importance: 'there
+is scarce any price fixed for hops in England till they know how they
+sell in Stourbridge Fair.'[397] Thither they came from Chelmsford,
+Canterbury, Maidstone, and Farnham, where the bulk of the hops in
+England were then grown, though some were to be found at Wilton near
+Salisbury, in Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. Round Canterbury
+Defoe says there were 6,000 acres of hops, all planted within living
+memory[398]; but the Maidstone district was called 'the mother of hop
+grounds', and with the country round Feversham was famous for apples
+and cherries.
+
+The finest wool still, it seems, came from near Leominster, where the
+sheep in Markham's time were described as small-boned and black-faced,
+with a light fleece, and apparently they still had the same appearance
+at the beginning of the eighteenth century[399]; and large-boned
+sheep with coarser wool were to be found in the counties of Warwick,
+Leicester, Buckingham, Northampton, and Nottingham; in the north of
+England too were big-boned sheep with inferior wool, the largest with
+coarse wool being found in the marshes of Lincolnshire.
+
+About this time wool had fallen much in price: 'Has nobody told you,'
+writes a west country farmer to his absentee landlord in 1737, 'that
+wool has fallen to near half its price, and that we cannot find
+purchasers for a great part of it at any price whatsoever. When most
+of our estates (farms) were taken wool was generally 7d., 8d., or more
+by the pound; the same is now 4d. and still falling.'[400] But the
+latter price was exceptionally low; Smith[401] gives the following
+average prices per tod of 28 lb.:
+
+  1706             17s. 6d.
+  1717-8         23s. to 27s.
+  1737-42        11s. to 14s.
+  1743               20s.
+  1743-53            24s.
+
+After 1753 it fell again, largely owing to the great plague among
+cattle, which brought about a 'prodigious increase of sheep'[402];
+and about 1770 Young[403] favoured corn rather than wool, for there
+was always a market for the former, but the foreign demand for cloth
+was diminishing, especially in the case of France, besides prohibition
+of export kept down the price.[404] Yet although wool was being
+deserted for corn it had in Young's time 'been so long supposed the
+staple and foundation of all our wealth, that it is somewhat dangerous
+to hazard an opinion not consonant to its encouragement'.
+
+At the end of the century, however, there was a rapid increase in the
+price, partly due to increased demand by spinners and weavers who,
+owing to machinery, were working more economically; and partly to the
+enclosure of commons, and the ploughing up of land for corn.[405]
+
+Cheshire had long been famous for cheese. Barnaby Googe, in the last
+quarter of the sixteenth century, says, 'in England the best cheese is
+the Cheshyre and the Shropshyre, then the Banbury cheese, next the
+Suffolk and the Essex, and the very worst the Kentish cheese.' Camden,
+who died in 1623, tells us that 'the grasse and fodder (in Cheshire)
+is of that goodness and vertue that cheeses be made here in great
+number, and of a most pleasing and delicate taste such as all England
+again affordeth not the like, no though the best dairywomen otherwise
+and skillfullest in cheese making be had from hence;' and a little
+later it was said no other county in the realm could compare with
+Cheshire, not even that wonderful agricultural country Holland from
+which England learnt so much.[406] In Lawrence's time Cheddar cheese
+was also famous, and there it had long been a custom for several
+neighbours to join their milk together to make cheeses, which were of
+a large size, weighing from 30 lb. to 100 lb. Good cheese came also
+from Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. The Cheshire men sent great
+quantities by sea to London, a long and tedious voyage, or else by
+land to Burton-on-Trent, and down that river to Hull and then by sea
+to London. The Gloucestershire men took it to Lechlade and sent it
+down the Thames; from Warwickshire it went by land all the way, or to
+Oxford and thence down the Thames to London. Stilton, too, had lately
+become famous, and was considered the best of all, selling for the
+then great price of 1s. a lb. on the farm, and 2s. 6d. at the Bell
+Inn, Stilton, where it seems to have first been sold in large
+quantities, though Leicestershire perhaps claims the honour of first
+making it.[407]
+
+The eastern side of Suffolk was, in Defoe's time, famous for the best
+butter and perhaps the worst cheese in England, the butter being
+'barrelled and sometimes pickled up in small casks'.[408]
+
+Rabbits were occasionally kept in large numbers for profit; at Auborne
+Chase in Wilts, there was a warren of 700 acres surrounded by a
+wall--a most effective way of preventing escape, but somewhat
+expensive. In winter time they were fed on hay, and hazel branches
+from which they ate the bark. They were never allowed to get below
+8,000 head, and from these, after deducting losses by poachers,
+weazles, polecats, foxes, &c., 24,000 were sold annually. These
+rabbits, owing to the quality of the grass, were famous for the
+sweetness of their flesh. The proprietor, Mr. Gilbert, began to kill
+them at Bartholomewtide, Aug. 24, and from then to Michaelmas obtained
+9s. a dozen for them delivered free in London; but those from
+Michaelmas to Christmas realized 10s. 6d. a dozen.
+
+The difference in price at the two periods is accounted for by the
+fact that their skins were much better in the latter, and the rabbits
+kept longer when killed; they must also have been larger. A skin
+before Michaelmas was only worth 1d., but soon after nearly 6d.; and
+in Hertfordshire was a warren where rabbit skins with silvery hair
+fetched 1s. each.[409]
+
+We have now reached the period when the result of Jethro Tull's
+labours was given to the world, his _Horse-hoeing Husbandry_ appearing
+in 1733. It is no exaggeration to say that agriculture owes more to
+Tull than to any other man; the principles formulated in his famous
+book revolutionized British agriculture, though we shall see that it
+took a long time to do it. He has indeed been described as 'the
+greatest individual improver agriculture ever knew'. He first realized
+that deep and perfect pulverization is the great secret of vegetable
+nutrition, and was thus led on to perfect the system of drilling seed
+wide enough apart to admit of tillage in the intervals, and abandoning
+the wide ridges in vogue, laid the land into narrow ridges 5 feet or 6
+feet wide. He was born at Basildon in Berkshire, heir to a good
+estate, and was called to the bar in 1699, but on his marriage in the
+same year settled on the paternal farm of Howberry in Oxfordshire. In
+his preface to his book he throws a flash of light on country life at
+a time when the roads were nearly as bad as in the Middle Ages, so
+that they effectually isolated different parts of England, when he
+speaks of 'a long confinement within the limits of a lonely farm, in a
+country where I am a stranger, having debarred me from all
+conversation'.[410]
+
+He took to agriculture more by necessity than by choice, for he knew
+too much 'the inconveniency and slavery attending the exorbitant power
+of husbandry servants', and he further gives this extraordinary
+character of the farm labourer of his day: ''Tis the most formidable
+objection against our agriculture that the defection of labourers is
+such that few gentlemen can keep their land in their own hands, but
+let them for a little to tenants who can bear to be insulted,
+assaulted, kicked, cuffed, and Bridewelled, with more patience than
+gentlemen are endowed with.'[411] Tull wrote just before it became the
+fashion for gentlemen to go into farming, and laments that the lands
+of the country were all, or mostly, in the hands of rack-renters,
+whose supposed interest it was that they should never be improved for
+fear of fines and increased rents. Gentlemen then knew so little of
+farming that they were unable to manage their estates. No doubt his
+scathing remarks helped to initiate the well-known change in this
+respect, and soon, over all England, gentlemen of education and
+position were engaged in removing this reproach from their class. The
+same complaint as to their ignorance of matters connected with their
+land crops up again during the great French war, but they then had a
+good excuse, as they were busy fighting the French.
+
+Tull invented his drill about 1701 at Howberry. The first occasion for
+making it, he says, was that it 'was very difficult to find a man that
+could sow clover tolerably; they had a habit to throw it once with the
+hand to two large strides and go twice in each cast; thus, with 9 or
+10 lb. of seed to an acre, two-thirds of the ground was unplanted. To
+remedy this I made a hopper, to be drawn by a boy, that planted an
+acre sufficiently with 6 lb. of seed; but when I added to this hopper
+an exceeding light plough that made 6 channels eight inches asunder,
+into which 2 lb. to an acre being drilled the ground was as well
+planted. This drill was easily drawn by a man, and sometimes by a
+boy.'
+
+His invention was largely prompted by his desire to do without the
+insolent farm servant whom he has described above, and the year after
+it was invented he certainly had his wish, for they struck in a body
+and were dismissed: 'it were more easy to teach the beasts of the
+field than to drive the ploughman out of his way.'
+
+His ideas were largely derived from the mechanism of the organ which,
+being fond of music, he had mastered in his youth--a rotary mechanism,
+which is the foundation of all agricultural sowing implements. His
+first invention may be described as a drill plough to sow wheat and
+turnip seed in drills three rows at a time, a harrow to cover the seed
+being attached. Afterwards he invented a turnip drill, so arranged as
+regards dropping the seed and its subsequent covering with soil that
+half the seed should come up earlier than the rest, to enable a
+portion at least to escape the dreaded fly. He was a great believer in
+doing everything himself, and worked so hard at his drill that he had
+to go abroad for his health. He was somewhat carried away by his
+invention, and asserts that the expense of a drilled crop of wheat was
+one-ninth of that sown in the old way, giving the following figures to
+prove his assertion:
+
+  _The Old Way_
+                                                 L  s. d.
+
+  Seed, 2-1/2 bushels, at 3s.                       7  6
+  Three ploughings, harrrowing, and sowing         16  0
+  Weeding                                           2  0
+  Rent of preceding fallow                         10  0
+  Manure                                         2 10  0
+  Reaping                                           4  6
+                                               ---------
+                                               L 4 10  0[412]
+                                               =========
+
+  _The New Way_
+
+
+  Seed, 3 pecks                                     2  3
+  Tillage                                           4  0
+  Drilling                                             6
+  Weeding                                              6
+  Uncovering (removing clods fallen on the wheat)      2
+  Brine and lime                                       1
+  Reaping                                           2  6
+                                                   -----
+                                                   10  0
+                                                   =====
+
+It should be noted that he has omitted to charge rent for the year in
+which the crop was grown in both cases.
+
+He considered fallowing and manure unnecessary, and grew without
+manure 13 successive wheat crops on the same piece of ground, getting
+better crops than his neighbours who pursued the ordinary course of
+farming. His three great principles, indeed, were drilling, reduction
+of seed, and absence of weeds, and he saw that dung was a great
+carrier of the latter but lacked a due appreciation of its chemical
+action. Of course, like all _improvers_, he was met with unlimited
+opposition, and on the publication of his book he was assailed with
+abuse, which, being a sensitive man, caused him extreme annoyance. His
+health was bad, his troubles with his labourers unending, his son a
+spendthrift, and he died at his now famous home, Prosperous Farm, near
+Hungerford, in 1741, having said not long before his death, 'Some,
+allowed as good judges, have upon a full view and examination of my
+practice declared their opinion that it would one day become the
+general husbandry of England.'[413] Scotland was the first to perceive
+the merits of the system, and it gradually worked southwards into
+England, but for many years had to fight against ignorance and
+prejudice, even so intelligent a man as Arthur Young being opposed to
+it.
+
+Farm leases had by this time assumed their modern form, and
+cultivation clauses were numerous. In one of 1732, at Hawsted, the
+tenant was to keep the hedges in repair, being allowed bushes and
+stakes for so doing. He was also to bestow on some part of the lands
+one load of good rotten muck over and above what was made on the farm
+for every load of hay, straw, or stover (fodder) which he should carry
+off.[414] In another of 1740, he was to leave in the last year of the
+tenancy one-third of the arable land summer tilled, ploughed, and
+fallowed, for which he was to be paid according to the custom of the
+country. In 1753, in the lease of Pinford End Farm, there was a
+penalty of L10 an acre for breaking up pasture; a great increase in
+the amount of the penalty. All compost, dung, soil, and ashes arising
+on the farm were to be bestowed upon it.
+
+Only two crops successively were to be taken on any of the arable
+land, but land sown with clover and rye-grass, if fed off, or with
+turnips which were fed on some part of the farm, were not to count as
+crops.
+
+The ashes mentioned were those from wood, which were now carefully
+looked after, as it had become the custom to sell them to the
+soap-boilers, who came round to every farm collecting them. This is
+the earliest mention in a Hawsted lease of rye-grass, clover, and
+turnips, though clover and turnips had been first cultivated there
+about 1700, and soon spread.
+
+The winter of 1708-9 was very severe, a great frost lasting from
+October until the spring; wheat was 81s. 9d. a quarter, and high
+prices lasted until 1715.[415]
+
+From 1715 to 1765 was an era of good seasons and low prices generally;
+in that half-century Tooke says there were only five bad seasons. In
+1732 prices of corn were very low, wheat being about 24s. a quarter,
+so that we are not surprised to find that its cultivation often did
+not pay at all.[416]
+
+At Little Gadsden in Hertfordshire, in that year a fair season, and on
+enclosed land, the following is the balance sheet for an acre:
+
+                             DR.                      L  s. d.
+
+  Rent                                                  12  0
+  Dressing (manuring)                                 1  0  0
+  2-1/2 bushels of seed                                  7  6
+  Ploughing first time                                   6  0
+      "     twice more                                   8  0
+  Harrowing                                                 6
+  Reaping and carrying                                   6  6
+  Threshing                                              3  9
+                                                     --------
+                                                      3  4  3
+                                                     ========
+
+                             CR.            L   s. d.
+
+  15 bushels of wheat (a poor crop, as
+    20 bushels was now about the average)    2  2  0
+  Straw                                        11  6
+
+                                                      2 13  6
+                                                     --------
+                             _LOSS_                     10  9
+                                                     ========
+
+On barley, worth about L1 a quarter, the loss was 3s. 6d. an acre; on
+oats, worth 13s. a quarter, however, the profit was 21s.; on beans,
+26s. 6d., these being that year exceptionally good and worth 20s. a
+quarter.[417] Ellis objected to the new mode of drilling wheat
+because, he said, the rows are more exposed to the violence of the
+winds, rains, &c., by growing apart, than if close together, when the
+stalks support each other.[418] This estimate may be compared to that
+of Tull for the 'old way' of sowing wheat,[419] and to the following
+estimate of fifty years later in Surrey, when wheat was a much better
+price:--
+
+                            DR.                    L  s. d.
+
+  Rent, tithe, taxes                               1  0  0
+  Team, &c.                                        1  0  0
+  2 bushels of seed                                  10  0
+  Carting and spreading manure and water furrowing    2  6
+  Brining                                                6
+  Weeding                                             1  6
+  Reaping and carrying                                9  0
+  Threshing and cleaning                              7  6
+  Binding straw                                       1  6
+                                                 ---------
+                                                  L3 12  6[420]
+                                                 =========
+
+                            CR.
+  20 bushels at 5s.                                5  0  0
+  1-1/2 loads of straw                             1  2  6
+                                                 ---------
+                                                  L6  2  6
+                                                 =========
+
+The profit was thus L2 10s. 0d. an acre, and for barley it was L3 3s.
+6d., for oats L1 19s. 10d., for beans L1 13s. 0d.[421]
+
+This crop of wheat was not very good, as the average in that district
+was from 20 to 25 bushels per acre, and Young before this saw crops of
+30 bushels per acre growing. The over frequent use of fallows, which
+had so long marked agriculture, was in the early half of the
+eighteenth century beginning to be strongly disapproved of. Bradley
+advocated the continuous cultivation of the ground with different
+kinds of crops, 'for I find', he said, 'by experience that if such
+crops are sown as are full of fibrous roots, such roots greatly help
+to open the parts of grounds inclining to too much stiffness.'[422]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[367] _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p. 472.
+
+[368] See Baker, _Record of Seasons and Prices_, p. 185.
+
+[369] Eden, _State of the Poor_, iii p. cvii; Thorold Rogers, _Work
+and Wages_, p. 396.
+
+[370] In Herefordshire at this time it was 1-1/2d. per lb.
+
+[371] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 86.
+
+[372] Eden, _op. cit._ i. 286.
+
+[373] Ibid. i. 498.
+
+[374] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 71.
+
+[375] Smith, _Memoirs of Wool_, ii. 93.
+
+[376] John Lawrence, _New System of Agriculture_, p. 45. In 1712, a
+normal season, 48 acres of wheat at Southwick in Hants produced 16
+bushels per acre, 45 acres of barley 12 bushels per acre, 30 acres of
+oats 24 bushels per acre; at the same place 240 sheep realized 8s.
+each, cows 65s., calves L1, horses L6, hay 25s. a ton (_Hampshire
+Notes and Queries_, iii. 120).
+
+[377] Worlidge, _Systema Agriculturae_, p. 42.
+
+[378] _Collections_, iv. 142.
+
+[379] Lawrence, _New System of Agriculture_, p. 109.
+
+[380] _Tour_ (ed. 1724), i. 87.
+
+[381] Ellis, _Chiltern and Vale Farming_, p. 353.
+
+[382] Bradley, _General Treatise_, i. 175.
+
+[383] Ellis, _Chiltern and Vale Farming_, p. 260.
+
+[384] J. Lawrence, _New System of Agriculture_, p. 112.
+
+[385] Ibid. p. 92. About 1757 Lucerne, hitherto little grown in
+England, took its place in the rotation of crops.
+
+[386] Ibid. p. 130.
+
+[387] _A General Treatise on Husbandry_ (1726), i. 72; cf. c.
+
+[388] The black cattle seem to have been spread very generally over
+England, according to previous writers and to Defoe, who often
+mentions them. He saw a 'prodigious quantity' in the meadows by the
+Waveney in Norfolk.--_Tour_, i. 97.
+
+[389] Bradley, _General Treatise_, i. 76.
+
+[390] Slater, _English Peasantry_, p. 52.
+
+[391] _Tour_ (ed. 1724), i. (1) 97, and iii. (2) 73.
+
+[392] Ibid. i. 63.
+
+[393] J. Lawrence, _New System of Agriculture_, p. 151.
+
+[394] Bradley, _General Treatise_, i. 110.
+
+[395] _Country Gentleman and Farmer's Director_ (1726), p. 7.
+
+[396] Defoe, _Tour_, i. 87.
+
+[397] Defoe, _Tour_ (3rd ed.), i. 81.
+
+[398] Defoe, _Tour_ (ed. 1724), ii. 1, 134.
+
+[399] Bradley, _General Treatise_, i. 160; see also Smith, _Memoirs of
+Wool_, ii. 169, where the sheep of Leominster, of Cotteswold, and of
+the Isle of Wight are said to be the best in 1719. The great market
+for sheep was Weyhill Fair, and Stourbridge Fair was a great wool
+market.
+
+[400] _The West Country Farmer, a Representation of the Decay of
+Trade_, 1737.
+
+[401] _Memoirs of Wool_, ii. 243.
+
+[402] Ibid. ii. 399.
+
+[403] _Farmer's Letters_ (3rd ed.), p. 27.
+
+[404] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, ii. 384.
+
+[405] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, ii. 458.
+
+[406] Ormerod, _Cheshire_, i. 129. These words were written about
+1656.
+
+[407] See _Victoria County History: Rutland, Agriculture_. Stilton was
+eaten in the same condition as many prefer it now, 'with the mites
+round it so thick that they bring a spoon for you to eat them.'
+
+[408] Defoe, _Tour_, i. (1) 78. Cheshire cheese was 2d. to 2-1/2d. per
+lb., Cheddar 6d. to 8d. in 1724, an extraordinary difference.
+
+[409] Bradley, i. 172.
+
+[410] Preface to _Horse-hoeing Husbandry_, (ed. 1733).
+
+[411] _Horse-hoeing Husbandry_, p. vi.
+
+[412] _The West Country Farmer_, above quoted, says wheat growing (in
+1737) paid little. Before a bushel can be sold it costs L4 an acre,
+and the crop probably fetches half the money.
+
+[413] _R.A.S.E. Journ._ (3rd Ser.), ii. 20.
+
+[414] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 216.
+
+[415] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 35.
+
+[416] Wheat averaged:
+
+1718-22 about 27s. 1730 about 30s. 1750 about 30s. 1724 " 36s. 1732 "
+24s. 1755 " 35s. 1725 " 46s. 1736 " 30s. 1760 " 38s. 1726 " 35s. 1740
+" 42s. 1765 " 42s. 1728 " 52s. 1744 " 23s.
+
+
+[417] Ellis, _Chiltern and Vale Farming_, p. 209. Nothing is charged
+for tithe and taxes.
+
+[418] Ibid. p. 352.
+
+[419] See above, p. 177, also p. 199 for Young's estimate in 1770.
+
+[420] Nothing is charged for the manure which was carted and spread.
+
+[421] John Trusler, _Practical Husbandry_, p. 28.
+
+[422] _Country Gentleman and Farmer's Director_ (1726), p. xiii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+1700-1765
+
+TOWNSHEND.--SHEEP-ROT.--CATTLE PLAGUE. FRUIT-GROWING
+
+
+In 1730 Charles, second Viscount Townshend, retired from politics, on
+his quarrel with his brother-in-law Walpole, who remarked that 'as
+long as the firm was Townshend and Walpole the utmost harmony
+prevailed, but it no sooner became Walpole and Townshend than things
+went wrong'. He devoted himself to the management of his Norfolk
+estates and set an example to English landlords in wisely and
+diligently experimenting in farm practice which was soon followed on
+all sides, the names of Lords Ducie, Peterborough, and Bolingbroke
+being the best known of his fellow-labourers. A generation afterwards
+Young wrote, 'half the County of Norfolk within the memory of man
+yielded nothing but sheep feed, whereas those very tracts of land are
+now covered with as fine barley and rye as any in the world and great
+quantities of wheat besides.'[423] There can be no doubt from this
+statement, made by an eyewitness of exceptional capacity, that he
+commenced the work so nobly carried on by Coke. The same authority
+tells us that when Townshend began his improvements near Norwich much
+of the land was an extensive heath without either tree or shrub, only
+a sheepwalk to another farm; so many carriages crossed it that they
+would sometimes be a mile abreast of each other in pursuit of the best
+track. By 1760 there was an excellent turnpike road, enclosed on each
+side with a good quickset hedge, and all the land let out in
+enclosures and cultivated on the Norfolk system in superior style; the
+whole being let at 15s. an acre, or ten times its original value.
+Townshend's two special hobbies were the field cultivation of turnips,
+and improvement in the rotation of crops. Pope says his conversation
+was largely of turnips, and he was so zealous in advocating them that
+he was nicknamed 'Turnip Townsend'.[424] He initiated the Norfolk or
+four-course system of cropping, in which roots, grasses, and cereals
+were wisely blended, viz. turnips, barley, clover and rye grass,
+wheat. He also reintroduced marling to the light lands of Norfolk, and
+followed Tull's system of drilling and horse-hoeing turnips, with the
+result that the poor land of which his estate was largely composed was
+converted into good corn and cattle-growing farms. Like all the
+progressive agriculturists of the day, he was an advocate of
+enclosures, and he had no small share in the growth of the movement by
+which, in the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges, 244 enclosure
+Acts were passed and 338,177 acres enclosed. The progress of enclosure
+was alleged as a proof that England was never more prosperous than
+under Walpole; the number of private gentlemen in Britain of ample
+estates was said to exceed that of any country in the world
+proportionately, and was far greater than in the reign of Charles II.
+The value of land at twenty-six or twenty-seven years' purchase was a
+conclusive proof of the wealth of England.[425]
+
+Though, however, the first half of the century was generally
+prosperous there were bad times for farmer and landlord. We have seen
+that wheat-growing paid little, although from 1689 to 1773 the farmer
+was protected against imports and aided by a bounty on exports. In
+1738 Lord Lyttelton wrote: 'In most parts of England, gentlemen's
+rents are so ill paid and the weight of taxes lies so heavy upon them
+that those who have nothing from the Court can scarce support their
+families.'[426] Sheep in the damp climate of England have always been
+subject to rot, and in 1735 there was, according to Ellis, the most
+general rot in the memory of man owing to a very wet season; and, as
+in the disastrous year of 1879, which must be fresh in many farmers'
+memories, other animals, deer, hares, and rabbits, were affected also;
+and the dead bodies of rotten sheep were so numerous in road and field
+that the stench was offensive to every one. Another bad outbreak
+occurred in 1747. It is well known that farmers are always grumblers,
+probably with an eye to the rent; but even in these much praised times
+they apparently made small profits. The west country farmer quoted
+before, who had been fifty years on the same estate, and writes with
+the stamp of sincerity, admits in 1737 that 'with all the skill and
+diligence in the world he can hardly keep the cart upon the wheels.
+Wool had gone down, wheat didn't pay and graziers were doing badly;
+tho' formerly our cattle and wool was always a sure card'. He says
+that the profits of grazing were reckoned at one-third of the
+improvement that ensued from the grazing, but the grazier was not now
+getting this. He attributed much of the distress, however, to the
+extravagance of the times. Landlords, including his own, preferred
+London to the country, and spent their money there. How different was
+the behaviour of his landlord's grandfather. 'Many a time would his
+worship send for me to go a-hunting or shooting with him; often would
+he take me with him on his visits and would introduce me as his
+friend. The country gentlewoman and the parson's wife, that used to
+stitch for themselves, are now so hurried with dressings and visits
+and other attractions that they hire an Abigail to do it.'
+
+He thought, too, the labourers were getting too high wages; 'they are
+so puffed up by our provender as to offer us their heels and threaten
+on any occasion to leave us to do our work ourselves.' One would like
+to hear the labourers' opinion on this point, but they were dumb. In
+spite of higher wages the young men and young women flocked to the
+cities, and those who remain were lazy and extravagant, even the
+country wenches contending about 'double caps, huge petticoats, clock
+stockings, and other trumpery'.[427]
+
+The bounty now paid on the export of wheat was naturally resented by
+the common people, as it raised the price of their bread. In 1737 a
+load belonging to Farmer Waters of Burford, travelling along the road
+to Redbridge for exportation, was stopped near White parish by a crowd
+of people who knocked down the leading horse, broke the wagon in
+pieces, cut the sacks, and strewed about the corn, with threats that
+they would do the like to all who sold wheat to export.[428] While
+England was paying farmers to export wheat she was also importing,
+though in plentiful years importers had a very bad time. In 1730 there
+were lying at Liverpool 33,000 windles (a windle--220 lb.) of imported
+corn, unsaleable owing to the great crop in England.[429] The year
+1740 was distinguished by one of the severest winters on record. From
+January 1 to February 5 the thermometer seldom reached 32 deg., and the
+cold was so intense that hens and ducks, even cattle in their stalls
+died of it, trees were split asunder, crows and other birds fell to
+the ground frozen in their flight. This extraordinary winter was
+followed by a cold and late spring; no verdure had appeared by May; in
+July it was still cold, and thousands of acres of turnips rotted in
+the ground. Among minor misfortunes may be noticed the swarms of
+grasshoppers who devastated the pastures near Bristol at the end of
+August 1742,[430] and the swarms of locusts who came to England in
+1748 and consumed the vegetables.[431]
+
+The cattle plague of 1745[432] was so severe that owing to the
+scarcity of stock great quantities of grass land were ploughed up,
+which helped to account for the fact that in 1750 the export of corn
+from England reached its maximum; though the main cause of this was
+the long series of excellent seasons that set in after 1740.[433] The
+cattle plague also raged in 1754 in spite of an Order in Council that
+all infected cattle should be shot and buried 4 ft. deep, and pitch,
+tar, rosin, and gunpowder burnt where infected cattle had died, and
+cow-houses washed with vinegar and water. Such were the sanitary
+precautions of the time.[434] In 1756 came another bad year, corn was
+so scarce that there were many riots; the king expressed to Parliament
+his concern at the suffering of the poor, and the export of corn was
+temporarily prohibited. The fluctuations in price are remarkable: in
+1756, before the deficiency of the harvest was realized, wheat was
+22s. and it went up at the following rate: Jan., 1757, 49s.; Feb.,
+51s.; March, 54s.; April, 64s.; June, 72s.
+
+About the middle of the century, if we may judge from the _Compleat
+Cyderman_ written in 1754 by experienced hands living in Devon,
+Cornwall, Herefordshire, and elsewhere, fruit-growing received an
+amount of attention which diminished greatly in after years. The
+authors fully realized that an orchard under tillage causes apple
+trees to grow as fast again as under grass, and this was well
+understood and practised in Kent, where crops of corn were grown
+between the trees.
+
+A Devonshire 'cyderist' urged that orchards should be well sheltered
+from the east winds, which 'bring over the narrow sea swarms of
+imperceptible eggs, or insects in the air, from the vast tracts of
+Tartarian and other lands, from which proceeded infinite numbers of
+lice, flies, bugs, caterpillars, cobwebs, &c.' The best protection
+was a screen of trees, and the best tree for the purpose, a perry pear
+tree. In the hard frosts of 1709, 1716, and 1740 great numbers of
+fruit and other trees had been destroyed. In Devon what was called the
+'Southams method' was used for top-dressing the roots of old apple
+trees, which was done in November with soil from the roads and
+ditches, or lime or chalk, laid on furze sometimes, 6 inches thick,
+for 4 or 5 ft. all round the trees. Great attention was paid there to
+keeping the heads of fruit trees in good order, so that branches did
+not interfere with each other,[435] and the heads were made to spread
+as much as possible. Many of the trees were grown with the first
+branches commencing 4 ft. 6 in. from the ground. It was claimed that
+Devon excelled all other parts of England in the management of fruit
+trees, a reputation that was not maintained, according to the works of
+half a century later. The best cider apple In the county then was the
+White-sour, white in colour, of a middling size, and early ripe; other
+good ones were the 'Deux-Anns, Jersey, French Longtail, Royal Wilding,
+Culvering, Russet, Holland Pippin, and Cowley Crab.' In Herefordshire
+it was the custom to open the earth about the roots of the apple trees
+and lay them bare and exposed for the 'twelve days of the Christmas
+holidays', that the wind might loosen them. Then they were covered
+with a compost of dung, mould, and a little lime. 'The best way' to
+plant was to take off the turf and lay it by itself, then the next
+earth or virgin mould, to be laid also by itself. Next put horse
+litter over the bottom of the hole with some of the virgin mould on
+that, on which place the tree, scattering some more virgin mould over
+the roots, then spread some old horse-dung over this and upon that the
+turf, leaving it in a basin shape. The ground between the trees in
+Devonshire in young orchards was first planted with cabbage plants,
+next year with potatoes, next with beans, and so on until the heads of
+the trees became large enough, when the land was allowed to return to
+pasture, a proceeding which was quite contrary to their previously
+quoted assertion that tillage was best for fruit trees. The
+cider-makers were quite convinced, as many are to-day, that rotten
+apples were invaluable for cider, and the lady who was famous for the
+best cider in the county never allowed one to be thrown away. A
+generation later than this Marshall[436] noted that in Herefordshire
+the management of orchards and their produce was far from being well
+understood, though 'it has ever borne the name of the first cider
+county'. All the old fruits were lost or declining in quality, the
+famous Red Streak Apple was given up and the Squash Pear no longer
+made to flourish.
+
+As for prices, in 1707 apples were selling at Liverpool for 2s. 6d. a
+bushel,[437] a very good price if we allow for the difference in the
+value of money, but prices then were entirely dependent on the English
+seasons; no foreign apples were imported, and a night's frost would
+treble prices in a day. In 1742 at Aspall Hall, Suffolk, apples,
+apparently for cider, were 10d. a bushel, in 1745 1s. a bushel, in
+1746 only 4d., and in 1747 cider there was worth 6d. a gallon.[438] At
+the end of the century, in 'the great hit' of 1784, common apples were
+less than 6d. a bushel, the best about 2s. in 1786 the price was twice
+as high, owing to a short crop. Incidentally there is mentioned in the
+_Compleat Cyderman_ a novel implement, 'a most profitable new invented
+five-hoe plough, that after the ground has been once ploughed with a
+common plough will plough four or five acres in one day with only four
+horses, and by a little alteration is fitted to hoe turnips or rape
+crops as it is now practised by the ordinary farmers'; much too
+favourable an estimate of the ordinary farmer, as Young found
+horse-hoeing rare.
+
+An acre of good orchard land at this time was let at L2 an acre; and
+this is a fair balance sheet for an acre[439]:--
+
+                     DR.                              L   s. d.
+
+  Rent of one acre                                    2   0  0
+  Tithe on 10 hogsheads, @ 6d.                            5  0
+  Gathering, making, and carriage to and
+       from the pound, @ 3s. 6d. a hogshead           1  15  0
+  Racking twice, @ 6d.                                    5  0
+  Casks and cooperage                                     8  0
+                                                     ---------
+                                                     L4  13  0
+                                                     =========
+
+                     CR.                              L   s. d.
+
+  10 hogsheads diminished by racking
+     and waste to 8, @ 12s. 6d.                       5   0  0
+                                                      ========
+
+Leaving a balance of 7s. for spoiling, &c., so there was not much
+profit in cider-making then. The same authority sets down the cost of
+planting an acre of apples as:--
+
+                                                           L s. d.
+
+  132 trees, @ 2s.                                        13  4  0
+      (The custom had been to plant 160 trees to
+      the acre, but this was considered too close.)
+  Carriage per tree, @ 2d.; manure per tree, @ 3d.;
+      planting per tree, @ 3d.                             4  8  0
+  Interest on L17 12s. 0d. for fifteen years before
+      orchard is profitable, @ 5 per cent.                13  2  6
+  Loss of half the rent of the land for
+      the same period, @ 10s. an acre                      7 10  0
+  Building cellarage for product per acre                  5  0  0
+                                                         ---------
+                                                         L43  4  6
+                                                         =========
+
+For this outlay the landowner would gain an additional rent of L1 a
+year, so that, according to this authority, growing cider fruit at
+that time paid neither landlord nor tenant.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[423] _Farmer's Letters_, i. 10.
+
+[424] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (3rd Series), iii. 1.
+
+[425] See the _Hyp Doctor_, No. 49.
+
+[426] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 42.
+
+[427] Cf. this and Tull's character of servants with Defoe's
+accusation of their laziness.
+
+[428] Salisbury newspaper, quoted by Baker, _Seasons and Prices_, p.
+187.
+
+[429] See _Autobiography of Wm. Stout_, ed. by J. Harland.
+
+[430] _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1742.
+
+[431] Baker, _op. cit._ p. 194.
+
+[432] _A Defence of the Farmers of Great Britain_ (1814), p. 30.
+
+[433] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 42.
+
+[434] See a curious pamphlet called _An Exhortation to all People to
+Consider the Afflicting Hand of God_ (1754), p. 6. The plague lasted
+from 1745 to 1756.
+
+[435] _The Compleat Cyderman_, p. 46.
+
+[436] _Rural Economy of Gloucestershire_ (1788), ii. 206.
+
+[437] Blundell's _Diary_, p. 55.
+
+[438] MS. accounts of Mr. Chevallier, of Aspall Hall.
+
+[439] _The Case with the County of Devon with respect to the New
+Excise Duty on Cider_ (1763). The duty was 4s. a hogshead, but the
+opposition was so strong it was taken off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+1765-1793
+
+ARTHUR YOUNG.--CROPS AND THEIR COST.--THE LABOURERS' WAGES AND DIET.--THE
+PROSPERITY OF FARMERS.--THE COUNTRY SQUIRE.--ELKINGTON.--BAKEWELL.--THE
+ROADS.--COKE OF HOLKHAM.
+
+
+The history of English agriculture in the latter half of the
+eighteenth century has been so well described by Arthur Young that any
+account of it at that time must largely be an epitome of his writings.
+The greatest of English writers on agriculture was born in 1741, and
+began farming early; but, as he confesses himself, was a complete
+failure. When he was twenty-six he took a farm of 300 acres at Samford
+Hall in Essex, and after five years of it paid a farmer L100 to take
+it off his hands, who thereupon made a fortune out of it. He had
+already begun writing on agriculture, and it must be confessed that he
+began to advise people concerning the art of agriculture on a very
+limited experience. It paid him, however, much better than farming,
+for between 1766 and 1775 he realized L3,000 on his works, among which
+were _The Farmer's Letters_, _The Southern_, _Northern_, and _Eastern
+Tours_. These are his qualifications for writing on agriculture, from
+his own pen: 'I have been a farmer these many years' (he was not yet
+thirty), 'and that not in a single field or two but upon a tract of
+near 300 acres most part of the time. I have cultivated on various
+soils most of the vegetables common in England and many never
+introduced into field husbandry. I have always kept a minute register
+of my business in every detail of culture, expenses, and produce, and
+an accurate comparison of the old and new husbandry.'[440] It is said
+that though he really understood the theory and practice of farming he
+failed utterly in small economies. He was also far too vivacious and
+fond of society for the monotonous work of the plain farmer. At the
+same time his failures gave his observant mind a clear insight into
+the principles of agriculture. He was indefatigable in inquiries,
+researches, and experiments; and the best proof of the value of his
+works is that they were translated into Russian, German, and French.
+He tells us in the preface to _Rural Economy_ that his constant
+employment for the previous seven years, 'when out of my fields, has
+been registering experiments.' His pet aversions were absentee
+landlords, obsolete methods of cultivation, wastes and commons, and
+small holdings (though towards the end of his life he changed his
+opinion as to the last); and the following, according to him, were the
+especially needed improvements of the time:--
+
+The knowledge of good rotations of crops so as to do away with
+fallows, which was to be effected by the general use of turnips,
+beans, peas, tares, clover, &c., as preparation for white corn;
+covered drains; marling, chalking, and claying; irrigation of meadows;
+cultivation of carrots, cabbages, potatoes, sainfoin, and lucerne;
+ploughing, &c., with as few cattle as possible; the use of harness for
+oxen; cultivation of madden liquorice, hemp, and flax where
+suitable.[441] Above all, the cultivation of waste lands, which he was
+to live to see so largely effected.
+
+There was little knowledge of the various sorts of grasses at this
+time, and to Young is due the credit of introducing the cocksfoot, and
+crested dog's tail.
+
+In 1790 he contemplated retiring to France or America, so heavy was
+taxation in England. 'Men of large fortune and the poor', he said, in
+words which many to-day will heartily endorse, 'have reason to think
+the government of this country the first in the world; the middle
+classes bear the brunt.' Perhaps to-day 'men of large fortune' have
+altered their opinion and only 'the poor' are satisfied. However, he
+only visited France, and gave us his vivid picture of that country
+before the great revolution.
+
+In 1793 the Board of Agriculture was formed, and Young was made
+secretary with a salary of L400 a year.
+
+About 1810 he wrote that the preceding half-century had been by far
+the most interesting in the progress of agriculture, and ascribes the
+increase of interest in it to the publication of his _Tours_. George
+III told him he always took with him the _Farmer's Letters_. The
+improvement, Young said, had been largely due to individual effort,
+for commerce had been predominant in Parliament and agriculture had
+begun to be neglected; a statement which, seeing that Parliament was
+then almost entirely composed of landowners, must be accepted with
+some reserve.
+
+Young died in 1820, having been totally blind for some time, a
+misfortune which did not prevent him working hard. In his well-known
+_Tours_ he often had much difficulty in obtaining information, and
+confesses that he was forced to make more than one farmer drunk before
+he got anything out of him.
+
+The exodus from the country to the towns then, as so often in history,
+was noted by thinking people, but Young says it was merely a natural
+consequence of the demand for profitable employment and was not to be
+regretted; but he wrote in a time when the country population was
+still numerous, and there was little danger of England becoming, what
+she is to-day, a country without a solid foundation, with no reservoir
+of good country blood to supply the waste of the towns.
+
+When Young began to write, the example of Townshend and his
+contemporaries was being followed on all sides, and this good movement
+was stimulated by Young's writings. Farming was the reigning taste of
+the day. There was scarce a nobleman without his farm, most of the
+country gentlemen were farmers, and attended closely to their business
+instead of leaving it to stewards, 'who governed in matters of wheat
+and barley as absolutely as in covenants of leases,' and the squire
+delighted in setting the country a staring at the novelties he
+introduced. Even the stable and the kennel were ousted by farming from
+rural talk,[442] and citizens who breathed the smoke of London five
+days a week were farmers the other two, and many young fellows of
+small fortune who had been brought up in the country took farms, and
+the fashion was followed by doctors, lawyers, clergymen, soldiers,
+sailors, and merchants. The American and French War of 1775-83 and the
+great conflict with France from 1793 to 1815 were, however, to divert
+many of the upper classes from agriculture, for they very properly
+thought their duty was then to fight for their country; so that we
+again have numerous complaints of agents and stewards managing estates
+who knew nothing whatever about their business. It was not to be
+wondered at that all this activity brought about considerable
+progress. 'There have been,' said Young about 1770, 'more experiments,
+more discoveries, and more general good sense displayed within these
+ten years than in a hundred preceding ones,' a statement which perhaps
+did not attach sufficient importance to the work of Townshend and his
+contemporaries, and to the 'new husbandry' of Tull, which Young did
+not appreciate at its full value.[443]
+
+The place subsequently taken by the Board of Agriculture, and in our
+time by the Royal Agricultural Society, was then occupied by the
+Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce,
+which offered premiums for such objects as the cultivation of carrots
+in the field for stock, then little practised; for gathering the
+different sorts of grass seeds and keeping them clean and free from
+all mixture with other grasses, a very rare thing at that time; for
+experiments in the comparative merits of the old and new husbandry;
+for the growth of madder; L20 for a turnip-slicing machine, then
+apparently unknown, and for experiments whether rolling or harrowing
+grass land was better, 'at present one of the most disputed points of
+husbandry.'
+
+In spite of this progress, many crops introduced years before were
+unknown to many farmers. Sainfoin, cabbages, potatoes, carrots, were
+not common crops in every part of England, though every one of them
+was well known in some part or other; not more than half, or at most
+two-thirds, of the nation cultivated clover. Many, however, of the
+nobility and gentry in the north had grown cabbages with amazing
+success, lately, 30 guineas an acre being sometimes the value of the
+crop.
+
+Half the cultivated lands, in spite of the progress of enclosure for
+centuries, were still farmed on the old common-field system. When
+anything out of the common was to be done on common farms, all common
+work came to a standstill. 'To carry out corn stops the ploughs,
+perhaps at a critical season; the fallows are frequently seen overrun
+with weeds because it is seed time; in a word, some business is ever
+neglected.'[444] As for the outcry against enclosing commons and
+wastes, people forgot that the farmers as well as the poor had a right
+of common and took special care by their large number of stock to
+starve every animal the poor put on the common.[445]
+
+About the same time that Young wrote these words there appeared a
+pamphlet written by 'A Country Gentleman' on the advantages and
+disadvantages of enclosing waste lands and common fields, which puts
+the arguments against enclosure very forcibly.[446] The writer's
+opinion was that it was clearly to the landowner's gain to promote
+enclosures, but that the impropriator of tithes reaped most benefit
+and the small freeholder least, because his expenses increased
+inversely to the smallness of his allotment. As to diminution of
+employment, he reckoned that enclosed arable employed about ten
+families per 1,000 acres, open field arable twenty families, a
+statement opposed to the opinion of nearly all the agricultural
+writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is surely an
+incontestable fact that enclosed land meant much better tillage, and
+better tillage meant more labour, the excessive amount of fallow
+necessary under the common-field system, from the inability to grow
+roots except by special arrangement, is alone enough to prove this.
+The same writer admitted that common pastures, wastes, &c., employed
+only one family per 2,000 acres, but enclosed pasture five families
+per 1,000 acres, and enclosed wastes sixteen families.
+
+A 'Country Farmer', who wrote in 1786, states that many of the small
+farmers displaced by enclosures sold their few possessions and
+emigrated to America.[447] The growing manufacturing towns also
+absorbed a considerable number. That there was a considerable amount
+of hardship inflicted on small holders and commoners is certain, but
+industrial progress is frequently attended by the dislocation of
+industry and consequent distress; the introduction of machinery, for
+instance, often causing great suffering to hand-workers, but
+eventually benefiting the whole community. How many men has the
+self-binding reaping machine thrown for a time out of work? So
+enclosure caused distress to many individuals, but was for the good of
+the whole nation. The history of enclosure is really the history of
+progress in farming; the conversion of land badly tilled in the old
+common fields, and of waste land little more valuable than the
+prairies; into well-managed fruitful farms. That much of the
+common-field land when enclosed was laid down to grass is certainly
+true, and certainly inevitable if it paid best under grass.[448] No
+one can expect the holders of land naturally best suited for grass to
+keep it under tillage for philanthropic purposes. A vast number of the
+commoners too were idle thriftless beings, whose rights on a few acres
+enabled them to live a life of pilfering and poaching; and it was a
+very good thing when such people were induced to lead a more regular
+and respectable existence. The great blot on the process was that it
+made the English labourer a landless man. Compensation was given him
+at the time of enclosure in the shape of allotments or sums of money,
+but the former he was generally compelled to give up owing to the
+expense he had been put to at allotment, and the latter he often spent
+in the public-house.
+
+At this date the proprietors of large estates who wished to enclose by
+Act of Parliament, generally settled all the particulars among
+themselves before calling any meeting of the rest of the proprietors.
+The small proprietor had very little say either in regulating the
+clauses of the Act, or in the choice of commissioners. Any owner of
+one-fifth of the land, however, could negative the measure and often
+used his right to impose unreasonable clauses. It is well known that
+the legal expenses and fencing were very costly. The enclosure
+commissioners too often divided the land in an arbitrary and ignorant
+manner, and there was no appeal from them except by filing a bill in
+Chancery. Accounts were hardly ever shown by the commissioners, and if
+a proprietor refused to pay the sums levied they were empowered to
+distrain immediately. All these evils attending enclosure made many
+who were eager to benefit by it very chary in commencing it.[449]
+
+Then, as now, one of the commonest errors of farmers was that of
+taking too much land for their capital; Young considered L6 an acre
+necessary on an average, equal to more than L12 to-day; a sum which
+few farmers at any time have in hand when they take a farm. As for
+gentlemen farmers, who were then rushing into the business, they were
+warned that they had no chance of success if they kept any company or
+amused themselves with anything but their own business, unless perhaps
+they had a good bailiff.
+
+Lime, one of the most ancient of manures, was then the most commonly
+used in England, 80 to 100 loads an acre being a common dressing, but
+many farmers were very ignorant of its proper use. Marl, which to-day
+is seldom used, was considered to last for twenty years, though for
+the first year no benefit was observable, and very little the second
+and the third, its value then becoming very apparent. In the last five
+years, however, its value was nearly worn out. But it was much to be
+questioned whether marl in its best state anywhere yields an increase
+of produce equal to that which a good manuring of dung will give.[450]
+Marl was applied in huge quantities on arable and grass, and often
+made the latter look like arable land so thickly was it spread.
+
+At this date (1770) the average crops on poor, and on good land were[451]:
+
+  On land worth 5s. an acre:
+
+    Wheat                         12 bushels per acre.
+    Rye                           16    "       "
+    Barley                        16    "       "
+    Oats                          20    "       "
+    Turnips, to the value of L1.
+    Clover         "         "
+
+  On land worth 20s. an acre:
+
+    Wheat                         28 bushels per acre.
+    Barley                        40     "      "
+    Oats                          48     "      "
+    Beans                         40     "      "
+    Turnips, to the value of L3.
+    Clover         "       "
+
+The cost of cultivating the latter, which may be given in full, as it
+affords an excellent example of the price of growing various crops,
+and the methods of their cultivation at this period, was as follows:
+
+  First year, turnips:              L   s.  d.
+
+    Rent                            1   0   0
+    Tithe and 'town charges'            8   0
+    Five ploughings, @ 4s.          1   0   0
+    Three harrowings                    1   0
+    Seed                                    6
+    Sowing                                  3
+    Twice hand-hoeing                   7   0
+                                  -----------
+                                  L2   16   9
+                                  ===========
+
+It will be noticed there was no horse-hoeing.
+
+  Second year, barley:              L   s.  d.
+
+    Rent, tithe, &c.                1   8   0
+    Three ploughings                   12   0
+    Three harrowings                    1   0
+    Seed                                8   0
+    Sowing                                  3
+    Mowing and harvesting               3   0
+    Water furrowing                         6
+    Threshing, @ 1s. a quarter          5   0
+                                  -----------
+                                   L2  17   9
+                                  ===========
+
+  Third year, clover:               L   s.  d.
+
+    Rent, &c.                       1   8   0
+    Seed                                5   0
+    Sowing                                  3
+                                   ----------
+                                   L1  13   3
+                                   ==========
+
+  Fourth year,[452] wheat:          L   s.  d.
+
+    Rent, &c.                       1   8   0
+    One ploughing                       4   0
+    Three harrowings                    1   0
+    Seed                               10   0
+    Sowing                                  3
+    Water furrowing                         9
+    Thistling                           1   6
+    Reaping and harvesting              7   0
+    Threshing, @ 2s. a quarter          7   0
+                                   ----------
+                                   L2  19   6
+                                   ==========
+
+  Fifth year, beans:                L   s.  d.
+
+    Rent, &c.                       1   8   0
+    Two ploughings                      8   0
+    Seed, 2 bushels                     8   0
+    Sowing                                  6
+    Twice hand-hoeing                  12   0
+    Twice horse-hoeing                  3   0
+    Reaping and harvesting              8   0
+    Threshing                           5   0
+                                   ----------
+                                   L3  12   6
+                                   ==========
+
+  Sixth year, oats:                 L   s.  d.
+
+    Rent, &c.                       1   8   0
+    Once ploughing                      4   0
+    Two harrowings                          8
+    Four bushels of seed                6   0
+    Sowing                                  3
+    Mowing and harvesting               3   0
+    Threshing, @ 1s. a quarter          6   0
+                                   ----------
+                                   L2   7  11
+                                   ==========
+
+Good land at a high rent is always better than poor land at a low
+rent; the average profit per acre on 5s. land was then about 8s. 8d.,
+on 20s. land, 29s.
+
+Grass was much more profitable than tillage, the profit on 20 acres of
+arable in nine years amounted to L88, whereas on grass it was L212, or
+9s. 9d. an acre per annum for the former and 23s. for the latter.[453]
+Yet dairying, at all events, was then on the whole badly managed and
+unprofitable. The average cow ate 2-1/2 acres of grass, and the rent
+of this with labour and other expenses made the cost L5 a year per
+cow, and its average produce was not worth more than L5 6s. 3d.[454]
+This scanty profit was due to the fact that few farmers used roots,
+cabbages, &c., for their cows, and to their wrong management of pigs,
+kept on the surplus dairy food. By good management the nett return
+could be made as much as L4 15s. 0d. per cow.
+
+The management of sheep in the north of England was wretched. In
+Northumberland the profit was reckoned at 1s. a head, partly derived
+from cheese made from ewes' milk. The fleeces averaged 2 lb., and the
+wool was so bad as not to be worth more than 3d. or 4d. per lb.[455]
+
+Pigs could be made to pay well, as the following account testifies:
+
+Food and produce of a sow in one year (1763), which produced seven
+pigs in April and eleven in October:
+
+            DR.              L   s.  d.
+
+  Grains                        10   4
+  Cutting a litter               1   6
+  5 quarters peas            5   2   0
+  10 bushels barley          1   0   0
+  Expenses in selling[456]      11   6
+  10 bushels peas            1   6   3
+                            ----------
+                            L8  11   7
+                            ==========
+
+        CR.                 L   s.  d.
+
+  A pig                         2   3
+  A fat hog                 1   9   0
+  Another, 110 lb. wt.      1  12   9
+  Another, 116 lb. wt.      2   0   0
+  Heads                         5   3
+  3 fat hogs                6   7   0
+  1 fat hog                 2   0   0
+  10 young pigs             4  16   6
+                          -----------
+                          L18   12  9
+                            8   11  7
+                          -----------
+     Profit               L10    1  2
+                          ===========
+
+We have seen that Young thought little of the 'new husbandry'; he does
+not even give Tull the credit of inventing the drill: 'Mr. Tull
+perhaps _again_ invented it. He practised it upon an extent of ground
+far beyond that of any person preceding him: the spirit of drilling
+died with Mr. Tull and was not revived till within a few years.'[457]
+It was doubtful if 50 acres of corn were then annually drilled in
+England. Lately drilling had been revived and there were keen disputes
+as to the old and new methods of husbandry, the efficacy of the new
+being far from decided. The cause of the slow adoption of drill
+husbandry was the inferiority of the drills hitherto invented. They
+were complex in construction, expensive, and hard to procure. It
+seemed impossible to make a drill or drill plough as it was called,
+for such it then was--a combination of drill, plough, and
+harrow--capable of sowing at various depths and widths, and at the
+same time light enough for ordinary use. All the drills hitherto made
+were too light to stand the rough use of farm labourers: 'common
+ploughs and harrows the fellows tumble about in so violent a manner
+that if they were not strength itself they would drop to pieces. In
+drawing such instruments into the field the men generally mount the
+horses, and drag them after them; in passing gateways twenty to one
+they draw them against the gate post.' Some of 'these fellows' are
+still to be seen!
+
+Another defect in drilling was that the drill plough filled up all the
+water furrows, which, at a time when drainage was often neglected,
+were deemed of especial importance, and they all had to be opened
+again.
+
+Further, said the advocates of the old husbandry, it was a question
+whether all the horse-hoeings, hand-hoeings, and weedings of the new
+husbandry, though undoubtedly beneficial, really paid. It was very
+hard to get enough labourers for these operations. With more reason
+they objected to the principles of discarding manure and sowing a
+large number of white straw crops in succession, but admitted the new
+system was admirably adapted for beans, turnips, cabbages, and
+lucerne.
+
+However, there were many followers of Tull. The Author of
+_Dissertations on Rural Subjects_[458] thought the drill plough an
+excellent invention, as it saved seed and facilitated hoeing; but he
+said Tull's drill was defective in that the distances between the rows
+could not be altered, a defect which the writer claims to have
+remedied. Young's desire for a stronger drill seems to have been soon
+answered, as the same writer says the barrel drill invented by
+Du-Hamel and improved by Craik was strong, cheap, and easily managed.
+
+The tendency of the latter half of the century was decidedly in favour
+of larger farms; it was a bad thing for the small holders, but it was
+an economic tendency which could not be resisted. The larger farmers
+had more capital, were more able and ready to execute improvements;
+they drained their land, others often did not; having sufficient
+capital they were able both to buy and sell to the best advantage and
+not sacrifice their produce at a low price to meet the rent, as the
+small farmer so often did and does. They could pay better wages and so
+get better men, kept more stock and better, and more efficient
+implements. They also had a great advantage in being able by their
+good teams to haul home plenty of purchased manure, which the small
+farmer often could not do. The small tenants, who had no by-industry,
+then, as now, had to work and live harder than the ordinary labourer
+to pay their way.
+
+Young calculated as early as 1768 that the average size of farms over
+the greater part of England was slightly under 300 acres.[459] In his
+_Tour in France_ Young, speaking of the smallness of French farms as
+compared with English ones, and of the consequent great inferiority of
+French farming, says, 'Where is the little farmer to be found who will
+cover his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 to 150 tons per
+acre; who will drain his land at the expense of L2 to L3 an acre; who
+will, to improve the breed of his sheep, give 1,000 guineas for the
+use of a single ram for a single season; who will send across the
+kingdom to distant provinces for new implements and for men to use
+them? Deduct from agriculture all the practices that have made it
+flourishing in this island, and you have precisely the management of
+small farms.' In 1868 the _Report of the Commission on the Agriculture
+of France_[460] agreed with Young, noting the grave consequences of
+the excessive subdivision of land, loss of time, waste of labour,
+difficulties in rotation of crops, and of liberty of cultivation.
+
+For stocking an arable farm of 70 acres Young considered the following
+expenditure necessary, the items of which give us interesting
+information as to prices about 1770:--
+
+                                                       L    s.  d.
+
+  Rent, tithe, and town charges for first year         70   0   0
+  Household furniture                                  30   0   0
+  Wagon                                                25   0   0
+  Cart with ladders                                    12   0   0
+  Tumbril                                              10   0   0
+  Roller for broad lands (of wood)                      2   0   0
+       "     narrow   "      "                          1  15   0
+  Cart harness for 4 horses                             8  17   0
+  Plough     "     "                                    2  16   0
+  2 ploughs                                             3   0   0
+  A pair of harrows                                     1  15   0
+  Screen, bushel, fan, sieves, forks, rakes, &c.        8   0   0
+  Dairy furniture                                       3   0   0
+  20 sacks                                              2  10   0
+  4 horses                                             32   0   0
+  Wear and tear, and shoeing one year                  13   0   0
+  Keep of 4 horses from Michaelmas to May Day, @
+      2s. 6d. each a week                              14   0   0
+  5 cows                                               20   0   0
+  20 sheep                                              5  10   0
+  One sow                                                  15   0
+  One servant's board and wages for one year           15   0   0
+  A labourer's wages for one year                      20   0   0
+  Seed for first year, 42 acres, @ 11s. 6d.            24   3   0
+  Harvest labour                                        1  10   0
+                                                     ------------
+                                                     L326  11   0
+                                                     ============
+
+Or nearly L5 an acre.
+
+About the same date the _Complete English Farmer_ reckoned that the
+occupier of a farm of 500 acres (300 arable, 200 pasture), ought to
+have a capital of L1,500, and estimated that, after paying expenses
+and maintaining his family, he could put by L50 a year; 'but this
+capital was much beyond what farmers in general can attain to.'[461]
+
+The controversy of horses versus oxen for working purposes was still
+raging, and Young favoured the use of oxen; for the food of horses
+cost more, so did their harness and their shoeing, they are much more
+liable to disease, and oxen when done with could be sold for beef. One
+stout lad, moreover, could attend to 8 or 10 oxen, for all he had to
+do was to put their fodder in the racks and clean the shed; no
+rubbing, no currying or dressing being necessary. No beasts fattened
+better than oxen that had been worked. A yoke of oxen would plough as
+much as a pair of horses and carry a deeper and truer furrow, while
+they were just as handy as horses in wagons, carts, rollers, &c.
+William Marshall, the other great agricultural writer of the end of
+the eighteenth century, agreed with Young, yet in spite of all these
+advantages horses were continually supplanting oxen.
+
+Among the improvements in agriculture was the introduction of
+broad-wheeled wagons; narrow-wheeled ones were usual, and these on the
+turnpikes were only allowed to be drawn by 4 horses so that the load
+was small, but broad-wheeled wagons might use 8 horses. The cost of
+the latter was L50 against L25 for the former.[462]
+
+Young's opinion of the labouring man, like Tull's, was not a high one.
+'I never yet knew', he says, 'one instance of any poor man's working
+diligently while young and in health to escape coming to the parish
+when ill or old.' This is doubtless too sweeping. There must have been
+others like George Barwell, whom Marshall tells of in his _Rural
+Economy of the Midlands_, who had brought up a family of five or six
+sons and daughters on a wage of 5s. to 7s. a week, and after they were
+out in the world saved enough to support him in his old age. The
+majority, however, long before the crushing times of the French War,
+seem to have been thoroughly demoralized by indiscriminate parish
+relief, and habitually looked to the parish to maintain them in
+sickness and old age. Cullum[463] a few years later, remarks on the
+poor demanding assistance without the scruple and delicacy they used
+to have, and says 'the present age seems to aim at abolishing all
+subordination and dependence and reducing all ranks as near a level as
+possible.'! Idleness, drunkenness, and what was then often looked on
+with disgust and contempt, excessive tea-drinking, were rife. Tea then
+was very expensive, 8s. or 10s. a lb. being an ordinary price, so that
+the poor had to put up with a very much adulterated article, most
+pernicious to health. The immoderate use of this was stated to have
+worse effects than the immoderate use of spirits. The consumption of
+it was largely caused by the deficiency of the milk supply, owing to
+the decrease of small farms; the large farmers did not retail such
+small commodities as milk and butter, but sent them to the towns so
+that the poor often went without.[464]
+
+In 1767 Young found wages differing according to the distance from
+London[465]:--
+
+                                                     s.  d.
+
+       20 miles from London they were per week      10   9
+  From 20 to 60       "       "       "              7   8
+   "   60 to 110      "       "       "              6   4
+   "  110 to 170      "       "       "              6   3
+
+Giving an average of 7s. 9d. which, however, was often exceeded as
+there was much piece-work which enabled the men to earn more.
+
+Young drew up a dietary for a labourer, his wife, and a family of
+three children, which he declared to be sufficient:--
+
+                                                         L  s.  d.
+
+  Food, 6s. per week[466]; per year                     15  12  0
+  Rent                                                   1  10  0
+  Clothes                                                2  10  0
+  Soap and candles                                       1   5  0
+  Loss of time through illness, and medicine             1   0  0
+  Fuel                                                   2   0  0
+                                                       ----------
+                                                       L23  17  0
+                                                       ==========
+
+                                                         L  s.  d.
+
+  The man's wages were, @ 1s. 3d. a day, for the year   19  10  0
+  The woman's, @ 3-3/4d. a day, for the year             4  17  6
+  The boy of fifteen could earn                          9   0  0
+  The boy of ten could earn                              4   7  6
+                                                       ----------
+                                                       L37  15  0
+                                                       ==========
+
+Which would give the family a surplus of L13 18s. 0d. a year.
+
+What the man's food should consist of is shown by a list of 'seven
+days' messes for a stout man':--
+
+                                                              s. d.
+
+  1st day.  2 lb. of bread made of wheat, rye, and
+              potatoes--'no bread exceeds it'                 2
+            Cheese, 2 oz. @ 4d. a lb                            1/2
+            Beer, 2 quarts                                    1
+  2nd day.  Three messes of soup                              2
+  3rd day.  Rice pudding                                      2-1/2
+  4th day.  1/4 lb. of fat meat and potatoes baked together   2-3/4
+            Beer                                              1
+  5th day.  Rice milk                                         2
+  6th day.  Same as first day                                 3-1/2
+  7th day.  Potatoes, fat meat, cheese, and beer              4
+                                                          ---------
+                                                          1   9-1/4
+                                                          =========
+
+As Young was a man of large practical experience we may assume that
+this, though it seems a very insufficient diet, was not unlike the
+food of some labourers at that date. However, the bread he recommends
+was not that eaten by a large number of them. Eden[467] states that in
+1764 about half the people of England were estimated to be using
+wheaten bread, and at the end of the century, although prices had
+risen greatly, he says that in the Home Counties wheaten bread was
+universal among the peasant class. Young, indeed, acknowledges that
+many insisted on wheaten bread.[468] In Suffolk, according to
+Cullum,[469] pork and bacon were the labourer's delicacies, bread and
+cheese his ordinary diet.
+
+The north of England was more thrifty than the south. At the end of
+the eighteenth century barley and oaten bread were much used there.
+Lancashire people fed largely on oat bread, leavened and unleavened;
+the 33rd Regiment, which went by the name of the 'Havercake lads', was
+usually recruited from the West Riding where oat bread was in common
+use, and was famous for having fine men in its ranks.[470] The
+labourers of the north were also noted for their skill in making soups
+in which barley was an important ingredient. In many of the southern
+counties tea was drunk at breakfast, dinner, and supper by the poor,
+often without milk or sugar; but alcoholic liquors were also consumed
+in great quantities, the southerner apparently always drinking a
+considerable amount, the northerner at rare intervals drinking deep.
+The drinking in cider counties seems always to have been worse as far
+as quantity goes than elsewhere, and the drink bills on farms were
+enormous. Marshall says that in Gloucestershire drinking a gallon
+'bottle', generally a little wooden barrel, at a draught was no
+uncommon feat; and in the Vale of Evesham a labourer who wanted to be
+even with his master for short payment emptied a two-gallon bottle
+without taking it from his lips. Even this feat was excelled by 'four
+well-seasoned yeomen, who resolved to have a fresh hogshead tapped,
+and setting foot to foot emptied it at one sitting.'[471] Yet in the
+beer-drinking counties great quantities were consumed; a gallon a day
+per man all the year round being no uncommon allowance.[472]
+
+The superior thrift of the north was shown in clothes as well as food,
+the midland and southern labourer at the end of the century buying all
+his clothes, the northerner making them almost all at home; there were
+many respectable families in the north who had never bought a pair of
+stockings, coat, or waistcoat in their lives, and a purchased coat was
+considered a mark of extravagance and pride.
+
+Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Young's dietary is that green
+vegetables are absolutely ignored. The peasant was supposed to need
+them as little as in the Middle Ages.
+
+However, Young admits that very few labourers lived as cheaply as
+this, and he found the actual ordinary budget for the same family to
+be:--
+
+                                         L   s. d.
+
+  Food, per week, 7s. 6d.; per year     19  10  0
+  Beer      "     1s. 6d.     "          3  18  0
+  Soap and candles                       1   5  0
+  Rent                                   1  10  0
+  Clothes                                2  10  0
+  Fuel                                   2   0  0
+  Illness, &c.                           1   0  0
+  Infant                                 2  12  0
+                                       ----------
+                                       L34   5  0
+                                       ==========
+
+This, with the same Income as before, left him with a surplus of L3
+10s. 0d.; but as it was not likely his wife could work all the year
+round, or that both his eldest children should be boys, it appears
+that his expenses must often have exceeded his income. This being so,
+it is not surprising that he was often drunken and reckless, and ready
+to come on the parish for relief. To labour incessantly, often with
+wife and boys, to live very poorly, yet not even make both ends meet,
+was enough to kill all spirit in any one.
+
+A great evil from which the labourer suffered was the restrictions
+thrown on him of settling in another parish. If he desired to take his
+labour to a better market he often found it closed to him. His
+marriage was discouraged,[473] because a single man did not want a
+cottage and a married one did. To ease the rates there was open war
+against cottages, and many were pulled down.[474] If a labourer in a
+parish to which he did not legally belong signified his intention of
+marrying, he immediately had notice to quit the parish and retire to
+his own, unless he could procure a certificate that neither he nor his
+would be chargeable. If he went to his own parish he came off very
+badly, for they didn't want him, and cottages being scarce he probably
+had to put up with sharing one with one or more families. Sensible men
+cried out for the total abolition of the poor laws, the worst effects
+of which were still to be felt.
+
+Yet there was a considerable migration of labour at harvest time when
+additional hands were needed. Labourers came from neighbouring
+counties, artisans left their workshops in the towns, Scots came to
+the Northern counties, Welshmen to the western, and Irishmen appeared
+in many parts; and they were as a rule supplied by a contractor.[475]
+
+London was regarded as a source of great evil to the country by
+attracting the young and energetic thither. It used, men said, to be
+no such easy matter to get there when a stage coach was four or five
+days creeping 100 miles and fares were high; but in 1770 a country
+fellow 100 miles from London jumped on a coach in the morning and for
+8s. or 10s. got to town by night, 'and ten times the boasts are
+sounded in the ears of country fools by those who have seen London to
+induce them to quit their healthy clean fields for a region of dirt,
+stink, and noise.' A prejudice might well have been entertained
+against the metropolis at this time, for it literally devoured the
+people of England, the deaths exceeding the births by 8,000 a year.
+One of the causes that had hitherto kept people from London was the
+dread of the small-pox, but that was now said to be removed by
+inoculation. Among the troubles farmers had to contend with were the
+audacious depredations caused by poachers, generally labourers, who
+swarmed in many villages. They took the farmer's horses out of his
+fields after they had done a hard day's work and rode them all night
+to drive the game into their nets, blundering over the hedges,
+sometimes staking the horses, riding over standing corn, or anything
+that was cover for partridges, and when they had sold their ill-gotten
+game spent the money openly at the nearest alehouse. Then they would
+go back and work for the farmers they had robbed, drunk, asleep, or
+idle the whole day. The subscription packs of foxhounds were also a
+great nuisance, many of the followers being townsmen who bored through
+hedges and smashed the gates and stiles, conduct not unknown to-day.
+In spite of these drawbacks the long period of great abundance from
+1715 to 1765 and the consequent cheapness of food with an increase of
+wages was attended with a great improvement in the condition and habits
+of the people. Adam Smith refers to 'the peculiarly happy circumstances
+of the country'; Hallam described the reign of George II as 'the most
+prosperous period that England has ever experienced'[476]; and it was
+Young's opinion about 1770 that England was in a most rich and
+flourishing situation, 'her agriculture is upon the whole good and
+spirited and every day improving, her industrious poor are well fed,
+clothed, and lodged at reasonable rates, the prices of all necessaries
+being moderate, our population increasing, the price of labour
+generally high.'[477] The great degree of luxury to which the country
+had arrived within a few years 'is not only astonishing but almost
+dreadful to think of. Time was when those articles of indulgence which
+now every mechanic aims at the possession of were enjoyed only by the
+baron or lord.'[478] Great towns became the winter residence of those
+who could not afford London, and the country was said to be everywhere
+deserted, an evil largely attributed to the improvement of posting and
+coaches. The true country gentleman was seldom to be found, the
+luxuries of the age had softened down the hardy roughness of former
+times and the 'country, like the capital, is one scene of dissipation.'
+The private gentleman of L300 or L400 a year must have his horses,
+dogs, carriages, pictures, and parties, and thus goes to ruin. The
+articles of living, says the same writer, were 100 per cent. dearer
+than some time back. This is a very different picture from that in
+which Young represents every one rushing into farming, but no doubt
+depicts one phase of national life.
+
+An excellent observer[479] noticed in 1792 that the preceding forty or
+fifty years had witnessed the total destruction in England of the once
+common type of the small country squire. He was:--
+
+     'An independent gentleman of L300 per annum who commonly
+     appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver buttons, a
+     jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels never
+     exceeded the distance of the county town, and that only at
+     assize or session time, or to attend an election. Once a week
+     he commonly dined at the next market town with the attorneys
+     and justices. He went to church regularly, read the weekly
+     journal, settled the parochial disputes, and afterwards
+     adjourned to the neighbouring alehouse, where he generally got
+     drunk for the good of his country. He was commonly followed by
+     a couple of greyhounds and a pointer, and announced his arrival
+     at a neighbour's house by smacking his whip and giving a view
+     halloo. His drink was generally ale, except on Christmas Day,
+     the Fifth of November, or some other gala day, when he would
+     make a bowl of strong brandy. The mansion of one of these
+     squires was of plaster striped with timber, not unaptly called
+     callimanco work, or of red brick with large casemented bow
+     windows; a porch with seats in it and over it a study: the
+     eaves of the house well inhabited by swallows, and the court
+     set round with hollyhocks; near the gate a horse-block for
+     mounting. The hall was furnished with flitches of bacon, and
+     the mantelpiece with guns and fishing-rods of different
+     dimensions, accompanied by the broadsword, partisan, and dagger
+     borne by his ancestor in the Civil Wars. Against the wall was
+     posted King Charles's _Golden Rules_, Vincent Wing's _Almanac_
+     and a portrait of the Duke of Marlborough; in his window lay
+     Baker's _Chronicle_, Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_, Glanvill _On
+     Apparitions_, Quincey's _Dispensatory_, _The Complete Justice_,
+     and a _Book of Farriery_. In a corner by the fireside stood a
+     large wooden two-armed chair with a cushion, and within the
+     chimney corner were a couple of seats. Here at Christmas he
+     entertained his tenants, assembled round a glowing fire made of
+     the roots of trees; and told and heard the traditionary tales
+     of the village about ghosts and witches while a jorum of ale
+     went round. These men and their houses are no more.'
+
+The farmer, in some parts at all events, was becoming a more civilized
+individual; the late race had lived in the midst of their enlightened
+neighbours like beings of another order[480]; in their personal labour
+they were indefatigable, in their fare hard, in their dress homely, in
+their manners rude. The French and American War of 1775-83 was a very
+prosperous time, and the farmer's mode of living greatly improved.
+Farmhouses in England, it was noticed, were in general well furnished
+with every convenient accommodation. Into many of them a 'barometer
+had of late years been introduced'. The teapot and the mug of ale
+jointly possessed the breakfast table, and meat and pudding smoked on
+the board every noon. Formerly one might see at church what was the
+cut of a coat half a century ago, now dress was spruce and
+modern.[481] As a proof of the spirit of improvement among farmers,
+Marshall instances the custom in the Midlands of placing their sons as
+pupils on other farms to widen their experience. 'Their entertainments
+are as expensive as they are elegant, for it is no uncommon thing for
+one of these new-created farmers to spend L10 or L12, at one
+entertainment, and to have the most expensive wines; to set off the
+entertainment in the greatest splendour an elegant sideboard of plate
+is provided in the newest fashion.'[482] As to dress, no one could
+tell the farmer's daughter from the duke's. Marshall noticed that in
+Warwickshire the harness of the farmer's teams was often ridiculously
+ornamented, and the horses were overfed and underworked to save their
+looks. Before enclosure the farmer entertained his friends with bacon
+fed by himself, washed down with ale brewed from his own malt, in a
+brown jug, or a glass if he was extravagant. He wore a coat of woollen
+stuff, the growth of his own flock, spun by his wife and daughters,
+his stockings came from the same quarter, so did the clothes of his
+family.
+
+Some of these farmers were doing their share in helping the progress
+of agriculture. In 1764 Joseph Elkington, of Princethorpe in
+Warwickshire, was the first to practise the under drainage of sloping
+land that was drowned by the bursting of springs. He drained some
+fields at Princethorpe which were very wet, and dug a trench 4 or 5
+feet deep for this purpose; but finding this did not reach the
+principal body of subjacent water, he drove an iron bar 4 feet below
+the bottom of his trench and on withdrawing it the water gushed out.
+He was thus led to combine the system of cutting drains, aided when
+necessary by auger holes. His main principles were three: (1) Finding
+the main spring, or cause of the mischief. (2) Taking the level of
+that spring and ascertaining its subterranean bearings, for if the
+drain is cut a yard below the line of the spring the water issuing
+from it cannot be reached, but on ascertaining the line by levelling
+the spring can be cut effectually. (3) Using the auger to tap the
+spring when the drain was not deep enough for the purpose.[483] It was
+owing to the Board of Agriculture at the end of the century that he
+obtained the vote of L1,000 from Parliament, and a skilful surveyor
+was appointed to observe his methods and give them to the public, for
+he was too ignorant himself to give an intelligible account of his
+system. After the publication of the report his system was followed
+generally until Smith of Deanston in 1835 gave the method now in use
+to his country.
+
+Robert Bakewell, who did more to improve live stock than any other
+man, was born at Dishley, Leicestershire, in 1735, and succeeding to
+the management of his father's farm in 1760 began to make experiments
+in breeding.[484] He scorned the old idea that the blood must be
+constantly varied by the mixture of different breeds, and his new
+system differed from the old in two chief points: (1) small versus
+large bone, and consequently a greater proportion of flesh and a
+greater tendency to fatten; (2) permissible in-breeding versus
+perpetual crossing with strange breeds. He took immense pains in
+selecting the best animals to breed from, and had at Dishley a museum
+of skeletons and pickled specimens for the comparison of one
+generation with another, and he conducted careful post-mortem
+examinations on his stock. His great production was the new Leicester
+breed of sheep,[485] which in half a century spread over every part of
+the United Kingdom, as well as to Europe and America, and gave England
+2 lb. of meat where she had one before. Sheep at this time were
+divided into two main classes: (1) short-woolled or field sheep, fed
+in the open fields; (2) long-woolled or pasture sheep, fed in
+enclosures. That they were not at a very high state of perfection may
+be gathered from this description of the chief variety of the latter,
+the 'Warwickshire' breed: 'his frame large and loose, his bones heavy,
+his legs long and thick, his chine as well as his rump as sharp as a
+hatchet, his skin rattling on his ribs like a skeleton covered with
+parchments.' The origin of the new Leicester sheep is uncertain, but
+apparently the old Lincoln breed was the basis of it, though this,
+like other large breeds of English sheep, was itself an introduction
+of the last half century. The new sheep was described as having a
+clean head, straight broad flat back, barrel-like body, fine small
+eyes, thin feet, mutton fat, fine-grained and of good flavour, wool 8
+lb. to the fleece, and wethers at two years old weighed from 20 to 30
+lb. a quarter.
+
+By 1770 his rams were hired for 25 guineas a season, and soon after he
+made L3,000 a year by their hire, one named 'Two-pounder' bringing him
+1,200 guineas in one year.
+
+One of his theories was that the poorer the land the more it demanded
+well-made sheep, which is no doubt true to a certain extent; but it
+has been proved conclusively since that the quality of the breed
+gradually drops to the level of the land unless artificially assisted.
+At his death he left two distinct breeds of sheep, for he improved on
+his own new Leicester, so that the improved became the 'New Leicester'
+and the former the 'Old Leicester.' However, at the time and,
+afterwards, his sheep were generally called 'New Leicesters', and
+sometimes the 'Dishley breed'. There was much prejudice among farmers
+against the new breed; in the Midlands most of the farmers would have
+nothing to do with them, and 'their grounds were stocked with
+creatures that would disgrace the meanest lands in the kingdom.' Yet
+in April, 1786, yearling wethers of the new breed were sold for 28s.
+while those of the old were 16s.
+
+The cattle which he set to work to improve were the famous old longhorn
+breed, the prevailing breed of the Midlands, which had already been
+considerably improved by Webster of Canley in Warwickshire, and
+others, especially in Lancashire and the north. The kind of cattle
+esteemed hitherto had been 'the large, long-bodied, big-boned, coarse,
+flat-sided kind, and often lyery or black-fleshed.'[486] He founded
+his herd upon two heifers of Webster's and a bull from Westmoreland,
+and from these bred all his cattle. The celebrated bull 'Twopenny' was
+a son of the Westmoreland bull and one of these heifers, who came to
+be celebrated in agricultural history as 'Old Comely', for she was
+slaughtered at the age of twenty-six. He bred his cattle so that they
+produced an enormous amount of fat, as hitherto there had been a
+difficulty in producing animals to fatten readily; but this he pushed
+to too great an extreme, so that there has been a reaction. The
+following is a description of a six-year-old bull, got by 'Twopenny'
+out of a Canley cow: 'His head, chest, and neck remarkably fine and
+clean; his chest extraordinarily deep; his brisket bearing down to his
+knees; his chine thin, loin narrow at the chine, but remarkably wide
+at the hips. Quarters long, round bones snug, but thighs rather full
+and remarkably let down. The carcase throughout, chine excepted,
+large, roomy, deep, and well spread.'[487] The new longhorn, however
+good for the grazier, was not a good milker. Bakewell was a great
+believer in straw as a food, and strongly objected to having it
+trodden into manure; his beasts were largely fed on it, in such small
+quantities that they greedily ate what was before them and wasted
+little. His activity was not confined to the breeding of cattle and
+sheep, for he also produced a breed of black horses, thick and short
+in the body, with very short legs and very powerful, two ploughing 4
+acres a day, a statement which seems much exaggerated; and was famous
+for his skill in irrigating meadows, by which he could cut grass four
+times a year. He was a firm believer in the wisdom of treating stock
+gently and kindly, and his sheep were kept as clean as racehorses. A
+visitor to Dishley saw a bull of huge proportions, with enormous
+horns, led about by a boy of seven. He travelled much, and admired the
+farms of Norfolk most in England, and those of Holland and Flanders
+abroad, founding his own system on these. It was his opinion that the
+Devon breed of cattle were incapable of improvement by a cross of any
+other breed, and that from the West Highland heifer the best breed of
+cattle might be produced.
+
+He died in 1795, and apparently did not keep what he made, owing
+largely to his boundless hospitality, which had entertained Russian
+princes, German royal dukes, English peers, and travellers from all
+countries. His breed of cattle has completely disappeared, unless
+traces survive in the lately resuscitated longhorn breed, but his
+principles are still acted upon, viz. the correlation of form, and the
+practice of consanguineous breeding under certain conditions.
+
+Bakewell's earliest pupil was George Culley, who devoted himself to
+improving the breed of cattle, and became one of the most famous
+agriculturists at the end of the eighteenth and the commencement of
+the nineteenth centuries. Another farmer to whom English agriculture
+owes much was John Ellman of Glynde, born in 1753, who by careful
+selection firmly established the reputation of the Southdown sheep
+which had previously been hardly recognized. He was one of the
+founders of the Smithfield Cattle Show in 1793, which helped
+materially to improve the live stock of the country.
+
+The relations between landlord and tenant, judging from the accounts
+of contemporary writers, were generally good. Leases were less
+frequent than agreements voidable by six months' notice on either
+side, and when there was a tenancy-at-will the tenant who entered as a
+young man was often expected to hand on the holding to his posterity,
+and therefore executed improvements at his own cost, so complete was
+the trust between landlord and tenant. Tenants then did much that they
+would refuse to do to-day, as the following lease, common in the
+Midlands in 1786, shows[488]:
+
+  Tenant agrees to take, &c., and to pay the stipulated rent
+    within forty days, without any deduction for taxes, and
+    double rent so long as he continues to hold after notice
+    given.
+
+  To repair buildings, accidents by fire excepted.
+
+  To repair gates and fences.
+
+  When required, to cut and plash the hedges, and make the
+    ditches 3 feet by 2 feet, or pay or cause to be paid to
+    the landlord 1s. per rood for such as shall not be done
+    after three months' notice has been given in writing.
+
+  Not to break up certain lands specified in the schedule,
+    'under L20 an acre.'
+
+  Not to plough more than a specified number of acres of the
+    rest of the land in any one year, under the same penalty.
+
+  To forfeit the same sum for every acre that shall be ploughed
+    for any longer time than three crops successively, without
+    making a clean summer fallow thereof after the third
+    crop.
+
+  And the like sum for every acre over and above a specified
+    number (clover excepted) that shall be mown in any one
+    year.
+
+  At the time of laying down arable lands to grass he shall
+    manure them with 8 quarters of lime per acre, and sow
+    the same with 12 lb. of clover seeds, and one bushel of
+    rye-grass per acre.
+
+  Shall spend on the premises all hay, straw, and manure, or
+      leave them at the end of the term.
+
+  Tenant on quitting to be allowed for hay left on the premises,
+      for clover and rye-grass sown in the last year, and for all
+      fallows made within that time.'[489]
+
+A striking picture of the conditions prevailing in many parts of
+England at this period is given by Mr. Loch in his account of the
+estates of the Marquis of Stafford.[490] When this nobleman inherited
+his property in Staffordshire and Shropshire, much of the land, as in
+other parts of England, was held on leases for three lives, a system
+said to have been ruinous in its effects. Although the farms were held
+at one-third of their value, nothing could be worse than the course of
+cultivation pursued, no improvements were carried out, and all that
+could be hoped for was that the land would not be entirely run out
+when the lease expired. The closes were extremely small and of the
+most irregular shape; the straggling fences occupied a large portion
+of the land; the crookedness of the ditches, by keeping the water
+stagnant, added to, rather than relieved, the wetness of the soil.
+Farms were much scattered, and to enable the occupiers to get at their
+land, lanes wound backwards and forwards from field to field, covering
+a large quantity of ground.
+
+It is to the great credit of the Marquis of Stafford that this
+miserable state of things was swept away. Lands were laid together,
+the size of the fields enlarged, hedges and ditches straightened, the
+drainage conducted according to a uniform plan, new and substantial
+buildings erected, indeed the whole countryside transformed.
+
+Another evil custom on the estate had been to permit huts of miserable
+construction to be erected to the number of several hundreds by the
+poorest, and in many instances the most profligate, of the population.
+They were not regularly entered in the rental account, but had a
+nominal payment fixed upon them which was paid annually at the court
+leet. These cottages were built on the sides of the roads and on the
+lord's waste, which was gradually absorbed by the encroachment, which
+the occupiers of these huts made from time to time by enclosing the
+land that lay next them. These wretched holdings gradually fell into
+the hands of a body of middlemen, who underlet them at an extravagant
+rent to the occupiers; and these men began to consider that they had
+an interest independent of the landlord, and had at times actually
+mortgaged, sold, and devised it. This abuse was also put an end to,
+the cottagers being made immediate tenants of the landlord, to their
+great gain, but to this day small aggregations of houses in Shropshire
+called 'Heaths' mark the encroachments of these squatters on the
+roadside wastes. This class, indeed, has been well known in England
+since the Middle Ages. Norden speaks of them in 1602, and so do many
+subsequent writers. Numbers of small holdings exist to-day obtained in
+this manner, and the custom must to some extent have counteracted the
+effect of enclosure.[491]
+
+The roads of England up to the end of the eighteenth century were
+generally in a disgraceful condition. Some improvement was effected in
+the latter half of the century, but it was not until the days of
+Telford and Macadam that they assumed the appearance with which we are
+familiar; and long after that, though the main roads were excellent,
+the by-roads were often atrocious, as readers of such books as
+_Handley Cross_, written in the middle of the nineteenth century, will
+remember.
+
+Defoe in his tour in 1724 found the road between S. Albans and
+Nottingham 'perfectly frightful,' and the great number of horses
+killed by the 'labour of these heavy ways a great charge to the
+country'. He notes, however, an improvement from turnpikes. Many of
+the roads were much worn by the continual passing of droves of heavy
+cattle on their way to London. Sheep could not travel in the winter to
+London as the roads were too heavy, so that the price of mutton at
+that season in town was high. Breeders were often compelled to sell
+them cheap before they got to London, because the roads became
+impassable for their flocks when the bad weather set in.[492]
+
+In 1734 Lord Cathcart wrote in his diary: 'All went well until I
+arrived within 3 miles of Doncaster, when suddenly my horse fell with
+a crash and with me under him. I fancied myself crushed to death. I
+slept at Doncaster and had a bad night. I was so bad all day, that I
+could get no further than Wetherby. Next day I was all right again. I
+had another terrible fall between North Allerton and Darlington, but
+was not a bit the worse.'[493]
+
+It was owing to this defective condition of the roads that the prices
+of corn still differed greatly in various localities; there would be a
+glut in one place and a deficiency in another, with no means of
+equalizing matters. To the same cause must be attributed in great
+measure the slow progress made in the improvement of agriculture. New
+discoveries travelled very slowly; the expense of procuring manure
+beyond that produced on the farm was prohibitive; and the uncertain
+returns which arose from such confined markets caused the farmer to
+lack both spirit and ability to exert himself in the cultivation of
+his land.[494] Therefore farming was limited to procuring the
+subsistence of particular farms rather than feeding the public. The
+opposition to better roads was due in great measure to the landowners,
+who feared that if the markets in their neighbourhood were rendered
+accessible to distant farmers their estates would suffer. But they
+were not alone in their opposition; in the reign of Queen Anne the
+people of Northampton were against any improvement in the navigation
+of the Nene, because they feared that corn from Huntingdon and
+Cambridge would come up the river and spoil their market.[495] Horner
+was very enthusiastic over the improvement recently effected: 'our
+very carriages travel with almost winged expedition between every town
+of consequence in the kingdom and the metropolis' and inland
+navigation was soon likely to be established in every part, in
+consequence of which the demand for the produce of the land increased
+and the land itself became more valuable and rents rose. 'There never
+was a more astonishing revolution accomplished in the internal system
+of any country'; and the carriage of grain was effected with half the
+former number of horses.
+
+It is clear, however, that he was easily satisfied, and this opinion
+must be compared with the statements of Young and Marshall, who were
+continually travelling all over England some time after it was
+written, and found the roads, in many parts, in a very bad state.
+
+Even near London they were often terrible. 'Of all the cursed roads
+that ever disgraced this kingdom in the very ages of barbarism, none
+ever equalled that from Billericay to the King's Head at Tilbury.[496]
+It is for near 12 miles so narrow that a mouse cannot pass by any
+carriage. I saw a fellow creep under his wagon to assist me to lift,
+if possible, my chaise over a hedge. The ruts are of an incredible
+depth, and everywhere chalk wagons were stuck fast till 20 or 30
+horses tacked to each drew them out one by one' Others said that
+turnpike roads were the enemies of cheapness; as soon as they opened
+up secluded spots, low prices vanished and all tended to one level.
+Owing to the work of Telford and Macadam, the high roads by the first
+quarter of the nineteenth century attained a high pitch of excellence;
+and were thronged with traffic, coaches, postchaises, private
+carriages, equestrians, carts and wagons: so animated a sight that our
+forefathers built small houses called 'gazebos' on the sides of the
+road, where they met to take tea and watch the ever varying stream. It
+should not be forgotten, too, that the inns, where numbers of horses
+put up, were splendid markets for the farmers' oats, hay, and straw.
+
+The seasons in the latter part of the eighteenth century were
+distinguished for being frequently bad. In 1774 Gilbert White wrote,
+'Such a run of wet seasons as we have had the last ten or eleven years
+would have produced a famine a century or two ago.' Owing to the
+dearness of bread in 1767 riots broke out in many places, many lives
+were lost, and the gaols were filled with prisoners.[497] 1779 was,
+however, a year of great fertility and prices were low all round:
+wheat 33s. 8d., barley 26s., oats 13s. 6d., wool 12s. a tod of 28 lb.:
+and there were many complaints of ruined farmers and distressed
+landlords. Though England was now becoming an importing country, the
+amount of corn imported was insufficient to have any appreciable
+effect on prices, which were mainly influenced by the seasons, as the
+following instance of the fluctuations caused by a single bad season
+(1782) testifies[498]:
+
+  Prices after harvest of 1781.      Prices after harvest of 1782.
+
+                         L s. d.                             L  s. d.
+
+  Wheat, per bushel        5  0       Wheat, per bushel        10  6
+  Barley     "             2  9       Barley     "              7  2
+  Dutch oats for seed      1  8       Dutch oats for seed       3  6
+  Clover seed, per cwt. 1 11  6       Clover seed, per cwt.  5 10  0
+
+The summer of 1783 was amazing and portentous and full of horrible
+phenomena, according to White, with a peculiar haze or smoky fog
+prevailing for many weeks. 'The sun at noon looked as blank as a
+clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferruginous light on the ground
+and floors of rooms.' This was succeeded by a very severe winter, the
+thermometer on December 10 being 1 deg. below zero; the worst since
+1739-40.
+
+In 1788 occurred a severe drought in the summer, 5,000 horned cattle
+perishing for lack of water.[499] In 1791 there was a remarkable
+change of temperature in the middle of June, the thermometer in a few
+days falling from 75 deg. to 25 deg., and the hills of Kent and Surrey were
+covered with snow.
+
+We have now to deal with one of those landowners whose great example
+is one of the glories of English agriculture. Coke of Holkham began
+his great agricultural work about 1776 on an estate where, as old Lady
+Townshend said, 'all you will see will be one blade of grass and two
+rabbits fighting for that;' in fact it was little better than a rabbit
+warren. It has been said that all the wheat consumed in the county of
+Norfolk was at this time imported from abroad; but this is in direct
+contradiction to Young's assertion, already noted, that there were in
+1767 great quantities of wheat besides other crops in the county.
+Coke's estate indeed seems to have been considerably behind many parts
+of the shire when he began his farming career.[500] When Coke came
+into his estate, in five leases which were about to expire the farms
+were held at 3s. 6d. an acre; and in the previous leases they had been
+1s. 6d. an acre. We may judge of the quality of this land by comparing
+it with the average rent of 10s. which Young says prevailed at this
+time. With a view to remedy this state of things he studied the
+agriculture of other counties, and his observations thereon reveal a
+very poor kind of farming in many places: in Cheshire the rich pasture
+was wasted and the poor impoverished by sheer ignorance, in Yorkshire
+luxuriant grass was understocked, in Shropshire there were hardly any
+sheep; in his own part of Norfolk the usual rotation was three white
+straw crops and then broadcast turnips.[501] This Coke changed to two
+white crops and two years pasture, and he dug up and brought to the
+surface the rich marl which lay under the flint and sand, so that
+clover and grasses began to grow. So successful was he in this that in
+1796 he cut nearly 400 tons of sainfoin from 104 acres of land
+previously valued at 12s. an acre. He increased his flock of sheep
+from 800 worthless animals with backs as narrow as rabbits, the
+description of the Norfolk sheep of the day, to 2,500 good Southdowns.
+Encouraged by the Duke of Bedford, another great agriculturist, he
+started a herd of North Devons, and, fattening two Devons against one
+Shorthorn, found the former weighed 140 stone, the latter 110, and the
+Shorthorn had eaten more food than the two Devons. However, a single
+experiment of this kind is not very conclusive.
+
+The ploughs of Norfolk were, as in many other counties, absurdly
+over-horsed, from three to five being used when only two were
+necessary; so Coke set the example of using two whenever possible, and
+won a bet with Sir John Sebright by ploughing an acre of stiff land in
+Hertfordshire in a day with a pair of horses. He transformed the bleak
+bare countryside by planting 50 acres of trees every year until he had
+3,000 acres well covered, and in 1832 had probably the unique
+experience of embarking in a ship which was built of oak grown from
+the acorns he had himself planted.[502] Between 1776 and 1842 (the
+date of his death) he is said to have spent L536,992 on improving his
+estate, without reckoning the large sums spent on his house and
+demesne, the home farm, and his marsh farm of 459 acres. This
+expenditure paid in the long run, but when he entered upon it, it must
+have seemed very doubtful if this would be the case. A good
+understanding between landlord and tenant was the basis of his policy,
+and to further this he let his farms on long leases, at moderate
+rents, with few restrictions. When farmers improved their holdings on
+his estate the rent was not raised on them, so that the estate
+benefited greatly, and good tenants were often rewarded by having
+excellent houses built for them; so good, indeed, that his political
+opponents the Tories, whom he, as a staunch Whig detested, made it one
+of their complaints against him that he built palaces for farmhouses.
+At first he met with that stolid opposition to progress which seems
+the particular characteristic of the farmer. For sixteen years no one
+followed him in the use of the drill, though it was no new thing; and
+when it was adopted he reckoned its use spread at the rate of a mile a
+year. Yet eventually he had his reward; his estate came to command the
+pick of English tenant farmers, who never left it except through old
+age, and would never live under any other landlord. Even the Radical
+Cobbett, to whom, as to most of his party, landlords were, and are,
+the objects of inveterate hatred, said that every one who knew him
+spoke of him with affection. Coke was the first to distinguish between
+the adaptability of the different kinds of grass seeds to different
+soils, and thereby made the hitherto barren lands of his estate better
+pasture land than that of many rich counties. Carelessness about the
+quality of grasses sown was universal for a long time. The farmer took
+his seeds from his own foul hayrick, or sent to his neighbour for a
+supply of rubbish; even Bakewell derived his stock from his hayloft.
+It was not until the Society for the Encouragement of Arts offered
+prizes for clean hay seeds that some improvement was noticeable. In
+Norfolk, as in other parts of England, there was at this time a strong
+prejudice against potatoes; the villagers of Holkham refused to have
+anything to do with them, but Coke's invincible persistency overcame
+this unreasoning dislike and soon they refused to do without them.
+
+Coke was a great advocate for sowing wheat early and very thick in the
+rows, and for cutting it when ear and stem were green and the grain
+soft, declaring that by so doing he got 2s. a quarter more for it; he
+also believed in the early cutting of oats and peas. It was his custom
+to drill 4 bushels of wheat per acre, which he said prevented
+tillering and mildew. He was the first to grow swedes on a large
+scale.[503] The famous Holkham Sheep-shearings, known locally as
+'Coke's Clippings', which began in 1778 and lasted till 1821, arose
+from his practice of gathering farmers together for consultation on
+matters agricultural, and developed into world-famous meetings
+attended by all nationalities and all ranks, men journeying from
+America especially to attend them, and Lafayette expressed it as one
+of his great regrets that he had never attended one. At these
+gatherings all were equal, the suggestion of the smallest tenant
+farmer was listened to with respect, and the same courtesy and
+hospitality were shown to all whether prince or farmer. At the last
+meeting in 1821 no less than 7,000 people were present. His skill,
+energy, and perseverance worked a revolution in the crops; his own
+wheat crops were from 10 to 12 coombs an acre, his barley sometimes
+nearly 20. The annual income of timber and underwood was L2,700, and
+from 1776 to 1816 he increased the rent roll of his estate from L2,200
+to L20,000, which, even after allowing for the great advance in prices
+during that period, is a wonderful rise. It is a very significant fact
+that there was not an alehouse on the estate, and in connexion with
+this, and with the fact that his improvements made a constant demand
+for labour, we are not surprised to learn that the workhouse was
+pulled down as useless, for it was always empty, and this at a time
+when the working-classes of England were pauperized to an alarming
+degree. The year 1818 was one of terrible distress all over England in
+country and town, yet at his sheep-shearing of that year Coke was
+enabled to say he had trebled the population of his estate and not a
+single person was out of employment, though everywhere else farmers
+were turning off hands and cutting down wages. Principally through his
+agency, between 1804 and 1821, no less than 153 enclosures took place
+in Norfolk, while between 1790 and 1810, 2,000,000 acres of waste land
+in England were brought under cultivation largely by his efforts. He
+is said, indeed, to have transformed agriculture throughout England,
+and, but for that, the country would not have been able to grow enough
+food for its support during the war with Napoleon, and must have
+succumbed.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[440] _Northern Tour_, i. 9. For an interesting account of Young, see
+_R.A.S.E. Journal_ (3rd Series), iv. 1.
+
+[441] In 1726 Bradley had urged the use of liquorice, madder, woad,
+and caraway as improvers of the land in the Preface to the _Country
+Gentleman_.
+
+[442] _Rural Economy_ (1771), pp. 173-5. Trusler, who wrote in 1780,
+mentions 'the general rage for farming throughout the
+kingdom.'--_Practical Husbandry_, p. I.
+
+[443] In 1780 Sir Thomas Bernard, travelling through Northumberland,
+saw 'luxuriant plantations, neat hedges, rich crops of corn,
+comfortable farmhouses' in a county whereof the greater part was
+barren moor dearly rented at 1s. 6d. an acre thirty years before, and
+he said the county had increased in annual value fourfold,
+(Contemporary MS., unpublished.)
+
+[444] _Rural Economy_, p. 26.
+
+[445] _Farmer's Letters_ (3rd ed.), p. 89.
+
+[446] Slater, _English Peasantry and Enclosure_, p. 95.
+
+[447] Ibid. p. 101.
+
+[448] Young, _Northern Tour_, iv. 340, about 1770 estimates the
+cultivated land of England to be half pasture and half arable, and, in
+the absence of reliable statistics, his opinion on this point is
+certainly the best available. The conversion of a large portion of the
+richer land from arable to grass in the eighteenth century was
+compensated for, according to Young, by the conversion, on enclosure,
+of poor sandy soils and heaths or moors into corn land. Hasbach, _op.
+cit._ pp. 370-1.
+
+[449] Young, _Northern Tour_, i. 222.
+
+[450] _Rural Economy_, p. 252.
+
+[451] Ibid. p. 271.
+
+[452] Cf. above, p. 180.
+
+[453] _Farmer's Letters_ (3rd ed), p. 372.
+
+[454] _Northern Tour_, iv. 167.
+
+[455] Ibid. iv. 186.
+
+[456] This large item is explained by the fact that a bailiff was
+employed to sell, and no bailiff could find customers 'without feeling
+the same drought as stage coachmen when they see a sign'.--Young,
+_Farmer's Letters_, p. 403.
+
+[457] _Rural Economy_, p. 314.
+
+[458] 1775, pp. x-xiii.
+
+[459] _Northern Tour_, iv. 192-202.
+
+[460] See _Parliamentary Reports Commission_ (1881), xvi. 260.
+
+[461] _Dissertations on Rural Subjects_, p. 278.
+
+[462] _Farmer's Letters_, p. 433.
+
+[463] _History of Hawsted_, p. 169.
+
+[464] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 127; Kent, _Hints to Gentlemen_, p. 152.
+
+[465] _Southern Tour_, p. 324. He says nothing of the manufacturing
+towns, which had not yet began to influence the wages of farm
+labourers near them as they soon afterwards did.
+
+[466] Some prices at this time were: bread per lb., 2d.; butter,
+5-1/2d. to 8d.; cheese, 3-1/2d. to 4d.; beef, 3d. to 5d.; mutton,
+3-1/2d. to 5d.
+
+[467] _State of the Poor_, i. 562.
+
+[468] According to Walter Harte, though the yeoman in the middle of
+the seventeenth century ate bread of rye and barley (maslin), in 1766
+even the poor cottagers looked upon it with horror and demanded best
+wheaten bread. Yet in 1766 the quartern loaf in London was 1s.
+6d.--Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 68.
+
+[469] _History of Hawsted_, p. 184.
+
+[470] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 513.
+
+[471] _Rural Economy of Gloucestershire_, i. 53.
+
+[472] Eden, _op. cit._ i. 547.
+
+[473] _Farmer's Letters_, i. 300
+
+[474] The pulling down of cottages began to be complained of in the
+seventeenth century; they harboured the poor, who were a charge upon
+the parish, and repairs were saved.--_Transactions Royal Historical
+Society_ (New Series), xix. 120.
+
+[475] Hasbach, _op. cit._ 82; Clarke, _General View of Herefordshire_,
+p. 29; Marshall, _Review of Northern Department_, p. 375.
+
+[476] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 50; Hallam, _Constitutional
+History_, iii. 302.
+
+[477] _Northern Tour_, iv. 420. The increase in population in the
+first half of the eighteenth century was slow; after the Peace of
+Paris in 1763, when the commerce and manufactures of the country were
+extended in an unprecedented degree, it was rapid.
+
+[478] _The Way to be Rich and Respectable_, London, 1780.
+
+[479] Grose, _Olio_, pp. 41-4; Lecky, _History of England in
+Eighteenth Century_, vi. 169 et. seq.
+
+[480] Cullum, _History of Hawsted_, p. 219.
+
+[481] Cullum, _History of Hawsted_, p. 225.
+
+[482] _Thoughts on Enclosure, by a Country Farmer_ (1786), p. 21.
+
+[483] Johnstone, _Account of Elkington's Draining_ (1797), pp. 8-9.
+
+[484] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1894), p. 11, from which this account of
+Bakewell is mainly taken.
+
+[485] According to some, Joseph Allom originated the breed, and
+Bakewell vastly improved it. We may safely give the chief credit to so
+careful and gifted a breeder as Bakewell.
+
+[486] _Culley on Live Stock_ (1807), p. 56.
+
+[487] Marshall, _Rural Economy of the Midland Counties_, i. 273.
+
+[488] _Victoria County History: Warwickshire, Agriculture_.
+
+[489] In Lancashire at this date it was not uncommon, when a tenant
+wished for his farm or a particular field to be improved by draining,
+marling, liming, or laying down to grass, to hand it over to the
+landlord for the process; who, when completed, returned it to the
+tenant with an advanced rent of 10 per cent. upon the
+improvements.--Marshall, _Review of Reports to Board of Agriculture_
+(under Lancashire).
+
+[490] 1820, p. 173 et seq.
+
+[491] See Hasbach, _op. cit._ pp. 77 sq.; _Annals of Agriculture_,
+xxxvi. 497; Scrutton, _Commons and Common Fields_, p. 139.
+
+[492] Defoe, _Tour_, ii. 178 et seq.
+
+[493] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (3rd Ser.), ii. 9.
+
+[494] Horner, _Inquiry into the Means of Preserving the Public Roads_
+(1767), pp. 4 et seq.
+
+[495] _Victoria County History: Northants._, ii. 250.
+
+[496] Young, _Southern Tour_ (ed. 2), p. 88.
+
+[497] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 68. It is difficult to understand
+the price of the quartern loaf, 1s. 6d. in 1766, as wheat was only
+43s. 1d. a quarter. Prices of wheat in these years were:
+
+            s.  d.
+
+     1767   47  4
+     1768   53  9
+     1769   40  7
+     1770   43  6
+     1771   47  2
+     1772   50  8
+     1773   51  0
+     1774   52  8
+     1775   48  4
+     1776   38  2
+     1777   45  6
+     1778   42  0
+     1779   33  8
+
+These returns differ from those of the Board of Agriculture; see
+Appendix III.
+
+[498] _Annals of Agriculture_, iii. 366.
+
+[499] Baker, _Seasons and Prices_, pp. 224 et seq.
+
+[500] A. Stirling, _Coke of Holkham_, i. 249.
+
+[501] But in other parts of it the cultivation of turnips was well
+understood, for the _Complete Farmer_, s.v. _Turnips_ (ed. 3), says
+that about 1750 Norfolk farmers boasted that turnips had doubled the
+value of their holdings, and Norfolk men were famous for understanding
+hoeing and thinning, which were little practised elsewhere. Further,
+Young, _Southern Tour_, p. 273, says: 'the extensive use of turnips is
+known but little of except in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. I found no
+farmers but in these counties that understood anything of fatting
+cattle with them; feeding lean sheep being the only use they put them
+to.'
+
+[502] A. Stirling, _op. cit._ i. 264.
+
+[503] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1895), p. 12.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+1793-1815
+
+THE GREAT FRENCH WAR.--THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.--HIGH PRICES, AND
+HEAVY TAXATION.
+
+
+This period, that of the great war with France, was one generally of
+high prices and prosperity for landowners and farmers. It was a
+prosperity, however, that was largely fictitious, and when the high
+prices of the war time were over, it was succeeded by many disastrous
+years. The prosperity, too, was also largely neutralized by a crushing
+weight of taxation and rates, while the labourer, although his wages
+were increased, found prices grow at a much greater rate, and it was,
+as Thorold Rogers has said, the most miserable period in his history.
+
+Its commencement was marked by the foundation of the Board of
+Agriculture. On May 15, 1793, Sir John Sinclair[504] moved in the
+House of Commons, 'that His Majesty would take into his consideration
+the advantages which might be derived from the establishment of such a
+board, for though in some particular districts improved methods of
+cultivating the soil were practised, yet in the greatest part of these
+kingdoms the principles of agriculture are not sufficiently
+understood, nor are the implements of husbandry or the stock of the
+farmer brought to that perfection of which they are capable. His
+Majesty's faithful Commons were persuaded that if it were founded a
+spirit of improvement might be encouraged, which would result in
+important national benefits.
+
+The motion was carried by 101 to 26. By its charter the board
+consisted of a president, 16 ex-officio and 30 ordinary members, with
+honorary and corresponding members. It was not a Government department
+in the modern sense of the term, but a society for the encouragement
+of agriculture, as the Royal Society is for the encouragement of
+science. It was, indeed, supported by parliamentary grants, receiving
+a sum of L3,000 a year, but the Government had only a limited control
+over its affairs through the ex-officio members, among whom were the
+Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Lord Chancellor, the First
+Lord of the Admiralty, and the Speaker.
+
+The first president was Sir John Sinclair, and the first secretary
+Arthur Young, with a salary of L400 a year, which he thought
+insufficient.[505] The first task of the new board was that of
+preparing statistical accounts of English agriculture, and it was
+intended to take in hand the commutation of tithes, which would have
+been a great boon to farmers, with whom the prevailing system of
+collecting tithes was very unpopular; but the Primate's opposition
+stopped this. The board appointed lecturers, procured a reward for
+Elkington for his draining system, encouraged Macadam in his plans for
+improving roads, and Meikle the inventor of the thrashing machine, and
+obtained the removal of taxes on draining tiles, and other taxes
+injurious to agriculture. It also recommended the allotment system,
+and Sinclair desired 3 acres and a cow for every industrious cottager.
+During the abnormally high prices of provisions from 1794-6, the
+quartern loaf in London in 1795 being 1s. 6d., though next year it
+dropped to 7-3/4d.,[506] the board made experiments in making bread
+with substitutes for wheat, which resulted in a public exhibition of
+eighty different sorts of bread. Its efforts were generally followed
+by increased zeal among agriculturists; but Sinclair, an able but
+impetuous man,[507] appears to have taken things too much into his own
+hands and pushed them too speedily.
+
+Financial difficulties came, chiefly owing to the cost of the surveys,
+which had been hurried on with undue haste and often with great
+carelessness, the surveyors sometimes being men who knew nothing of
+the subject.
+
+Sinclair was deposed from the presidency in 1798, and succeeded by
+Lord Somerville. He again was succeeded by Lord Carrington, under
+whose presidency the board offered premiums (the first of L200), owing
+to the high price of wheat and consequent distress, for essays on the
+best means of converting certain portions of grass land into tillage
+without exhausting the soil, and of returning the same to grass, after
+a certain period, in an improved state, or at least without injury.
+The general report, based on the information derived from these
+essays, states that no high price of corn or temporary distress would
+justify the ploughing up of old meadows or rich pastures, and that on
+certain soils well adapted to grass age improves the quality of the
+pasture to a degree which no system of management on lands broken up
+and laid down can equal. In spite of this, the cupidity of landowners
+and farmers, when wheat was a guinea a bushel or at prices near it,
+led to the ploughing up of much splendid grass land, which was never
+laid down again until, perhaps in recent years, owing to the low price
+of grain; so that some of the land at all events has, owing to bad
+times, returned to the state best suited to it.
+
+The board looked upon the enclosure and cultivation of waste lands,
+which in England they estimated at 6,000,000 acres,[508] as a panacea
+for the prevailing distress, and after much opposition they managed to
+pass through both Houses in 1801 a Bill cheapening and facilitating
+the process of parliamentary enclosure. This Act, 41 Geo. III, c. 109,
+'extracted a number of clauses from various private Acts and enacted
+that they should hold good in all cases where the special Act did not
+expressly provide to the contrary.' Another benefit rendered to
+agriculture was the establishment in 1803 of lectures on agricultural
+chemistry, the first lecturer engaged being Mr., afterwards Sir
+Humphry, Davy, who may be regarded as the father of agricultural
+chemistry.
+
+In 1806 Sinclair was re-elected president, and his second term was
+mainly devoted to completing the agricultural surveys of the different
+counties, which, before his retirement in 1813, he had with one or two
+exceptions the satisfaction of seeing finished. Though over-impetuous,
+he rendered valuable service to agriculture, not only by his own
+energy but by stirring up energy in others; as William Wilberforce the
+philanthrophist said, 'I have myself seen collected in that small room
+several of the noblemen and gentlemen of the greatest properties in
+the British Isles, all of them catching and cultivating an
+agricultural spirit, and going forth to spend in the employment of
+labourers, and I hope in the improvement of land, immense sums which
+might otherwise have been lavished on hounds and horses, or squandered
+on theatricals.'
+
+Among the numerous subjects into which the board inquired was the
+divining rod for finding water, which was tested in Hyde Park in 1801,
+and successfully stood the test. In 1805, Davy the chemist reported on
+a substance in South America called 'guana', which he had analysed and
+found to contain one-third of ammoniacal salt with other salts and
+carbon, but its use was not to come for another generation. From the
+time of Sinclair's retirement in 1813 the board declined. Arthur
+Young, its secretary, had become blind and his capacity therefore
+impaired. One year its lack of energy was shown by the return of
+L2,000 of the Government grant to the Treasury because it had nothing
+to spend it on. The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was against it,
+the clergy feared the commutation of tithe which the board advocated,
+the legal profession was against the Enclosure Act, the landed
+interest thought the surveys were intended for purposes of taxation;
+and the grant being withdrawn, an effort to maintain the board by
+voluntary subscription failed, so that it dissolved in 1822, after
+doing much valuable work for English agriculture.
+
+Before its extinction it had held in 1821, at Aldridge's Repository,
+the first national agricultural show. L685 was given in prizes, and
+the entries included 10 bulls, 9 cows and heifers, several fat steers
+and cows, 7 pens of Leicester and Cotswold rams and ewes; 12 pens of
+Down, and 9 or 10 pens of Merino rams and ewes.[509] Most of the
+cattle shown were Shorthorn, or Durham, as they were then called, with
+some Herefords, Devons, Longhorns, and Alderneys. There were also
+exhibits of grass, turnip-seed, roots, and implements.
+
+This first national show had been preceded by many local ones.[510]
+The end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries
+saw the establishment all over England of farmers' clubs, cattle
+shows, and ploughing matches.
+
+The period now before us is marked by the great work of the Collings,
+who next to Bakewell did most to improve the cattle of the United
+Kingdom. Charles Colling was born in 1751, and the scene of his famous
+labours was Ketton near Darlington. He had learnt from Bakewell the
+all-importance of quality in cattle, and determined to improve the
+local Shorthorn breed near his own home, which had been described in
+1744 as 'the most profitable beasts for the dairyman, butcher, and
+grazier, with their wide bags, short horns, and large bodies.' He was
+to make these 'profitable beasts' the best all-round cattle in the
+world, and to succeed where George Culley had failed. The first bull
+of merit he possessed was 'Hubback',[511] described as a little
+yellow, red, and white five-year-old, which was mated with cows
+afterwards to be famous, named Duchess, Daisy, Cherry, and Lady
+Maynard. At first Colling was against in-breeding, and not until 1793
+did he adopt it, more by accident than intention, but the experiment
+being successful he became an enthusiast. The experiment was the
+putting of Phoenix to Lord Bolingbroke, who was both her half-brother
+and her nephew, and the result was the famous Favourite. A young
+farmer who saw Favourite and his sister at Darlington in 1799, was so
+struck by them that he paid Colling the first 100 guineas ever given
+for a Shorthorn cow.[512]
+
+One of Hubback's daughters had in 1795, by Favourite, a roan calf
+which grew to be the celebrated Durham Ox, which at five and a half
+years weighed 3,024 lb., and was sold for L140. It was sold again for
+L250, the second purchaser refusing L2,000 for it, and taking it round
+England on show made a profitable business out of it, in one day in
+London making L97. A still more famous animal was the bull Comet, born
+1804, which at the great sale in 1810 fetched 1,000 guineas. This bull
+was the crowning triumph of Colling's career and the result of very
+close breeding, being described as the best bull ever seen, with a
+fine masculine head, broad and deep chest, shoulders well laid back,
+loins good, hind-quarters long, straight and well packed, thighs
+thick, with nice straight hocks and hind legs. Perhaps Colling thought
+he had pursued in-and-in breeding too far, at all events in 1810 he
+dispersed his famous herd. The sale was held at a most propitious
+time, for the Durham Ox had advertised the name of Colling far and
+wide, and owing to the war prices were very high. Comet fetched 1,000
+guineas, and the other forty-seven lots averaged L151 8s. 5d., an
+unheard-of sale, yet all the auctioneer got was 5 guineas, much of the
+work of the sale falling on the owner, and the former sold the stock
+with a sand-glass.
+
+After the sale at Ketton, Brampton, the farm of Charles's brother
+Robert, became the centre of interest to the Shorthorn world. Robert
+obtained excellent prices for his stock, five daughters of his famous
+bull George fetching 200 guineas each. Probably he, like his brother,
+pursued in-and-in breeding too far, and in 1818 there was another
+great sale; but war-prices had gone and agriculture was depressed, so
+that the cattle fetched less than at Ketton, but still averaged L128
+14s. 9d. for 61 lots, and 22 rams averaged L39 6s. 4d. Robert died in
+1820, his brother in 1836.
+
+It cannot be said that the Collings were the founders of a new breed
+of cattle; they were the collectors and preservers of an ancient breed
+that might otherwise have disappeared.[513] The object of good
+breeders was now to get their cattle fat at an early age, and they so
+far succeeded as to sell three-year-old steers for L20 apiece,
+generally fed thus: in the first winter, hay and turnips; the
+following summer, coarse pasture; the second winter, straw in the
+foldyard and a few turnips; next summer, tolerable good pasture; and
+the third winter, as many turnips as they could eat.[514]
+
+Cattle at this time were classified thus: Shorthorns, Devons, Sussex,
+Herefords (the two latter said by Culley to be varieties of the
+Devon), Longhorned, Galloway or Polled, Suffolk Duns, Kyloes, and
+Alderneys.
+
+Sheep thus: the Dishley Breed (New Leicesters), Lincolns, Teeswaters,
+Devonshire Notts, Exmoor, Dorsetshire, Herefordshire, Southdown,
+Norfolk, Heath, Herdwick, Cheviot, Dunfaced, Shetland, Irish.[515]
+
+With the increased demand for corn and meat from the towns the
+necessity of new and better implements became apparent, and many
+patents were taken out: by Praed, for drill ploughs, in 1781; by
+Horn, for sowing machines, in 1784; by Heaton, for harrows, in 1787;
+for sowing machines, by Sandilands, 1788; for reaping machines, by
+Boyce, 1799; winnowing machines, by Cooch, 1800; haymakers, by Salmon,
+1816; and for scarifiers, chaff-cutters, turnip-slicers, and
+food-crushers.[516] But the great innovation was the threshing machine
+of Meikle. Like most inventions, it had forerunners. The first
+threshing machine is mentioned in the _Select Transactions of the
+Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland_,
+published in 1743 by Maxwell. It was invented by Michael Menzies, and
+by it one man could do the work of six. One machine was worked by a
+great water-wheel and triddles, another by a little wheel of 3 feet
+diameter, moved by a small quantity of water. The first attempts to
+substitute horse or other power for manual in threshing were directed
+to the revolution of jointed flails, which should strike the floor on
+which the corn was spread, but this proved unsatisfactory, so that
+rubbing the grain out of the straw by revolving cylinders was
+tried,[517] Young, in his northern tour, met a Mr. Clarke at Belford
+in Northumberland, who was famous for mechanics,[518] among his
+inventions being a threshing machine worked by one horse, which does
+not seem to have effected much. Eventually Mr. A. Meikle, of Houston
+Mill near Haddington, in 1798 erected a machine the principles of
+which, much modified, are those of to-day; and in 1803 Mr. Aitchison,
+of Drumore in East Lothian, first applied steam to threshing. It was
+some time, however, before this beneficent invention was generally
+used, and when the machines were used they were usually driven by
+horse--or water-power until about 1850. In 1883 Messrs. Howard, of
+Bedford, adapted a sheaf-binding apparatus to the threshing machine.
+With new implements came new crops; the Swede turnip was grown on some
+farms in Notts just before 1800, but it is not known who introduced
+it.[519] The mangel wurzel was introduced about 1780-5 by Parkyns, and
+prickly comfrey in 1811.
+
+The year 1795 was one of great scarcity owing to the wet and stormy
+summer, and in August wheat went up to 108s. a quarter.[520] As usual
+many other causes but the right one were put forth, and the old
+accusations of monopoly, forestalling, and regrating were heard again.
+The war with France, with more reason, was considered to have helped
+in raising prices, but the chief cause was the bad season. The members
+of both Houses of Parliament bound themselves to reduce the
+consumption of bread in their homes by one-third, and recommended
+others to a similar reduction. It was a period of terrible distress
+for the agricultural labourer. His wages were about 9s. a week, and it
+was impossible for him to live on them, so that what is known as 'the
+allowance system' came in. At Speenhamland in Berkshire, in this year,
+the magistrates agreed that it was not expedient to help the labourer
+by regulating his wages according to the statute of Elizabeth, but
+recommended the farmers to increase their pay in proportion to the
+present price of provisions, and they also granted relief to all poor
+and industrious men according to the price of bread. They were merely
+giving effect to Gilbert's Act of 1782, which legalized the
+supplementing of the wages of able-bodied men from the rates, and the
+decision was nicknamed the 'Speenhamland Act' because it was so
+generally followed. However well meant, the effect was most
+demoralizing and the English labourer, already too prone to look to
+the State for help, was induced to depend less on his own exertions.
+The real remedy would have been a substantial increase of his scanty
+wages. As it was, landowner and farmer were often paying the labourer
+in rates money that would far better have come to him in wages, and
+the rates in some districts became so burdensome that land was thrown
+out of cultivation. In the same year as the Speenhamland Act the
+statute 36 Geo. III, c. 23, forbade the removal of persons from any
+parish until they were in actual need of support; but although the law
+was thus relaxed, the fixed principle which caused the refusal of all
+permanent relief to labourers who had no settlement in the parish
+acted as a very efficient check on migration, though, as we have seen,
+it did not entirely check it. In 1796 the question of regulating the
+labourers' wages by Parliament was raised; but Pitt, remembering such
+schemes had always failed, was hostile, and the matter dropped.[521]
+In the same year Eden made his inquiries concerning the rate of wages
+and the cost of living. In Bedford, he found the agricultural labourer
+was getting 1s. 2d. a day and beer, with extras in harvest[522]; but
+bacon was 10d. a lb. and wheat 12s. a bushel. However, parish
+allowances were liberal, a man, his wife, and four children sometimes
+receiving 11s. a week from that source.
+
+In Cumberland the labourer was being paid 10d. to 1s. a day with food,
+or 1s. 6d. to 1s. 8d. without; in Hertfordshire, 1s. 6d. a day; in
+Suffolk, 1s. 4d. a day and beer.
+
+Nearly everywhere his expenditure was much in excess of his earnings,
+the yearly budgets of fifty-three families in twelve different
+counties showed generally large annual deficiencies, amounting in one
+case to L21 18s. 4d. In one case in Lindsey, where the deficiency was
+small, the family lived on bread alone. The factory system, too, had
+already deprived the labourer of many of his by-industries, and thus
+helped the pauperism for which landlord and farmer had to pay in
+rates.
+
+About 1788 Sir William Young proposed to send the unemployed labourers
+round to the parishioners to get work, their wages being paid by their
+employers and by the parish. This method of obtaining work was known
+as the 'roundsman system'.[523]
+
+Landlords, however, and farmers were profiting greatly by the high
+prices, which fortunately received a check by the abundant harvest of
+1796, which, with large imports,[524] caused the price of wheat to
+fall to 57s. 3d., and in 1798 to 47s. 10d. It is difficult to conceive
+what instability, speculation, and disaster such fluctuations must
+have led to. In 1797 the Bank Restriction Act was passed, suspending
+cash payments, and thereby causing a huge growth in credit
+transactions, a great factor in the inflated prosperity of this
+period. In January, 1799, wool was 2s. a lb., and prices at
+Smithfield:
+
+                              s. d.        s. d.
+
+  Beef, per stone of 8 lb.    3  0    to   3  4
+  Mutton      "        "      3  0     "   4  2
+  Pork        "        "      2  8     "   3  8
+
+The summer of that year was uninterruptedly wet; some corn in the
+north was uncut in November, so that wheat went up to 94s. 2d., and in
+June, 1800, was 134s. 5d., the scarcity being aggravated by the
+Russian Government laying an embargo on British shipping.[525] Yet
+Pitt denied that the high prices were due to the war.[526] They were
+due, indeed, to several causes:
+
+  1. Frequent years of scarcity.
+
+  2. Increase of consumption, owing to the great growth of
+     the manufacturing population, England during the war having
+     almost a monopoly of the trade of Europe.
+
+  3. Napoleon's obstructions to importation.
+
+  4. The unprecedented fall of foreign exchanges.
+
+  5. The rise in the price of labour, scanty as it was.
+
+  6. Suspension of cash payments, which produced a medium
+     of circulation of an unlimited nature, and led to speculation.[527]
+
+In March, 1801, wheat was 156s.; beef at Smithfield, 5s. to 6s. 6d. a
+stone; and mutton, 6s. 6d. to 8s. A rise in wages was allowed on all
+sides to be imperative, but the labourer even now got on an average
+little more than 9s. a week,[528] a very inadequate pittance, though
+generally supplemented by the parish. Arthur Young[529] tells of a
+person living near Bury in 1801, who, before the era of high prices,
+earned 5s. a week, and with that could purchase:
+
+  A bushel of wheat.
+        "      malt.
+  1 lb. of butter.
+  1 lb. of cheese.
+  A pennyworth of tobacco.
+
+But in 1801 the same articles cost him:
+
+                             s. d.
+
+  A bushel of wheat         16  0
+       "      malt           9  0
+  1 lb. of butter            1  0
+  1 lb. of cheese               4
+  Tobacco                       1
+                         --------
+                         L1  6  5
+                         ========
+
+His wages were now 9s., and his allowance from the rates 6s., so that
+there was a deficiency of 11s. 5d.
+
+The increase in the cost of living in the last thirty years is
+further illustrated by the following table:
+
+                        1773.       1793.       1799.       1800.
+                       L  s. d.    L  s. d.    L  s. d.    L  s. d.
+
+  Coomb of malt          12  0     1  3  0     1  3  0     2  0  0
+  Chaldron of coals    1 11  6     2  0  6     2  6  0     2 11  0
+  Coomb of oats           5  0       13  0       16  0     1  1  0
+  Load of hay          2  2  0     4 10  0     5  5  0     7  0  0
+  Meat, per lb.              4           5           7           9
+  Butter,  "                 6          11          11        1  4
+  Loaf sugar, per lb.        8        1  0        1  3        1  4
+  Poor rates, in the L    1  0        2  6        3  0        5  0
+
+It was again proposed by Mr. Whitbread in the House of Commons that
+wages should be regulated by the price of provisions, and a minimum
+wage fixed; but there was enough sense in the House to reject this
+return to obsolete methods.
+
+After March, 1801, prices commenced to fall, owing to a favourable
+season and the reopening of the Baltic ports, which allowed imports to
+come in more freely, for most of our foreign corn at this time came
+from Germany and Denmark. At the end of the year wheat averaged 75s.
+6d., and with fair seasons it came down in the beginning of 1804 to
+49s. 6d. Beef at Smithfield was from 4s. to 5s. 4d. a stone, mutton
+from 4s. to 4s. 6d.[530] This great drop in prices was accompanied by
+an increase in wages, the labourer from 1804 to 1810 getting on an
+average 12s. a week[531]; the cost of implements rose, so did the rate
+of interest, and the cry of agricultural distress in 1804 was heard
+everywhere. More protection was demanded by those interested in the
+land, and accordingly a duty of 24s. 3d. was imposed when the price
+was 63s. or under; a bounty was paid on export when it was 40s. or
+under; and wheat might be exported without bounty up to 54s.
+
+However, 1804 was a very deficient harvest, owing to blight and
+mildew, and by the end of the year wheat was 86s. 2d. The harvests
+till 1808 were not as bad as that of 1804, but not good enough to
+lower the prices. Also, owing to the Berlin and Milan Decrees of
+Napoleon and the Non-intercourse Act of the United States of America,
+imports were restricted so that at the end of 1808 wheat was 92s. In
+this year the exports of wheat exceeded the imports, but it was due to
+the requirements of our army in Spain; and 1789 was the last year when
+exports were greater under normal circumstances.[532] 1809 was a bad
+harvest, so was 1810; in the former rot being very prevalent among
+sheep; and by August, 1810, hay was L11 a load and wheat 116s., only
+large imports (1,567,126 quarters) preventing a famine. Down wool was
+2s. 1d. per lb., beef and mutton 8-1/2d., cheese 8d.[533]
+
+In 1811 the whole of July and part of August were wet and cold; and
+in August, 1812, wheat averaged 155s., the finest Dantzic selling at
+Mark Lane for 180s., and oats reached 84s. As our imports of corn then
+chiefly came from the north-west of Europe, which has a climate very
+similar to our own, crops there were often deficient from bad seasons
+in the same years as our own, and the price consequently high. On the
+other hand, it is a proof that produce will find the best market
+regardless of hindrances, that much of our corn at this time came from
+France. Corn in 1813 was seized on with such avidity that there was no
+need to show samples. As high prices had now prevailed for some time
+and were still rising, landlords and farmers jumped to the conclusion
+that they would be permanent; so that this is the period when rents
+experienced their greatest increase, in some cases having increased
+fivefold since 1790, and speculations in land were most general. Land
+sold for forty years' purchase, many men of spirit and adventure very
+different from farmers 'were tempted to risk their property in
+agricultural speculations',[534] and large sums were sunk in lands and
+improvements in the spirit of mercantile enterprise. The land was
+considered as a kind of manufacturing establishment, and 'such powers
+of capital and labour were applied as forced almost sterility itself
+to become fertile.' Even good pastures were ploughed up to grow wheat
+at a guinea a bushel, and much worthless land was sown with corn.
+Manure was procured from the most remote quarters, and we are told a
+new science rose up, agricultural chemistry, which, 'with much
+frivolity and many refinements remote from common sense, was not
+without great operation on the productive powers of land.'
+
+Land jobbing and speculation became general, and credit came to the
+aid of capital. The larger farmers, as we have seen, were before the
+war inclined to an extravagance that amazed their older
+contemporaries; now we are told, some insisted on being called
+esquire, and some kept liveried servants.[535]
+
+It is somewhat curious to learn that one of the drawbacks from which
+farmers suffered at this time was the ravages of pigeons, which seem
+to have been as numerous as in the Middle Ages, when the lord's
+dovecote was the scourge of the villein's crops. In 1813 there was
+said to be 20,000 pigeon houses in England and Wales, each on an
+average containing 100 pairs of old pigeons.[536]
+
+Another pest was the large number of 'vermin', whose destruction had
+long before been considered important enough to demand the attention
+of the legislature.[537] Some parishes devoted large portions of their
+funds to this object; in 1786 East Budleigh in Devonshire, out of a
+total receipt of L20 1s. 8-1/2d., voted L5 10s. for vermin killing.
+That now sacred animal the fox was then treated with scant respect,
+farmers and landlords paying for his destruction as 'vermin'[538]; the
+parish accounts of Ashburton in Devonshire, for instance, from
+1761-1820 include payments for killing 18 foxes and 4 vixens, with no
+less than 153 badgers.
+
+But the edifice of artificial prosperity was already tottering. After
+1812 prices fell steadily,[539] the abundant harvest of 1813 and the
+opening of the continental ports accelerated this, and by December,
+1813, wheat was 73s. 3d. Yet agriculture had made solid progress. The
+Committee of the House of Commons which inquired into the state of the
+corn trade in 1813 stated that through the extension of, and
+improvements in, agriculture the agricultural produce of the kingdom
+had increased one-fourth in the preceding ten years.[540] The high
+prices had attracted a large amount of capital to the land, so that
+there was very rapid and extensive progress, the methods of tillage
+were improved, large tracts of inferior pasture converted into arable,
+much, however, of which was soon to revert to weeds; there were many
+enclosures, and many fens, commons, and wastes reclaimed. But there
+was a reverse side to this picture of prosperity, even in the case of
+landlord and farmer. The burden of taxation was crushing; a
+contemporary writer, a farmer of twenty-five years standing,[541]
+wrote that, with the land tax remaining the same, there was a high
+property tax, house and window taxes were doubled, poor rates in some
+places trebled, highway, church, and constable rates doubled and
+trebled, and there were oppressive taxes on malt and horses, both nags
+and farm animals. A man renting a farm at L70 and keeping two
+farm-horses, a nag, and a dog, would pay taxes for them of L5 0s. 6d.,
+a fourteenth of his rent.[542] Indeed, poor rates of 16s. and 20s. in
+the L were known,[543] and they were occasionally more than the whole
+rent received by the landlord forty years before. A Devonshire
+landowner complained that seven-sixteenths out of the annual value of
+every estate in the county was taken from owners and occupiers in
+direct taxes.[544] And the Committee on Agricultural Depression of
+1822 asserted that during the war taxes and rates were quadrupled.[545]
+Blacksmiths, whitesmiths, collar makers, ropers, carpenters, and many
+other tradesmen with whom the farmer dealt, raised their prices
+threefold; and it was openly asserted that the high prices of grain
+and stock were not proportionate to the increase of other prices. Much
+of the grass land broken up in the earlier years of the war was before
+the close in a miserable condition, for it was cropped year after year
+without manure, and was worn out. On the whole it may be doubted if
+the bulk of the farmers of England made large profits during the war;
+many no doubt profited by the extraordinary fluctuations in prices,
+and it was those men who 'kept liveried servants'; but there must have
+been many who lost heavily by the same means, and the rise of rent,
+taxes, rates, labour, and tradesmen's prices largely discounted the
+prices of corn and stock. The landowners at this period have generally
+been described as flourishing at the expense of the community, but
+their increased rents were greatly neutralized by the weight of
+taxation and the general rise in prices. A contemporary writer says
+that owing to the heavy taxes, even in the war time, he 'often had not
+a shilling at the end of the year.'[546]
+
+The following accounts, drawn up in 1805,[547] do not show that
+farmers were making much money with wheat at 10s. a bushel:
+
+Account of the culture of an acre of wheat on good fallow land:
+
+       Dr.                       L  s. d.
+
+  Two years' rent                2  0  0
+  Hauling dung from fold           10  0
+  Four ploughings                2  0  0
+  Two harrowings                    4  0
+  Lime                           1 18  0
+  Seed, 2-1/2 bushels            1  5  0
+  Reaping                           5  0
+  Threshing                        10  0
+  Wages                             5  0
+  Tithes and taxes                 15  0
+                                --------
+                                L9 12  0
+                                ========
+
+             Cr.                 L  s. d.
+
+  20 bushels of wheat at 10s    10  0  0
+  The straw was set against
+  the value of the dung.
+  The tailend wheat was
+  Eaten by the family!
+                               ---------
+                               L10  0  0
+                               =========
+
+And on a farm on good land in the same county the following would be
+the annual balance sheet at the same date:
+
+                      Dr.                           L   s. d.
+
+  Rent                                             200  0  0
+  Tithes                                            40  0  0
+  Wages                                             58  0  0
+  Extra harvestmen                                   7  0  0
+  Tradesmen's bills                                 50  0  0
+  Taxes and rates                                   58  0  0
+  Malt, hops, and cider                             60  0  0
+  Lime                                              20  0  0
+  Hop poles                                         10  0  0
+  Expenses at fairs and markets                      8  0  0
+  Clothing, groceries, &c., for the family          45  0  0
+  Interest on L1,500 capital, at 5 per cent.        75  0  0
+  Sundries                                          15  0  0
+                                                  ----------
+                                                  L646  0  0
+                                                  ==========
+
+                  Cr.                               L   s. d.
+
+  360 bushels of wheat, @ 10 s.                    180  0  0
+  300 bushels of barley, @ 6s.                      90  0  0
+  100 bushels of peas, @ 6s.                        30  0  0
+  20 cwt. hops                                      60  0  0
+  Sale of oxen, cows and calves                    150  0  0
+  Profits from sheep                               100  0  0
+     "    from pigs, poultry, dairy, and sundries   50  0  0
+                                                  ----------
+                                                  L660  0  0
+                                                  ==========
+
+According to this the farmer did little more than pay rent, interest
+on capital, and get a living. Yet prices of what he had to sell had
+gone up greatly: wheat in Herefordshire in 1760 was 3s. a bushel, in
+1805, 10s.; butcher's meat in 1760 was 1-1/2d. a lb., in 1804, 7d.;
+fresh butter 4-1/2d. in 1760, 1s. 3d. in 1804; a fat goose in Hereford
+market in 1740, 10d.; 1760, 1s.; 1804, 4s.; a couple of fowls in 1740,
+6d.; 1760, 7d.; 1804, 2s. 4d.[548] The winter of 1813-4 was
+extraordinarily severe, and the wheat crop was seriously injured, but
+the increased breadth of cultivation, a large surplus, and great
+importations kept the price down. Many sheep, however, were killed by
+the hard winter, which also reduced the quality of the cattle, so that
+meat was higher in 1814 than at any previous period.[549] At
+Smithfield beef was 6s. to 7s. a stone, mutton 7s. to 8s. 6d. With the
+peace of 1814 the fictitious prosperity came to an end, a large amount
+of paper was withdrawn from circulation, which lowered the price of
+all commodities, and a large number of country banks failed. The first
+sufferers were the agricultural classes, who happened at that time to
+hold larger supplies than usual, the value of which fell at once; the
+incomes of all were diminished, and the capital of many
+annihilated.[550] At the same time the demand for our manufactures
+from abroad fell off; the towns were impoverished, and bought less
+from the farmer.
+
+The short period of war in 1815 had little effect on prices, and in
+January, 1816, wheat was 52s. 6d., and the prices of live stock had
+fallen considerably. In 1815 protection reached its highest limit, the
+Act of that year prohibiting import of wheat when the price was under
+80s. a quarter, and other grain in proportion.[551] However, it was of
+no avail; and in the beginning of 1816 the complaints of agricultural
+distress were so loud and deep that the Board of Agriculture issued
+circular letters to every part of the kingdom, asking for information
+on the state of agriculture.
+
+According to the answers given, rent had already fallen on an average
+25 per cent. and agriculture was in a 'deplorable state.'[552]
+Bankruptcies, seizures, executions, imprisonments, were rife, many
+farmers had become parish paupers. Rent was much in arrear, tithes and
+poor rates unpaid, improvements generally discontinued, live stock
+diminished; alarming gangs of poachers and other depredators ranged
+the country. The loss was greater on arable than on grass land, and
+'flock farms' had suffered less than others, though they had begun to
+feel it heavily.
+
+All classes connected with the land suffered severely; the landlords
+could not get many of their rents; the farmer's stock had depreciated
+40 per cent.[553]; many labourers, who during the war had been getting
+from 15s. to 16s. a week and 18s. in summer,[554] were walking the
+country searching for employment. Many tenants threw up their farms,
+and it was often noticed that landlords, 'knowing very little of
+agriculture and taken by surprise,' could not manage the farms thrown
+on their hands, and they went uncultivated. Some farmers paid up their
+rent to date, sold their stock, and went off without any notice;
+others, less scrupulous, drove off their stock and moved their
+household furniture in the night without settling.[555]
+
+Farmers and landowners were asked to state the remedies required. Some
+asked for more rent reduction and further prohibition of import, but
+the most general cry was for the lessening of taxation.
+
+A Herefordshire farmer[556] stated that in 1815 the taxes on a farm of
+300 acres in that county were:
+
+                                                     L    s.  d.
+
+  Property tax, landlord and tenant                  95  16  10
+  Great tithes                                       64  17   6
+  Lesser tithes                                      29  15   0
+  Land tax                                           14   0   0
+  Window lights                                      24   1   6
+  Poor rates, landlord                               10   0   0
+       "      tenant                                 40   0   0
+  Cart-horse duty, landlord, 3 horses                 2  11   0
+  Two saddle horses, landlord                         9   0   0
+  Gig                                                 6   6   0
+  Cart-horse duty,[557] tenant                        7   2   0
+  One saddle horse, tenant                            2  13   6
+  Landlord's malt duty on 60 bushels of barley       21   0   0
+  Tenant's duty for making 120 bushels of
+    barley into malt                                 42   0   0
+  New rate for building shire hall, paid by landlord  9   0   0
+          "           "           "         tenant    3   0   0
+  Surcharge                                           2   8   0
+                                                   ------------
+                                                   L383  11   4
+                                                   ============
+
+The parish of Kentchurch, in Herefordshire, paid in direct taxes a
+greater sum than the lands of the whole parish could be let for.
+
+Another very general complaint was of the collection of tithe in kind,
+a most awkward and offensive method, causing great expense and waste,
+which, however, had given way in many places to compounding.
+
+Such is the picture of agriculture after twenty years of high prices
+and protection.[558] One may naturally ask, if much money had been
+made by farmers during these years, where had it all gone to that they
+were reduced at the first breath of adversity to such straits? Some
+allowance must be made for the fact that these accounts come from
+those interested in the land, who were always ready to make the most
+of misfortune with a view to further protection, and the farmer is a
+notorious grumbler. It seems, however, that most landlords and tenants
+believed that the high prices would last for ever, and lived
+accordingly, and, as we have seen, many made no profit at all because
+of their increased burdens. As a matter of fact, both were grumbling
+because prices had come back to their natural level after an unnatural
+inflation.[559]
+
+Hemp at this date was still grown in Lincolnshire and Somerset, and
+Marshall tells us that in 1803 there was a considerable quantity of
+hemp grown in Shropshire.[560] In that county there was a small plot
+of ground, called 'the hemp-yard,' appendant to almost every
+farm-house and to many of the best sort of cottages. Whenever a
+cottager had 10 or 15 perches of land to his cottage, worth from 1s.
+6d. to 2s. 6d. a year, with the aid of his wife's industry it enabled
+him to pay his rent. A peck of hempseed, costing 2s., sowed about 10
+perches of land, and this produced from 24 to 36 lb. of tow when
+dressed and fit for spinning. A dozen pounds of tow made 10 ells of
+cloth, worth generally about 3s. an ell. Thus a good crop on 10
+perches of land brought in L4 10s. 0d., half of which was nett profit.
+The hemp was pulled a little before harvest, and immediately spread on
+grass land, where it lay for a month or six weeks. The more rain there
+was the sooner it was ready to take off the grass. When the rind
+peeled easily from the woody part, it was, on a dry day, taken into
+the house, and when harvest was over well dried in fine weather and
+dressed, being then fit for the tow dresser, who prepared it for
+spinning. After the crop of hemp the land was sown with turnips, a
+valuable resource for the winter.
+
+Since 1815 little hemp or flax has been grown in England[561]; in 1907
+there were, according to the Agricultural Returns, 355 acres of flax
+grown in England, and hemp was not mentioned.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[504] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, p. 1, and 1898, p. 1.
+
+[505] _Autobiography_, p. 242.
+
+[506] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 18.
+
+[507] 'Had his industry been under the direction of a better
+judgement, he would have been an admirable president.'--Young,
+_Autobiography_, p. 316.
+
+[508] _The Report of the Committee on Waste Lands_, 1795, estimated
+wastes and commons at 7,800,000 acres, p. 221.
+
+[509] The Merino was largely imported into England by the efforts of
+George III, and a Merino Society was formed in 1811; but many
+circumstances made it of such little profit to cultivate it in
+preference to native breeds, that it was diverted to
+Australia.--Burnley, _History of Wool_, p. 17.
+
+[510] The first, the Bath and West of England, was established in
+1777.
+
+[511] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1899, p. 7.
+
+[512] Higher prices had been realized for the improved Longhorns; in
+1791, at the sale of Mr. Fowler of Little Rollright, Sultan a
+two-year-old bull fetched 210 guineas, and a cow 260 guineas; and at
+Mr. Paget's sale in 1793, a bull of the same breed sold for 400
+guineas.--_Culley on Live Stock_, p. 59.
+
+[513] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1899, p. 28.
+
+[514] _Culley on Live Stock_ (1807), pp. 46-7.
+
+[515] _Culley on Live Stock_, p. vi.
+
+[516] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1892, p. 27.
+
+[517] Morton, _Cyclopaedia of Agriculture_, ii. 964.
+
+[518] _Northern Tour_, iii. 49. Clarke also experimented on the effect
+of electricity on vegetables, electrifying turnips in boxes with the
+result that growth was quickened and weight increased.
+
+[519] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1896, p, 93.
+
+[520] Tooke, _History of Prices_, p. 182.
+
+[521] _Autobiography of A. Young_, p. 256.
+
+[522] _State of the Poor_, i. 565 et seq.; Thorold Rogers, _Work and
+Wages_, p. 487. It is difficult to calculate the exact income of the
+labourer; besides extras in harvest, and relief from the parish, he
+might have a small holding, or common rights, also payments in kind
+and the earnings of his wife and children.
+
+[523] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 181; Eden, _op. cit._ li. 27.
+
+[524] Imports of wheat and flour in 1796 were 879,200 quarters.
+
+[525] Yet imports were comparatively large; 1,264,520 quarters of
+wheat, against 463,185 quarters in 1799.
+
+[526] Tooke, _History of Prices_, p. 219.
+
+[527] _Farmer's Magazine_, 1817, p. 60.
+
+[528] Thorold Rogers, _Work and Wages_, c. 18.
+
+[529] _Annals of Agriculture_, xxxvii. 265. In 1805, in Herefordshire,
+the labourer was getting about 6s. 6d. a week--See Duncumb, _General
+View of Agriculture of Herefordshire_. Those who lived in the
+farm-house often fared best: in 1808 the diet of a Hampshire farm
+servant was, for breakfast, bacon, bread, and skim milk; for lunch,
+bread and cheese and small beer; for dinner, between 3 p.m. and 4
+p.m., pickled pork or bacon with potatoes, cabbages, turnips, or
+greens, and broths of wheat-flour and garden stuff. Supper consisted
+of bread and cheese and a pint of ale. His bread was usually made of
+wheat, which, considering the price, is remarkable. On Sundays he had
+fresh meat. The farmers lived in many cases little better; a statement
+which must be compared with others ascribing great extravagance to
+them.--Vancouver, _General View of the Agriculture of Hants_ (1808),
+p. 383.
+
+[530] Tooke, _History of Prices_, i. 236.
+
+[531] Thorold Rogers, _Work and Wages_, c. 18. In many cases he was
+getting 15s. and 16s. a week all the year round. The Parliamentary
+Committee of 1822 put his wages during the war at from 15s. to 16s. a
+week. _Parliamentary Reports Committees_, v. 72; but it is difficult
+to say how much he received as wages, and how much as parish relief.
+Recruiting for the war helped to raise wages, as did the increased
+growth of corn.
+
+[532] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1847), p. 438. See Appendix,
+ii.
+
+[533] Tooke, i. 319, and _Pamphleteer_, vi. 200 (A. Young). Since
+1770, says the latter, labour by 1810-11 had doubled, but meat had
+risen 146 per cent., cheese 153 per cent., bread 100 per cent. Wages
+therefore had not risen in proportion to prices.
+
+[534] _Inquiry into Agricultural Distress_ (1822), p. 38.
+
+[535] _Thoughts on Present Depressed State of Agricultural Industry_
+(1817), p. 6.
+
+[536] Vancouver, _General View of the Agriculture of Devon_, p. 357.
+
+[537] See 14 Eliz., c. 11, and 39 Eliz., c. 18.
+
+[538] _Transactions of the Devon Association_, xxix. 291-349.
+
+[539] Average annual prices of wheat were: 1812, 126s. 6d.; 1813,
+109s. 9d.; 1814, 74s. 4d.; 1815, 65s. 7d.
+
+[540] Porter, _Progress of the Nation_, p. 149.
+
+[541] _A Defence of the Farmers and Landowners of Great Britain_
+(1814), p. 49.
+
+[542] Ibid. p. x.
+
+[543] Ibid. p. 7.
+
+[544] _Agricultural State of the Kingdom_, p. 67.
+
+[545] _Parliamentary Reports (Committees)_, v. 72.
+
+[546] _Thoughts on the Present Depressed State of the Agricultural
+Interest_ (1817), p. 4.
+
+[547] Duncumb, _General View of the Agriculture of Hereford_, 1805.
+The writer of _A Defence of the Farmers and Landowners of Great
+Britain_ (1814) puts the average crop of wheat in the United Kingdom
+at 15 or 16 bushels an acre, p. 28. A very low estimate.
+
+[548] Duncumb, _General View of the Agriculture of Hereford_, p. 140.
+
+[549] Tooke, _History of Prices_, ii. 4.
+
+[550] _Farmer's Magazine_ (1817), p. 69.
+
+[551] The duties were often evaded by smuggling; coasting vessels met
+the foreign corn ships at sea, received their cargoes, and landed them
+so as to escape the duty.
+
+[552] _Agricultural State of the Kingdom_, p. 5.
+
+[553] _Observations for the Use of Landed Gentlemen_ (1817), p. 7.
+
+[554] _Defence of the Farmers, &c._ (1814); and _Parliamentary
+Reports_, v. 72.
+
+[555] _Agricultural State of the Kingdom_, p. 64.
+
+[556] Ibid. p. 105.
+
+[557] The agricultural horse tax was repealed in 1821, the tax on
+ponies and mules in 1823.
+
+[558] There were some exceptions, but the overwhelming majority of
+replies to the letters were couched in the above spirit.
+
+[559] At a time when landlords formed the majority in Parliament, it
+is curious to find a substantial farmer asserting that 'the landed
+interest has been, since the corn law of 1773, held in a state of
+complete vassalage to the commercial and manufacturing, and the
+farmers of the country in a state very little superior to that of
+Polish peasants.'
+
+[560] _Review of Western Department_, pp. 249, 250.
+
+[561] Morton, _Cyclopaedia of Agriculture_, ii. 26.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ENCLOSURE--THE SMALL OWNER
+
+
+The war period was one of great activity in enclosure; from 1798 to
+1810 there were 956 Bills; from 1811-20, 771.[562]
+
+It must be remembered, however, that the number of Acts is not a
+conclusive test of the amount of enclosure, as there was a large
+amount that was non-parliamentary: by the principal landlord, and by
+freeholders who agreed to amicable changes and transfer, as at
+Pickering, in Yorkshire.[563] Roughly speaking, about one-third of the
+Acts were for enclosing commonable waste, the rest for enclosing open
+and commonable fields and lands.[564] Owing to the expense an Act was
+only obtained in the last resource. It was also because of the
+expense[565] that many landlords desirous to enclose were unable to do
+so, and therefore devoted their attention to the improvement of the
+common fields. That agriculture benefited by enclosure there is no
+possible doubt, but it was attended with great hardships. The
+landowner generally gained, for his rents increased largely. In
+twenty-three parishes of Lincolnshire, for instance, his rents doubled
+on enclosure. But the expenses were so heavy that his gain was often
+very small, and sometimes he was a loser by the process. As for the
+farmers, the poorer ones suffered, for more capital was needed for
+enclosed lands, and the process generally was so slow, taking from
+two to six years before the final award was given, that many farmers
+were thrown out in the management of their farms, for they did not
+know where their future lands would be allotted. That the poor
+suffered greatly is indubitable: 'By nineteen Enclosure Acts out of
+twenty the poor are injured, in some cases grossly injured,' wrote
+Young in 1801.[566] In the Acts it was endeavoured to treat them
+fairly,[567] and allotments were made to them, or money paid on
+enclosure in lieu of their rights of common, or small plots of land;
+but the expense of enclosing small allotments was proportionately very
+great, generally too great, and they had to be sold, while the sums of
+money were often spent in the alehouse. The results of sixty-eight
+Acts were investigated in the eastern counties, with the result that
+in all but fifteen the poor were injured. It was generally found that
+they had lost their cows.
+
+Its effect on the smallholder is well described by Davis in his
+_Report on Wilts_.[568] There, before enclosure, the tenants usually
+occupied yard-lands consisting of a homestead, 2 acres of meadow, 18
+acres of arable, generally in eighteen or twenty strips, with a right
+on the common meadows, common fields and downs for 40 sheep, and as
+many cattle as the tenant could winter with the fodder he grew. The 40
+sheep were kept by a common shepherd with the common herd, were taken
+every day to the downs and brought back every night to be folded on
+the arable fields, the rule being to fold 1,000 sheep on a 'tenantry'
+acre (three-quarters of a statute acre) every night.[569] In breeding
+sheep regard was had to 'folding quality,' i.e. the propensity to
+drop manure only after being folded at night, as much as to quality
+and quantity of wool and meat. On enclosure the common flock was
+broken up. The small farmer had no longer any common to turn his
+horses on. The down on which he fed his sheep was largely curtailed,
+the common shepherd was abolished, and the farmer had too few sheep to
+enable him individually to employ a shepherd. Therefore he had to part
+with his flock. Having no cow common and very little pasture land he
+could not keep cows. In such circumstances the small farmer, after a
+few years, succumbed and became a labourer, or emigrated, or went to
+the towns.
+
+In a pamphlet called _The Case of Labourers in Husbandry_, 1795, the
+Rev. David Davies said, 'by enclosure an amazing number of people have
+been reduced from a comfortable state of partial independence to the
+precarious condition of mere hirelings, who when out of work
+immediately come on the parish.' It has often been said that the poor
+were robbed of their share in the land by the landowners; but as a
+matter of fact it was the expense of securing the compensation allowed
+them, much greater in proportion on small holdings than on large,
+which went into the pockets of surveyors and lawyers, that did this.
+It was also often through the farmer that the labourer was deprived of
+his land when he had retained an acre or two after enclosure. Wishing
+to make the labourer dependent on him, he persuaded the agent to let
+the cottages with the farm, and the agent in order to avoid collecting
+a number of small rents consented. As soon as the farmer had the
+cottages he took the land from them and added it to his own. The
+peasant's losses engaged the serious attention of many landlords; near
+Tewkesbury, in 1773, the lord of the manor on enclosure, besides
+reserving 25 acres for the use of the poor, allowed land to each
+cottage sufficient to keep a horse or a cow, often added a small
+building, and gave stocks for raising orchards. Even some of the
+idlest were thereby made industrious, poor rates sank to 4d. in the L,
+though the population increased, and the labourer always had for sale
+some poultry, or the produce of his cow, or some fruit.[570]
+
+In 1800 the Board of Agriculture, composed almost entirely of
+landowners, noticing that the poor of Rutland and Lincolnshire, who
+had land for one or two cows and some potatoes, had not applied for
+poor relief, offered a gold medal for the most satisfactory account of
+the best means of supporting cows on poor land, in a method applicable
+to cottagers.[571] Young recommended that in the case of extensive
+wastes every cottage on enclosure should be secured sufficient land on
+which to keep a cow, the land to be inalienable from the cottage and
+the ownership vested in the parish.
+
+Lord Winchelsea[572] urged that a good garden should always go with a
+cottage, and set the example himself, one which has been generally
+followed in England by the greater landlords with much success. As may
+be imagined, these schemes or others similar to them were put into
+effect by the conscientious and energetic, but not by the apathetic
+and careless. Further, an Act was passed in the fifty-ninth year of
+George III, which enabled parishes to lease or buy 20 acres of land
+for the employment of their poor.
+
+In many cases, it must be allowed, the grazing of the commons was
+often worth very little. Let one man, it was said in 1795, put a cow
+on a common in spring for nothing, and let another pay a farmer 1s.
+6d. a week to keep a cow of equal value on enclosed land. When both
+are driven to market at Michaelmas the extra weight of the latter will
+more than repay the cost of the keep, while her flow of milk meanwhile
+has been much superior.
+
+The Committee on Waste Lands of 1795 attributed the great increase in
+the weight of cattle not only to the improved methods of breeding, but
+to their being fed on good enclosed lands instead of wastes and
+commons.[573] Even when commons were stinted they were in general
+overstocked, while disease was always being spread with enormous loss
+to the commoners. The larger holders, too, who had common rights,
+often crowded out the smaller.
+
+There were often, as we have seen, a large number of 'squatters' on
+commons who had seized and occupied land without any legal title. As a
+rule, if these people had been in possession twenty-one years their
+title was respected; if not, no regard was very justly paid to them on
+enclosure, and they were deprived of what they had seized.
+
+Eden wrote when enclosure was at its height; he was a competent and
+accurate observer, and this is his picture of the 'commoner':[574]
+'The advantages which cottagers and poor people derive from commons
+and wastes are rather apparent than real; instead of sticking
+regularly to labour they waste their time in picking up a few dry
+sticks or in grubbing on some bleak moor. Their starved pig or two,
+together with a few wandering goslings, besides involving them in
+perpetual altercations with their neighbours, are dearly paid for in
+care, time, and bought food. There are thousands and thousands of
+acres in the kingdom, now the sorry pastures of geese, hogs, asses,
+half-grown horses, and half-starved cattle, which want but to be
+enclosed to be as rich as any land now in tillage.'
+
+Enclosure worked an important social revolution. Before it the
+entirely landless labourer was rare: he nearly always had some holding
+in the common field or a right on the common pasture. With enclosure
+his holding or right had generally disappeared, and he deteriorated
+socially. It was very unfortunate, too, that when enclosure was most
+active domestic industries, such as weaving, decayed, and deprived the
+labourer and his family of a badly needed addition to his scanty
+income.
+
+In its physical and moral effects the system of domestic manufactures
+was immensely preferable to that of the crowded factory, while
+economically it enabled the tillers of the soil to exist on farms
+which could not support them by agriculture alone.
+
+This uprooting of a great part of the agricultural population from the
+soil by irresistible economic causes brought with it grave moral
+evils, and created divisions and antagonisms of interest from which we
+are suffering to-day.[575] If some such scheme as that of Arthur Young
+or Lord Winchelsea had been universally adopted, this blot on an
+inevitable movement might have been removed, and a healthy rural
+population planted on English soil. Another result followed, the
+labourer no longer boarded as a rule in his employer's house, where
+the farmer worked and lived with his men; the tie of mutual interest
+was loosened, and he worked for this or that master indifferently. One
+advantage, however, arose, in that, having to find a home of his own,
+he married early, but this was vitiated by his knowledge that the
+parish would support his children, on which knowledge he was induced
+to rely.
+
+On the other hand, the farmer often rose in the social scale. With
+the abandonment of the handicaps and restrictions of the common-field
+system the efficient came more speedily to the front. It was they who
+had amassed capital, and capital was now needed more than ever, so
+they added field to field, and consolidated holdings.
+
+The Act of 1845 did away with the necessity for private Enclosure
+Acts, still further reducing the expense; and since that date there
+have been 80,000 or 90,000 acres of common arable fields and meadows
+enclosed without parliamentary sanction, and 139,517 acres of the same
+have been enclosed with it,[576] besides many acres of commons and
+waste.
+
+In the _Report of the Committee of Enclosures_ of 1844,[577] there is
+a curious description of the way in which common fields were sometimes
+allotted. There were in some open fields, lands called 'panes',
+containing forty or sixty different lands, and on a certain day the
+best man of the parish appeared to take possession of any lot he
+thought fit. If his right was called in question there was a fight for
+it, and the survivor took the first lot, and so they went on through
+the parish. There was also the old 'lot meadow' in which the owners
+drew lots for choice of portions. On some of the grazing lands the
+right of grazing sheep belonged to a man called a 'flockmaster', who
+during certain months of the year had the exclusive right of turning
+his sheep on all the lands of the parish.
+
+Closely connected with the subject of enclosure is that of the partial
+disappearance of the small owner, both the yeoman who farmed his own
+little estate and the peasant proprietor. We have noticed above[578]
+Gregory King's statement as to the number of small freeholders in
+England in 1688, no less than 160,000, or with their families about
+one-seventh of the population of the country. This date, that of the
+Revolution, marks an epoch in their history, for from that time they
+began to diminish in proportion to the population. Their number in
+1688 is a sufficient answer to the exaggerated statement of
+contemporaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as to the
+depopulation caused by enclosures. Chamberlayne, in his _State of
+Great Britain_, published at about the same time as Gregory King's
+figures, says there were more freeholders in England than in any
+country of like extent in Europe: 'L40 or L50 a year is very ordinary,
+L100 or L200 in some counties is not rare, sometimes in Kent and in
+the Weald of Sussex L500 or L600 per annum, and L3,000 or L4,000 of
+stock.' In the first quarter of the eighteenth century he was a
+prominent figure. Defoe[579] describes the number and prosperity of
+the Greycoats of Kent (as they were called from their homespun
+garments), 'whose interest is so considerable that whoever they vote
+for is always sure to carry it.'
+
+Why has this sturdy class so dwindled in numbers, and left England
+infinitely the weaker for their decrease? The causes are several;
+social, economic, and political. The chief, perhaps, is the peculiar
+form of Government which came in with the Revolution. The landed
+gentry by that event became supreme, the national and local
+administration was entirely in their hands, and land being the
+foundation of social and political influence was eagerly sought by
+them where it was not already in their hands.[580] At the same time
+the successful business men, whose numbers now increased rapidly from
+the development of trade, bought land to 'make themselves gentlemen'.
+Both these classes bought out the yeomen, who do not seem to have been
+very loath to part with their land. The recently devised system of
+strict family settlements enabled the old and the new gentlemen to
+keep this land in their families. The complicated title to land made
+its transfer difficult and costly, so that there was little breaking
+up of estates to correspond with the constant buying up of small
+owners. To the smaller freeholder, as has been noticed, the enclosure
+of waste land did much harm, for it was necessary to his holding.
+Again, smaller arable farms did not pay as well as large ones, so they
+tended to disappear. The decay of home industries was also a heavy
+blow to the smaller yeoman and the peasant proprietor.
+
+Under this combination of circumstances many of the yeomen left the
+land. Yet though Young, less than a century after King and Davenant,
+said that the small freeholder had practically disappeared, there were
+at the end of the eighteenth century many left all over England, who
+however largely disappeared during the war and in the bad times after
+the war.[581] But a contrary tendency was at work which helped to
+replenish the class. The desire of the Englishman for land is not
+confined to the wealthy classes. At the end of the eighteenth century
+men who had made small fortunes in trade were buying small properties
+and taking the place of the yeomen.[582] In the great French War of
+1793-1815, many yeomen, attracted by the high prices of land, sold
+their properties, but at the same time many farmers, attracted by the
+high prices of produce, which had often enriched them, bought
+land.[583] During the 'good times' of 1853-75 many small holders, like
+those of Axholme, noticed in the _Report_ of the Agricultural
+Commission of 1893, bought land.
+
+A new class of small owners also has sprung up, who, dwelling in or
+near towns and railway stations, have bought small freeholds. The
+return of the owners of land of 1872-6 gave the following numbers of
+those owning land in England and Wales[584]:
+
+  Total number of owners of:               Number.    Acreage.
+
+                 less than one acre        703,289    151,171
+                 1 acre and under 10       121,983    478,679
+                10       "        50        72,640  1,750,079
+                50       "       100        25,839  1,791,605
+               100       "       500        32,317  6,827,346
+
+The great majority of the first class here enumerated, those owning
+less than one acre, do not concern us, as they were evidently merely
+houses and gardens not of an agricultural character, but a large
+number of the second class and most of the other three must have been
+agricultural, though unfortunately no distinction is made. It will be
+seen, therefore, that there were a considerable number of small
+owners in England in 1872, and their numbers have probably increased
+since. Many of them, however, are of the new class mentioned above,
+and there appears to be no doubt that the number of the peasant
+proprietors and of the yeomen of the old sort has much diminished,
+especially in proportion to the growth of population.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[562] Cf. supra, p. 163.
+
+[563] R. Marshall, _Rural Economy of Yorkshire_, p. 17 et seq.
+
+[564] Slater, _English Peasantry and Enclosure_, p. 7.
+
+[565] It was stated in the _Report of the Committee on Enclosures_
+(1844), p. 31, that the ordinary expense of obtaining an Enclosure Act
+was from L1,000 to L1,500. In 1814 the enclosure of three farms,
+amounting to 570 acres, including subdivision fences and money paid to
+a tenant for relinquishing his agreement, cost the landlord nearly
+L4,000.--_Agricultural State of the Kingdom_ (1816), p. 116.
+
+[566] _Enquiry into the Propriety of Supplying Wastes to the better
+Support of the Poor_, p. 42.
+
+[567] The usual clause in Enclosure Acts stated that the land should
+be 'allotted according to the several and respective rights of _all_
+who had rights and interests' in the enclosed property, and expenses
+were to be borne 'in proportion to the respective shares of the people
+interested'.
+
+[568] pp. 8 et seq. Slater, _op. cit._ p. 113.
+
+[569] Cf. Marshall's account of the common-field townships in
+Hampshire at the end of the eighteenth century. Each occupier of land
+in the common fields contributed to the town flock a number of sheep
+in proportion to his holding, which were placed under a shepherd who
+fed them and folded them on all parts of the township. A similar
+practice was observed with the common herd of cows, which were placed
+under one cowherd who tended them by day and brought them back at
+night to be milked, distributing them among their respective owners,
+and in the morning they were collected by the sound of the
+horn.--_Rural Economy of Southern Counties_, ii. 351.
+
+[570] _Report of Committee on Waste Lands_ (1795), p. 204. Ground was
+frequently left by the Acts for the erection of cottages for the poor,
+and special allotments were made to Guardians for the use of the poor,
+in addition to the land allotted to all according to their respective
+claims. Can any one doubt that if there had been a systematic robbery
+of the smaller holders on enclosure they would not have risen 'en
+masse'?
+
+[571] Slater, _op. cit._ p. 133.
+
+[572] _Agricultural State of the Kingdom_ (1816), p. 8.
+
+[573] _Report_, p. 204.
+
+[574] _State of the Poor_, pp. i, xviii.
+
+[575] Lecky, _England in the Eighteenth Century_, vi. 191.
+
+[576] Slater, _op. cit._ p. 191.
+
+[577] _Report_, p. 27.
+
+[578] _See_ above. Another estimate puts them at 180,000.
+
+[579] _Tour_, i. (2), 37, 38.
+
+[580] Toynbee, _Industrial Revolution_, p. 62.
+
+[581] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 71.
+
+[582] Marshall, _Review of Agriculture, Reports Western Department_,
+p. 18.
+
+[583] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 32.
+
+[584] _Parliamentary Accounts and Papers_, lxxx. 21. The number of
+those owning over 500 acres does not concern the small owner or the
+yeoman class, but they were: from 500 acres to 1,000, 4,799; from
+1,000 to 2,000, 2,719; from 2,000 to 5,000, 1,815; from 5,000 to
+10,000, 581; from 10,000 to 20,000, 223; from 20,000 to 50,000, 66;
+from 50,000 to 100,000, 3; over 100,000, 1. For the numbers of the
+'holdings' of various sizes in 1875 and 1907 see below, p. 334. The
+term 'holdings', however, includes freeholds and leaseholds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+1816-1837
+
+DEPRESSION
+
+
+The summer of 1816 was wretched; the distress, aggravated by the bad
+season, caused riots everywhere. At Bideford the mob interfered to
+prevent the export of a cargo of potatoes; at Bridport they broke
+into the bakers' shops. Incendiary fires broke out night after night
+in the eastern counties. At Swanage six people out of seven were
+paupers, and in one parish in Cambridgeshire every person but one was
+a pauper or a bankrupt.[585] Corn rose again: by June, 1817, it was 117s.,
+but fell to 77s. in September.
+
+In 1818 occurred a drought of four months, lasting from May till
+September, and great preparations were made to ward off the expected
+famine; immense quantities of wheat came from the Baltic, of maize
+from America, and beans and maize from Italy and Egypt, with hay from
+New York, as it was selling at L10 a ton. However, rain fell in
+September, brown fields suddenly became green, turnips sprang up
+where none had appeared, and even spring corn that had lain in the
+parched ground began to grow, so the fear of scarcity passed.
+
+In 1822 came a good season, which produced a great crop of wheat; in
+the lifetime of the existing generation old men declared that such a
+harvest had been known only once before; imports also came from
+Ireland to the amount of nearly a million quarters, so that the price
+at the end of the year was 38s., and the average price for the year
+was 44s. 7d. Beef went down to 2s. 5d. a stone and mutton to 2s. 2d.
+The cry of agricultural distress again rose loudly. Farmers were
+still, though some of the war taxes had been remitted, heavily taxed;
+for the taxes on malt, soap, salt, candles, leather, all pressed
+heavily.[586] The chief cause of the distress was the long-felt
+reaction after the war, but it was aggravated by the return to cash
+payments in 1819. Gold had fallen to its real value, and the fall in
+gold had been followed by a fall in the prices of every other
+article.[587] The produce of many thousand acres in England did not
+sell that year for as much money as was expended in growing it,
+without reckoning rent, taxes, and interest on capital.[588] Estates
+worth L3,000 a year, says the same writer, some years since, were now
+worth L1,000. Bacon had gone down from 6s. 6d. to 2s. 4d. a stone;
+Southdown ewes from 50s. to 15s., and lambs from 42s. to 5s.
+
+A Dorset farmer told the Parliamentary committee that since 1815 he
+knew of fifty farmers, farming 24,000 acres, who had failed
+entirely.[589]
+
+In the _Tyne Mercury_ of October 30, 1821, it was recorded that Mr.
+Thos. Cooper of Bow purchased 3 milch cows and 40 sheep for L18 16s.
+6d. which sum four years previously would only have bought their
+skins. Prime beef was sold in Salisbury market at 4d. retail, and good
+joints of mutton at 3-1/2d.[590] Everywhere the farmers were
+complaining bitterly, but 'hanging on like sailors to the masts or
+hull of a wreck'. In Sussex labourers were being employed to dig holes
+and fill them in again, proof enough of distress but also of great
+folly. Many thousands of acres were now a mass of thistles and weeds,
+once fair grass land ploughed up during the war for wheat, and
+abandoned at the fall of prices. There were no less than 475 petitions
+on agricultural distress presented to the House from 1820 to March 31,
+1822. In 1822, it was proposed that the Government should purchase
+wheat grown in England to the value of one million sterling and store
+it; also that when the average price of wheat was under 60s. the
+Government should advance money on such corn grown in the United
+Kingdom as should be deposited in certain warehouses, to an extent not
+exceeding two-thirds the value of the corn.[591] There were not
+wanting men, however, who put the other side of the question. In a
+tract called _The Refutation of the Arguments used on the Subject of
+the Agricultural Petition_, written in 1819, it was said that the
+increase in the farmer's expenditure was the cause of his discontent.
+'He now assumes the manners and demands the equipage of a gentleman,
+keeps a table like his landlord, anticipates seasons in their
+productions, is as choice in his wines, his horses, and his
+furniture.' Let him be more thrifty. 'Let him dismiss his steward, a
+character a few years back only known to the great landowner, and
+cease from degrading the British farmer into a synonym for
+prodigality.' Lord Liverpool, in the House of Lords, in a speech which
+roused great opposition among agriculturists, minimized the distress;
+distress there was, he admitted, but it was not confined to England,
+it was world-wide; neither was it produced by excessive taxation, for
+since 1815 taxation had been reduced 25 per cent., while though rents
+and prices had fallen they were much higher than before the war.
+Another writer said at the time, 'Individuals of all classes have of
+late been as it were inflated above their natural size: let this
+unnatural growth be reduced; let them resume their proper places and
+appearances, and the quantum of substantial enjoyment, real comfort
+and happiness, will not be found lessened.' It was also asserted that
+the taxes on malt, leather, soap, salt, and candles, were not very
+pressing.
+
+The persistent cries of distress produced a Bill giving still further
+protection to corn-growers, which was fortunately not carried into
+effect. There was no doubt, however, about the reality of the crisis
+through which the landed classes were passing. Many of the landowners
+were heavily in debt. Mortgages had been multiplied during the war,
+and while prices were high payment of interest was easy; but when
+prices fell and the tenant threw up his farm, the landlord could not
+throw over the mortgage, and the interest hung like a dead weight
+round his neck.[592]
+
+The price to which wheat fell at the end of 1822 was to be the lowest
+for some years; it soon recovered, and until 1834 the average annual
+prices ranged from 53s. to 68s. 6d., while in 1825 beef at Smithfield
+was 5s. and mutton 5s. 4d. a stone.
+
+In 1823 there was a marked improvement, and the king's speech
+congratulated the country on 'the gradual abatement of those
+difficulties under which agriculture has so long suffered.'[593] In
+1824 'agriculture was recovering from the depression under which it
+laboured.'[594] In 1825 it was said, 'there never was a period in the
+history of this country when all the great interests of the nation
+were in so thriving a condition.'[595] In that year over-speculation
+produced a panic and agricultural distress was again evident. In 1826
+Cobbett said, 'the present stock of the farms is not in one-half the
+cases the property of the farmer, it is borrowed stock.'[596] In 1828
+all the farmers in Kent were said to be insolvent.[597]
+
+At the meeting of Parliament in 1830 the king lamented the state of
+affairs, and ascribed it to unfavourable seasons and other causes
+beyond the reach of legislative remedy. Many had learnt that high
+protection was no protection for farmers, and it was stated more than
+once that the large foreign supply of grain, though only then about
+one-third of the home-grown, depressed our markets. At the same time,
+it must be admitted that agriculture, like all other industries, was
+suffering from the crisis of 1825. In 1830, the country was filled
+with unrest, in which the farm labourer shared. His motives, however,
+were hardly political. He had a rooted belief that machinery was
+injuring him, the threshing machine especially; and he avenged himself
+by burning the ricks of obnoxious farmers. Letters were sent to
+employers demanding higher wages and the disuse of machines, and
+notices signed 'Swing' were affixed to gates and buildings. Night
+after night incendiary fires broke out, and emboldened by impunity the
+rioters proceeded to pillage by day. In Hampshire they moved in bodies
+1,500 strong. A special Commission was appointed, and the disorders
+put down at last with a firm hand. In 1828 there had been a relaxation
+in the duties on corn, the object of the Act passed in that year being
+to secure the farmer a constant price of 8s. a bushel instead of 10s.
+as in 1815, and by a sliding scale to prevent the disastrous
+fluctuations in prices. The best proof of its failure is afforded by
+the appointment of another parliamentary committee in 1833 to inquire
+into the distressed state of agriculture. At this inquiry many
+witnesses asserted that the cultivation of inferior soils and heavy
+clays had diminished from one-fourth to one-fifth.[598] It was also
+asserted that farmers were paying rent out of capital.[599] Tooke,
+however, thought there was much exaggeration of the distress, which
+was proved by the way the farmers weathered the low prices of 1835,
+when wheat, after a succession of four remarkably good seasons,
+averaged 39s. 4d. for the year. In these abundant years, too, he
+asserts that the home supply was equal to the demand,[600] though the
+committee of 1833 had stated that this had ceased to be the
+case.[601] Another committee, the last for many years, sat in 1835 to
+consider the distress; but although prices were low the whole tenor of
+the evidence established the improvement of farming, the extension of
+cultivation, and the increase of produce, and it was noticed at this
+time that towns dependent on agriculture were uniformly
+prosperous.[602]
+
+On the whole, in spite of exaggeration from interested motives, the
+distress for the twenty years after the battle of Waterloo was real
+and deep; twenty years of depression succeeded the same period of
+false exaltation. The progress, too, during that time was real, and
+made, as was remarked, _because_ of adversity. From this time
+agriculture slowly revived.
+
+On one point both of the two last committees were agreed, that the
+condition of the labourer was improved, and they said he was better
+off than at any former period, for his wages remained the same, while
+prices of necessaries had fallen. That his wages went further is true,
+but they were still miserably low, and he was often housed worse than
+the animals on the farm. 'Wattle and dab' (or mud and straw) formed
+the walls of his cottage, the floors were often of mud, and all ages
+and both sexes frequently slept in one room. A block of ten cottages
+were put up in the parish of Holmer[603] at the commencement of the
+nineteenth century, which were said to have combined 'comfort,
+convenience, and economy;' they each contained one room 12 feet by 14
+feet and 6 feet high with a bedroom over, and cost L32 10s. each. They
+were evidently considered quite superior dwellings, far better than
+the ordinary run of labourer's cottages. Cobbett gives us a picture of
+some in Leicestershire in 1826; 'hovels made of mud and straw, bits of
+glass, or of old cast-off windows, without frames or hinges
+frequently, and merely stuck in the mud wall. Enter them and look at
+the bits of chairs or stools, the wretched boards tacked together to
+serve for a table, the floor of pebble, broken brick, or of the bare
+ground; look at the thing called a bed, and survey the rags on the
+backs of the wretched inhabitants.'[604] The chief exceptions to this
+state of affairs were the estates of many of the great landlords. On
+that of the Earl of Winchelsea in Rutland, the cottages he had built
+contained a kitchen, parlour, dairy, two bedrooms, and a cow-house,
+and several had small holdings attached of from 5 to 20 acres.[605]
+Not long before, wages in Hampshire and Wiltshire were 5s. and 6s. a
+week.[606]
+
+In 1822 it was stated that 'beef and mutton are things the taste of
+which was unknown to the mass of labourers. No one has lived more in
+cottages than I, and I declare solemnly I never remember once to have
+seen such a thing.'[607] A group of women labourers, whom Cobbett saw
+by the roadside in Hampshire, presented 'such an assemblage of rags as
+I never saw before even amongst the hoppers at Farnham.'[608]
+
+The labourer's wages may have gone a little further, but he had lost
+his by-industries, his bit of land and rights of common, and would
+have had a very different tale to tell from that of the framers of the
+reports above quoted.
+
+In spite of the complaints made that the improvements of the coaches
+and of the roads drew the countryman to the towns, many stirred hardly
+at all from their native parish, and their lives were now infinitely
+duller than in the Middle Ages. The great event of the year was the
+harvest home, which was usually a scene of great merry-making. In
+Devonshire, when a farmer's wheat was ripe he sent round notice to the
+neighbourhood, and men and women from all sides came to reap the crop.
+As early as eleven or twelve, so much ale and cider had been drunk
+that the shouts and ribald jokes of the company were heard to a
+considerable distance, attracting more helpers, who came from far and
+near, but none were allowed to come after 12 o'clock. Between 12 and 1
+came dinner, with copious libations of ale and cider, which lasted
+till 2, when reaping was resumed and went on without interruption
+except from the squabbles of the company till 5, when what were called
+'drinkings', or more food and drink, were taken into the field and
+consumed. After this the corn reaped was bound into sheaves till
+evening, when after the sport of throwing their reaping hooks at a
+sheaf which had been set up as a mark for a prize, all proceeded to
+supper and more ale and cider till the small hours.[609]
+
+No wages were paid at these harvestings, but the unlimited amount of
+eating and drinking was very expensive, and about this date the
+practice of using hired labour had largely superseded this old custom.
+
+The close of this period was marked by two Acts of great benefit to
+farmers: the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (4 & 5 Wm. IV, c. 76),
+which reduced the rates,[610] and marked 'the beginning of a period
+of slow recovery in the labourer's standard of life, moral and
+material, though at first it brought him not a little adversity'[611];
+and the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 (6 & 7 Wm. IV, c. 71), which
+substituted for the tithe paid in kind or the fluctuating commuted
+tithe, a tithe rent charge equivalent to the market value, on a
+septennial average, of the exact quantities of wheat, barley, and
+oats, which made up the legal tithes by the estimate in 1836. Thus was
+removed a perpetual source of dispute and antagonism between
+tithe-payer and tithe-owner. The system hitherto pursued, moreover,
+was wasteful. In exceptionally favourable circumstances the clergy did
+not receive more than two-thirds of the value of the tithe in kind.
+The delays were a frequent source of loss. In rainy weather, when the
+farmer desired to get his crops in quickly, he was obliged to shock
+his crops, give the tithe-owners notice to set out their tithes, and
+wait for their arrival; in the meantime the crop, perhaps, being badly
+damaged.[612]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[585] Walpole, _History of England_, i. 161.
+
+[586] _Inquiry into Agricultural Distress_ (1822), p. 40.
+
+[587] Walpole, _op. cit._ ii. 22.
+
+[588] _A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory_, 1822. The
+Committee on Agricultural Distress found that farmers were paying rent
+out of capital (_Parliamentary Reports. Committees_, v. 71), and that
+leases fixed on the basis of the high prices of the war meant ruin to
+the farmer if held to his engagement.
+
+[589] _Parliamentary Reports, Committees_, ix. 138.
+
+[590] Cobbett, _Rural Rides_ (ed. 1885), i. 3, 16.
+
+[591] _Report of the Committee on Agricultural Depression_ (1822), pp.
+3, 4.
+
+[592] Walpole, _History of England_, ii. 23.
+
+[593] _Hansard_, ix. 1544.
+
+[594] Ibid. x. 1, 2.
+
+[595] Ibid. xii. 1.
+
+[596] _Rural Rides_, ii. 199.
+
+[597] Walpole, _History of England_, ii. 526. The distress was
+aggravated by rot among sheep, which is said to have destroyed
+one-fourth of those in the kingdom. See _Parliamentary Reports,
+Commissioners_ (1836), viii (2), p. 198.
+
+[598] Tooke, _History of Prices_, ii. 227.
+
+[599] _Report_ of 1833, p. 6.
+
+[600] Tooke, _History of Prices_, ii, 238.
+
+[601] Imports fell considerably at this date; they were:
+
+     1832   1,254,351 quarters.
+     1833   1,166,457    "
+     1834     981,486    "
+     1835     750,808    "
+     1836     861,156    "
+     1837   1,109,492    "
+     1838   1,923,400    "
+
+There were also considerable exports:
+
+     1832     289,558 quarters.
+     1833      96,212    "
+     1834     159,482    "
+     1835     134,076    "
+     1836     256,978    "
+     1837     308,420    "
+     1838     158,621    "
+
+McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1847), p. 438.
+
+[602] Porter, _Progress of the Nation_, p. 151.
+
+[603] See Duncumb, _General View of Herefordshire_, (1805).
+
+[604] Rural Rides, ii. 348.
+
+[605] London, _Encyclopaedia of Agriculture_ (1831), p. 1156.
+
+[606] Cobbett, _Rural Rides_, i. 149. The average, however, now was
+about 9s.; see _Parliamentary Reports_, v. 72.
+
+[607] _A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory_ (1822), p.
+16.
+
+[608] _Rural Rides_, i. 18.
+
+[609] Moore, _History of Devonshire_, i. 430.
+
+[610] By this Act and the various amending Acts the law of settlement,
+so long a burden on the labourer, is now settled thus: a settlement
+may be acquired by birth, parentage, marriage, renting a tenement, by
+being bound apprentice and inhabiting, by estate, payment of taxes,
+and by residence.--Stephen, _Commentaries on the Laws of England_
+(1903), iii. 87.
+
+[611] Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 217.
+
+[612] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1901), p. 9.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+1837-1875
+
+REVIVAL OF AGRICULTURE.--THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.--CORN LAW
+REPEAL.--A TEMPORARY SET-BACK.--THE HALCYON DAYS
+
+
+The revival of agriculture roughly coincided with the accession of
+Queen Victoria.
+
+It was proved that Scotch farmers who had farmed highly had weathered
+the storm. Instead of repeatedly calling on Parliament to help them
+they had helped themselves, by spending large sums in draining and
+manuring the land; they had adopted the subsoil plough, and the
+drainage system of Smith of Deanston, used machinery to economize
+labour, and improved the breed of stock. This was an object-lesson
+for the English farmer, and he began to profit by it. It was high
+time that he did. In spite of the undoubted progress made, farming
+was still often terribly backward. Little or no machinery was used,
+implements were often bad, teams too large, drilling little
+practised, drainage utterly inefficient; in fact, while one farmer
+used all the improvements made, a hundred had little to do with them.
+But better times were at hand.
+
+About 1835 Elkington's system of drainage, which among the more
+advanced agriculturists, at any rate, had been used for half a
+century, was superseded by that of James Smith of Deanston, a system
+of thorough drainage and deep ploughing, which effected a complete
+revolution in the art of draining, and holds the field to-day.
+Hitherto the draining of land had been done by a few drains where they
+were thought necessary, which was often a failure. Smith initiated a
+complete system of parallel underground drains, near enough to each,
+other to catch all the superfluous water, running into a main drain
+which ran along the lowest part of the ground. His system has also
+been called 'furrow or frequent draining', as the drains were
+generally laid in the furrows from two to two-and-a-half feet deep at
+short intervals. Even then the tributary drains were at first filled
+in with stones 12 inches deep, as they had been for centuries, and
+sometimes with thorns, or even turves, as tiles were still expensive;
+and the main was made of stonework. However, the invention of machines
+for making tiles cheapened them, and the substitution of cylindrical
+pipes for horse-shoe tiles laid on flat soles still further lowered
+the cost and increased the efficiency.[613] In 1848, Peel introduced
+Government Drainage Loans, repayable by twenty-two instalments of 6
+1/2 per cent. This was consequently an era of extensive drainage works
+all over England, which sorely needed it; but even now the work was
+often badly done. In some cases it was the custom for the tenant to
+put in as many tiles as his landlord gave him, and they were often
+merely buried. At Stratfieldsaye, for instance, where the Iron Duke
+was a generous and capable landlord, the drains were sometimes a foot
+deep, while others were 6 feet deep and 60 feet apart,[614] although
+the soil required nothing of the kind.
+
+Vast sums were also spent on farm-buildings, still often old and
+rickety, with deficient and insanitary accommodation; in Devonshire
+the farmer was bound by his lease to repair 'old mud and wooden
+houses', at a cost of 10 per cent. on his rent, and there were many
+such all over England. Farm-buildings were often at the extreme end
+of the holding, the cattle were crowded together in draughty sheds,
+and the farmyard was generally a mass of filth and spoiling manure,
+spoiling because all the liquid was draining away from it into the
+pool where the live stock drank; a picture, alas, often true to-day.
+It was to bring the great mass of landlords and farmers into line with
+those who had made the most of what progress there had been, that the
+Royal Society was founded in 1838, in imitation of the Highland
+Society, but also owing to the realization of the great benefits
+conferred on farming during the last half-century by the exertions of
+Agricultural Societies, the Smithfield Club Shows having especially
+aided the breeding of live stock.
+
+Writing on the subject of the Society, Mr. Handley[615] spoke of the
+wretched modes of farming still to be seen in the country, especially
+in the case of arable land, though there had been a marked improvement
+in the breeding of stock. Prejudice, as ever, was rampant. Bone
+manure, though in the previous twenty years it had worked wonders, was
+in many parts unused. It was felt that what the English farmer needed
+was 'practice with science'. The first President of the Society was
+Earl Spencer, and it at once set vigorously to work, recommending
+prizes for essays on twenty-four subjects, some of which are in the
+first volume of the Society's Journal. Prizes were also offered for
+the best draining-plough, the best implement for crushing gorse, for a
+ploughing match to be held at the first country meeting of the Society
+fixed at Oxford in 1839, for the best cultivated farm in Oxfordshire
+and the adjacent counties, and for the invention of any new
+agricultural implement.
+
+In 1840 the Society was granted a charter under the title of the Royal
+Agricultural Society of England, and its career since then has been
+one of continued usefulness, and forms a prominent feature in the
+agricultural history of the times.
+
+In 1839[616] the first country meeting of the Society was held at
+Oxford, and its 247 entries of live stock and 54 of implements were
+described as constituting a show of unprecedented magnitude. According
+to _Bell's Weekly Messenger_ for July 22, 1839, the show for some time
+had been the all-absorbing topic of conversation not only among
+agriculturists, but among the community at large, and the first day
+20,000 people attended the show, many having come great distances by
+road. Everybody and every exhibit had to get to Oxford by road; some
+Shorthorn cattle, belonging to the famous Thomas Bates of
+Kirkleavington, took nearly three weeks on the road, coming from
+London to Aylesbury by canal. But such a journey was not unusual then,
+for cattle were often two or three weeks on the road to great fairs,
+and stood the journey best on hay; it was surprising how fresh and
+sound they finished.[617] The show ground covered 7 acres, and among
+the implements tested was a subsoil plough, Biddell's Scarifier, and a
+drill for depositing manure after turnips. There were only six classes
+for cattle--Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Cattle of any other breed,
+Dairy Cattle, and Oxen; one class for horses, and three for
+sheep--Leicesters, Southdown or other Short Wool, and Long Woolled;
+with one for pigs.[618] The Shorthorns, with the exception of the
+Kirkleavingtons, were bred in the neighbourhood, and many good judges
+said long afterwards that a finer lot had not been seen since. The
+Duchesses especially impressed all who saw them. The rest of the live
+stock was in no way remarkable.
+
+From this small beginning, then thought so much of, the show grew
+fast, and the Warwick meeting[619] of 1892, after several years of
+agricultural depression, illustrates the excellent work of the Society
+and the enormous progress made by English agriculture. The show ground
+covered 90 acres; horses were now divided into Thoroughbred Stallions,
+Hunters, Coach Horses, Hackneys, Ponies, Harness Horses and Ponies,
+Shires, Clydesdales, Suffolks, and Agricultural Horses. Cattle were
+classified as Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Sussex, Longhorns
+(described as few in number and of no particular quality, 'a breed
+which has now been many years on the wane', but has recently been
+revived),[620] Welsh, Red Polled, Jerseys, Guernseys, Kerry and
+Dexter-Kerry.
+
+The increased variety of sheep was also striking; Leicesters,
+Cotswolds, Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Shropshires, Southdowns, Hampshire
+Downs, Suffolks, Border Leicesters, Clun Forest, and Welsh Mountain.
+
+Pigs were divided into Large, Middle, and Small white Berkshires, any
+other black breed, and Tamworths.
+
+Altogether the total number of stock exhibited was 1,858, and the
+number of implements was 5,430.
+
+In 1840 appeared Liebig's _Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture
+and Physiology_, tracing the relations between the nutrition of plants
+and the composition of the soil, a book which was received with
+enthusiasm, and completely changed the attitude which agriculturists
+generally had maintained towards chemistry; one of contempt, founded
+on ignorance.
+
+But, as Mr. Prothero has said,[621] 'if the new agriculture was born
+in the laboratory of Glissen, it grew into strength at the
+experimental station of Rothamsted.' There, for more than half a
+century, Lawes and Gilbert conducted experiments, of vast benefit to
+agriculture, in the objects, method, and effect of manuring; the
+scientific bases for the rotation of crops, and the results of various
+foods on animals in the production of meat, milk, and manure.
+
+The use of artificial manures now spread rapidly; bones, used long
+before uncrushed, are said to have been first crushed in 1772, and
+their value was realized by Coke of Holkham, but for long they were
+crushed by hammer or horse mill, and their use was consequently
+limited. Then iron rollers worked by steam ground them cheaply and
+effectively, and their use soon spread, though it was not till about
+1840 that it can be said to have become general. Its effects were
+often described as wonderful. In Cheshire, cheese-making had
+exhausted the soil, and it was said that by boning and draining an
+additional cow could be kept for every 4 acres, and tenants readily
+paid 7 per cent. to their landlords for expenditure in bone manure.
+Its use had indeed raised many struggling farmers to comparative
+independence.[622] A very large quantity of the bones used came from
+South America.[623] Porter also noticed that 'since 1840 an extensive
+trade has been carried on in an article called Guano', the guana of
+Davy, 'from the islands of the Pacific and off the coast of Africa'.
+Nitrate of soda was just coming in, but was not much used till some
+years later. In 1840 Liebig suggested the treatment of bones with
+sulphuric acid, and in 1843 Lawes patented the process and set up his
+works at Deptford.[624]
+
+Italian rye grass, not to be confounded with the old English ray
+grass, had been introduced by Thomson of Banchory, in 1834, from
+Munich;[625] and though the swede was known at the end of the
+eighteenth century, in many parts it had only just become common. In
+Notts it was in 1844 described as having recently become 'the
+sheet-anchor of the farmer'.[626] In Cheshire a writer at the same
+date said, 'in the year 1814 there were not 5 acres of Swedish turnips
+grown in the parish where I reside; now there are from 60 to 80, and
+in many parts of the county the increase has been in a much greater
+ratio.'[627]
+
+About this time a remedy was found in the south for leaving the land
+idle during the nine months between harvesting the corn crop in
+August, and sowing the turnip crop in the following June, by sowing
+rye, which was eaten green by the sheep in May, a good preparation for
+the succeeding winter crop. Turnip cutters were at last being used,
+and corn and cake crushers soon followed.
+
+The seasons from 1838 to 1841 were bad, and must be characterized as
+a period of dearth, wheat keeping at a good price.[628] That of 1844-5
+was remarkable for the first general appearance of the potato disease,
+not only in these islands but on the continent of Europe.[629] In
+August, 1846, the worst apprehensions of the failure of the crop were
+more than realized, and the terrible results in Ireland are well
+known. In the early part of 1847 there was a fear of scarcity in corn,
+and the price of wheat rose to 102s. 5d. in spite of an importation of
+4,500,000 quarters, but this was largely owing to the absence of any
+reliable agricultural statistics, which were not furnished till 1866,
+and the price soon fell.[630]
+
+We have now reached the period of free trade, when the Corn Laws,
+which had protected agriculture more or less effectually for so long,
+were definitely abandoned. That they had failed to prevent great
+fluctuations in the price of corn is abundantly evident, it is also
+equally evident that they kept up the average price; in the ten years
+from 1837 to 1846, the average price of wheat was 58s. 7d. a quarter,
+in the seven years from 1848 to 1853, the average price was 48s.
+2d.[631]
+
+The average imports of wheat and flour for the same period were
+2,161,813 and 4,401,000 quarters respectively. But to obtain the real
+effect of free trade on prices, the prices for the period between 1815
+and 1846 must be compared with those between 1846 and the present day,
+when the fall is enormous.
+
+The Act of 1815, which Tooke said had failed to secure any one of the
+objects aimed at by its promoters, had received two important
+alterations. In 1828 (9 Geo. IV, c. 60) a duty of 36s. 8d. was imposed
+when the price was 50s., decreasing to 1s. when it was 73s.
+
+In 1843 (5 Vict. c. 14) a duty of 20s. was imposed when the price was
+50s., and the duty became 7s. when the price reached 65s.
+
+A contemporary writer denies that these duties benefited the farmer at
+all: 'if the present shifting scale of duty was intended to protect
+the farmer, keep the prices of corn steady, insure a supply to the
+consumer at a moderate price, and benefit the revenue, it has signally
+failed. During the continuation of the Corn Laws the farmers have
+suffered the greatest privations. The variations in price have been
+extreme, and when a supply of foreign corn has been required it has
+only reached the consumer at a high price, and benefited the revenue
+little.'[632] Rents of farms were often calculated not on the market
+price of wheat, but on the price thought to be fixed by the duties,
+which was occasionally much higher.[633]
+
+It was also said that but for the restrictions that had been imposed
+in the supposed interests of agriculture, the skill and enterprise of
+farmers would have been better directed than it had been. By means of
+these restrictions and the consequent enhancement of the cost of
+living, the cultivation of the land had been injuriously restricted,
+for the energies of farmers had been limited to producing certain
+descriptions of food, and they had neglected others which would have
+been far[634] more profitable. The landlord had profited by higher
+rents, but, according to Caird, a most competent observer, had
+generally speaking been induced by a reliance on protection to neglect
+his duty to his estates, so that buildings were poor, and drainage
+neglected. The labourer was little if any better off than eighty years
+before. It was a mystery even to farmers how they lived in many parts
+of the country; 'our common drink,' said one, 'is burnt crust tea, we
+never know what it is to get enough to eat.'[635] Against these
+disadvantages can only be put the fact that protection had kept up the
+price of corn, a calamity for the mass of the people.
+
+The amount of wheat imported into England before the era of Corn Law
+repeal was inconsiderable. Mr. Porter has shown[636] how very small a
+proportion of wheat used in this country was imported from 1801-44.
+From 1801 to 1810 the average annual import of wheat into the kingdom
+was 600,946 quarters, or a little over a peck annually per head, the
+average annual consumption per head being about eight bushels. Between
+1811 and 1820 the average importation was 458,578 quarters, or for the
+increased population a gallon-and-a-half per head, and the same share
+for each person was imported in the next decade 1821-30. From 1831-40
+the average imports arose to 607,638 quarters, or two-and-a-quarter
+gallons per head, and in 1841-4 an average import of 1,901,495
+quarters raised the average supply to four-and-a-half gallons per
+person, still a very small proportion of the amount consumed.
+
+In 1836 a small association had been formed in London for advocating
+the repeal of the Corn Laws, and in 1838 a similar association was
+formed in Manchester.[637] At one of its earliest meetings appeared
+Richard Cobden, under whose guidance the association became the
+Anti-Corn Law League, and at whose invitation John Bright joined the
+League. Under these two men the Anti-Corn Law League commenced its
+great agitation, its object being 'to convince the manufacturer that
+the Corn Laws were interfering with the growth of trade, to persuade
+the people that they were raising the price of food, to teach the
+agriculturist that they had not even the solitary merit of securing a
+fixed price for corn'. The country was deluged with pamphlets, backed
+up by constant public meetings; and these efforts, aided by
+unfavourable seasons, convinced many of the errors of protection. In
+1840 the League spent L5,700 in distributing 160,000 circulars and
+150,000 pamphlets, and in delivering 400 lectures to 800,000 people.
+Bakers were persuaded to bake taxed and untaxed shilling loaves, and,
+on the purchaser choosing the larger, to demand the tax from the
+landlord; in 1843 the League collected L50,000, next year L100,000,
+and in 1845 L250,000 in support of their agitation.
+
+Yet for some years they had little success in Parliament; even in 1842
+Peel only amended the laws; and it was not until 1846 that, convinced
+by the League's arguments, as he himself confessed, and stimulated by
+the famine in Ireland, he introduced the famous Act, 9 & 10 Vict. c.
+22.
+
+By this the maximum duty on imported wheat was at once to be reduced
+to 10s. a quarter when the price was under 48s., to 5s. on barley when
+the price was under 26s., and to 4s. on oats when the price was under
+18s., with lower duties as prices rose above these figures, but the
+most important part of the Act was that on February 1, 1849, these
+duties were to cease, and only a nominal duty of 1s. a quarter on
+foreign corn be retained, which was abolished in 1860.
+
+By 9 and 10 Vict. c. 23 the duties on live stock were also abolished
+entirely. Down to 1842 the importation of horned cattle, sheep, hogs,
+and other animals used as food was strictly prohibited,[638] but in
+that year the prohibition was withdrawn and they were allowed to enter
+the country on a payment of 20s. a head on oxen and bulls, 15s. on
+cows, 3s. on sheep, 5s. on hogs; which duties continued till 1846.
+
+It is interesting to find that so shrewd an observer as McCulloch did
+not expect any great increase in the imports of live animals from the
+reduction of the duties, but he anticipated a great increase in salted
+meat from abroad; cold storage being then undreamt of.
+
+The full effect of this momentous change was not to be felt for a
+generation, but the immediate effect was an agricultural panic
+apparently justified by falling prices. In 1850 wheat averaged 40s.
+3d. and in 1851 38s. 6d. On the other hand, stock farmers were doing
+well. But on the corn lands the prices of the protection era had to
+come down; many farms were thrown up, some arable turned into pasture;
+distress was widespread. Owing to the depressed state of agriculture
+in 1850, the _Times_ sent James Caird on a tour through England, and
+one of the most important conclusions arrived at in his account of his
+tour is, that owing to protection, the majority of landowners had
+neglected their land; but another cause of neglect was that the great
+body of English landlords knew nothing of the management of their
+estates, and committed it to agents who knew little more and merely
+received the rents. The important business of being a landowner is the
+only one for which no special training is provided. Many of the
+landlords, however, then, as now, were unable to improve their estates
+if they desired to do so, as they were hopelessly encumbered, and the
+expense of sale was almost prohibitive. The contrast between good and
+bad farmers was more marked in 1850 than to-day, the efforts of the
+Royal Agricultural Society to raise the general standard of farming
+had not yet borne much fruit. In many counties, side by side, were
+farmers who used every modern improvement, and those who still
+employed the methods of the eighteenth century: on one farm wheat
+producing 40 bushels an acre, threshed by steam at a cost of 3s. 6d.,
+on the next 20 bushels to the acre threshed by the flail at a cost of
+9s.[639]
+
+Drainage in the counties where it was needed had made considerable
+progress, the removal of useless hedgerows often crowded with timber,
+that kept the sun from the crops and whose roots absorbed much of the
+nourishment of the soil, was slowly extending, but farm-buildings
+almost everywhere were defective. 'The inconvenient ill-arranged
+hovels, the rickety wood and thatch barns and sheds devoid of every
+known improvement for economizing labour, food, and manure, which are
+to be met with in every county in England, are a reproach to the
+landlords in the eyes of all good farmers.'[640] The farm-buildings of
+Belgium, Holland, France, and the Rhenish Provinces were much
+superior. In parts of England indeed no progress seems to have been
+made for generations at this date. Thousands of acres of peat moss in
+Lancashire were unreclaimed, and many parts of the Fylde district were
+difficult even to traverse. Even in Warwickshire, in the heart of
+England, between Knowle and Tamworth, instead of signs of industry and
+improvement were narrow winding lanes leading to nothing, traversed by
+lean pigs and rough cattle, broad copse-like hedges, small and
+irregular fields of couch, amidst which straggled the stalks of some
+smothered cereal; these with gipsy encampments and the occasional
+sound of the poacher's gun from woods and thickets around were the
+characteristics of the district.[641]
+
+Leases were the exception throughout England, though more prevalent in
+the west.[642] The greater proportion of farms were held on yearly
+agreements terminable by six months' notice on either side, a system
+preferred by the landlord as enabling him to retain a greater hold
+over his land, and acquiesced in by the tenant because of easy rents.
+In spite of this insecurity of tenure and the absence of Agricultural
+Holdings Acts, the tenants invested their capital largely with no
+other security than the landlord's character, 'for in no country of
+the world does the character of any class of men stand so high for
+fair and generous dealing as that of the great body of the English
+landlords.'
+
+The custom of tenant-right was unknown except in certain counties,
+Surrey, Sussex, the Weald of Kent, Lincoln, North Notts, and in part
+of the West Riding of Yorkshire.[643] Where it existed, the
+agriculture was on the whole inferior to that of the districts where
+it did not, and it had frequently led to fraud in a greater or less
+degree. Many farmers were in the practice of 'working up to a
+quitting', or making a profit by the difference which their ingenuity
+and that of their valuer enabled them to demand at leaving as compared
+with what they paid on entry. The best farmers as well as the
+landlords were said to be disgusted with the system. The dislike for
+leases in the days immediately before the repeal of the Corn Laws was
+partly due to the uncertainty how long protection would last; but
+chiefly then, as afterwards, to the fact that if a man improved his
+farm under a lease he had nearly always to pay an increased rent on
+renewal, but if he held from year to year his improvement, if any, was
+so gradual and imperceptible that it was hardly noticed and the rent
+was not raised. It may also be attributable to the modern
+disinclination to be bound down to a particular spot for a long
+period. At all events, the general dislike of farmers for leases is a
+curious commentary on the assertions of those writers who said that
+leases were his chief necessity.
+
+The disparity of the labourer's wages in 1850 was most remarkable,
+ranging from 15s. a week in parts of Lancashire to 6s. in South Wilts,
+the average of the northern counties being 11s. 6d., and of the
+southern 8s. 5d. a difference due wholly to the influence of
+manufactures, which is still further proved by the fact that in
+Lancashire in 1770 wages were below the average for England. In fact
+since Young's time wages in the north had increased 66 per cent., in
+the south only 14 per cent. In Berkshire and Wiltshire there had been
+no increase in that period, and in Suffolk an actual decrease. It is
+not surprising to learn that in some southern counties wages were not
+sufficient for healthy sustenance, and the consequence was, that
+there, the average amount of poor relief per head of population was
+8s. 8-1/2d., but in the north 4s. 7-3/4d., and the percentage of
+paupers was twice as great in the former as in the latter. This was
+mainly due to two causes: (1) the ratepayers of parishes in the south
+were accustomed to divide among themselves the surplus labour, not
+according to their requirements but in proportion to the size of their
+farms, so that a farmer who was a good economist of labour was reduced
+by this system to the same level as his unskilful neighbours, and the
+labourer himself had no motive to do his best, as every one, good and
+bad, was employed at the same rate. (2) To the system of close and
+open parishes, by which large proprietors could drive the labourer
+from the parish where he worked to live in some distant village in
+case he should become chargeable to the rates, so that it was a common
+thing to see labourers walking three or four miles each day to their
+work and back, and in one county farmers provided donkeys for them.
+Between 1840 and 1850 the labourer had, however, already benefited by
+free trade, for the price of many articles he consumed fell 30%; on
+the other hand the rent of his cottage in eighty years had increased
+100%, and meat 70%, which however did not, unfortunately, affect him
+much. The great development of railway construction also helped him by
+absorbing much surplus labour, and the work of his wife and children
+was more freely exploited at this date to swell the family
+budget.[644]
+
+The great difference between the wages of the north and the south is
+a clear proof that the wages of the agricultural labourer are not
+dependent on the prices of agricultural produce, for those were the
+same in both regions. It was unmistakably due to the greater demand
+for labour in the north.
+
+The housing of the labourer was, especially in the south, often a
+black blot on English civilization. From many instances collected by
+an inquirer in 1844 the following may be taken. At Stourpaine in
+Dorset, one bedroom in a cottage contained three beds occupied by
+eleven people of all ages and both sexes, with no curtain or partition
+whatever. At Milton Abbas, on the average of the last census there
+were thirty-six persons in each house, and so crowded were they that
+cottagers with a desire for decency would combine and place all the
+males in one cottage, and all the females in another. But this was
+rare, and licentiousness and immorality of the worst kind were
+frequent.[645]
+
+As for the farmer, the stock raiser was doing better than the corn
+grower. The following table shows the rent of cultivated land per
+acre, the produce of wheat per acre in bushels, the price of
+provisions, wages of labour, and rent of cottages in England at the
+date of Young's tours, about 1770, and of Caird's in 1850[647]:
+
+             Rent of           Produce of
+          cultivated land        Wheat            Price per lb. of
+            per acre.          per acre.      Bread.   Meat.   Butter.
+
+  1770    13s.  4d.            23            1-1/2d.  3-1/4d.    6d.
+  1850    26s. 10d.            26-3/4[646]   1-1/4d.  5d.        1s.
+
+              Price of Wool   Cottage          Labourer's wages
+              per lb.         rents.             per week.
+
+  1770         5-1/2d.        34s. 8d.           7s. 3d.
+  1850           1s.          74s. 6d.           9s. 7d.
+
+Thus in eighty years the average rent of arable land rose 100%, the
+average wheat crop 14%, while the price of bread had decreased 16%.
+But meat had increased 70%, wool over 100%, butter 100%. The chief
+benefit to the farmer therefore lay in the increased value of live
+stock and its products, and it was found then, as in the present
+depression, that the holders of strong wheat land suffered most, which
+was further illustrated by the fact that the rent of the corn-growing
+counties of the east coast averaged 23s. 8d. per acre; that of the
+mixed corn and grass counties in the midlands and west, 31s. 5d.
+
+Writing in 1847, Porter said rents had doubled since 1790.[648] In
+Essex farms could be pointed out which were let in 1790 at less than
+10s. an acre, but during the war at from 45s. to 50s. In 1818 the rent
+went down to 35s., and in 1847 was 20s.
+
+In Berks. and Wilts. farms let at 14s. per acre in 1790, rose by 1810
+to 70s., or fivefold; sank in 1820 to 50s., and in 1847 to 30s. In
+Staffordshire farms on one estate let for 8s. an acre in 1790, rose
+during the war to 35s., and at the peace were lowered to 20s., at
+which price they remained. Owing to better farming light soils had
+been applied to uses for which heavy lands alone had formerly been
+considered fit, with a considerable increase of rent.
+
+On the Duke of Rutland's[649] Belvoir estate, of from 18,000 to 20,000
+acres of above average quality, rents were in--
+
+  1799           19s. 3-3/4d. an acre.
+  1812           25s. 8-3/4d.    "
+  1830           25s. 1-3/4d.    "
+  1850           36s. 8d.        "
+
+But the Dukes of Rutland were indulgent landlords and evidently took
+no undue advantage of the high prices during the war, a policy whose
+wisdom was fully justified afterwards.
+
+It was the opinion of most competent judges, even after the abolition
+of the Corn Laws, that English land would continue to rise in value.
+Porter stated that the United Kingdom could never be habitually
+dependent on the soil of other countries for the food of its people,
+there was not enough shipping to transport it if it could.[650]
+
+Caird prophesied that in the next eighty years the value of land in
+England would more than double. The wellnigh universal opinion was
+that as the land of England could not increase, and the population was
+constantly increasing, land must become dearer. Men failed to foresee
+the opening of millions of acres of virgin soil in other parts of the
+world, and the improvement of transport to such an extent that wheat
+has occasionally been carried as ballast. About twenty-five or thirty
+years after these prophecies their fallacy began to be cruelly
+exposed.[651]
+
+About 1853[652] matters began to mend, chiefly owing to the great
+expansion in trade that followed the great gold discoveries in America
+and Australia. Then, came the Crimean War, with the closing of the
+Baltic to the export of Russian corn, wheat in 1855 averaging 74s.
+8d., and in the next decade the American War crippled another
+competitor, the imports of wheat from the United States sinking from
+16,140,000 cwt in 1862, to 635,000 cwt. in 1866. From 1853 until 1875
+English agriculture prospered exceedingly, assisted largely by good
+seasons. Between 1854 and 1865 there were ten good harvests, and only
+two below the average. Prices of produce rose almost continuously, and
+the price and rent of land with them. The trade of the country was
+good, and the demand for the farmer's products steadily grew; the
+capital value of the land, live stock, and crops upon it, increased in
+this period by L445,000,000.[653]
+
+It appeared as if the abolition of the Corn Laws was not to have any
+great effect after all.
+
+Now at last the great body of farmers began to approach the standard
+set them long before by the more energetic and enterprising. Early
+maturity in finishing live stock for the market by scientific feeding
+probably added a fourth to their weight The produce of crops per acre
+grew, and drainage and improvements were carried out on all sides, the
+greatest improvement being made in the cultivation and management of
+strong lands, of which drainage was the foundation, and enabled the
+occupier to add swedes to his course of cropping.[654]
+
+It was in this period that Shorthorns, Herefords, and Devons attained
+a standard of excellence which has made them sought after by the whole
+world; and other breeds were perfected, the Sussex and Aberdeen Angus
+especially; while in sheep the improvement was perhaps even
+greater.[655] The improved Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Hampshire Downs,
+and Shropshires took their place as standard breeds at this period. In
+1866, after many years of expectation and disappointment,
+agriculturists were furnished with statistics which are trustworthy
+for practical purpose, but are somewhat vitiated by the fact that the
+live stock census was taken on March 5, which obviously omitted a
+large number of young stock; so that those for 1867, when the census
+was taken on June 25, are better for purposes of comparison with those
+of subsequent years, when the census has been taken on June 4 or 5.
+Between 1867 and 1878 the cattle in England and Wales had increased
+from 4,013,564 to 4,642,641, though sheep had diminished from
+22,025,498 to 21,369,810.[656] The total acreage under cultivation had
+increased from 25,451,526 acres to 27,164,326 acres in the same
+period.
+
+There was, however, one black shadow in this fair picture: in 1865
+England was invaded by the rinderpest, which spread with alarming
+rapidity, killing 2,000 cows in a month from its first appearance, and
+within six months infecting thirty-six counties.[657] The alarm was
+general, and town and country meetings were held in the various
+districts where the disease appeared to concert measures of defence.
+The Privy Council issued an order empowering Justices to appoint
+inspectors authorized to seize and slaughter any animal labouring
+under such diseases; but, in spite of this, the plague raged with
+redoubled fury throughout September. There was gross mismanagement in
+combating it, for the inspectors were often ignorant men, and no
+compensation was paid for slaughter, so that farmers often sold off
+most of their diseased stock before hoisting the black flag. The
+ravages of the disease in the London cow-houses was fearful, as might
+be expected, and they are said to have been left empty; by no means an
+unmixed evil, as the keeping of cow-houses in towns was a glaring
+defiance of the most obvious sanitary laws. In October a Commission
+was appointed to investigate the origin and nature of the disease, and
+the first return showed a total of 17,673 animals attacked. By March
+9, 1866, 117,664 animals had died from the plague, and 26,135 been
+killed in the attempt to stay it. By the end of August the disease had
+been brought within very narrow limits, and was eventually stamped out
+by the resolute slaughter of all infected animals. By November 24 the
+number of diseased animals that had died or been killed was
+209,332,[658] and the loss to the nation was reckoned at L3,000,000.
+The disease was brought by animals exported from Russia, who came from
+Revel, via the Baltic, to Hull. In 1872, cattle brought to the same
+port infected the cattle of the East Riding of Yorkshire, but this
+outbreak was checked before much damage had been done, and since 1877
+there has been no trace of this dreaded disease in the kingdom. The
+cattle plague, rinderpest, or steppe murrain, is said[659] to have
+first appeared in England in 1665, the year of the Great Plague, and
+reappeared in 1714, when it came from Holland, but did little damage,
+being chiefly confined to the neighbourhood of London. The next
+outbreak was in 1745, and lasted for twelve years, undoubtedly coming
+from Holland; it is said to have caused such destruction among the
+cattle, that much of the grass land in England was ploughed up and
+planted with corn, so that the exports of grain increased largely. In
+1769 it came again, but only affected a few localities, and
+disappeared in 1771, not to return till 1865.
+
+Foot and mouth disease was first observed in England in 1839,[660]
+and it was malignant in 1840-1, when cattle, sheep, and pigs were
+attacked as they were during the serious outbreak of 1871-2. In 1883
+no less than 219,289 cattle were attacked, besides 217,492 sheep, and
+24,332 pigs, when the disease was worse than it has ever been in
+England. Since then, though there have been occasional outbreaks, it
+has much abated. Another dread scourge of cattle, pleuro-pneumonia,
+was at its worst in 1872, a most calamitous year in this respect, when
+7,983 cattle were attacked. In 1890 the Board of Agriculture assumed
+powers with respect to it under the Diseases of Animals Act of that
+year, and their consequent action has been attended with great success
+in getting rid of the disease.
+
+At the end of this halcyon period farmers had to contend with a new
+difficulty, the demand for higher wages by their labourers at the
+instigation of Joseph Arch.[661] This famous agitator was born at
+Barford in Warwickshire in 1826, and as a boy worked for neighbouring
+farmers, educating himself in his spare time. The miserable state of
+the labourer which he saw all around him entered into his soul, meat
+was rarely seen on his table, even bacon was a luxury in many
+cottages. Tea was 6s. to 7s. a lb., sugar 8d., and other prices in
+proportion; the labourers stole turnips for food, and every other man
+was a poacher. Arch made himself master of everything he undertook,
+became famous as a hedger, mower, and ploughman, and being
+consequently employed all over the Midlands and South Wales, began to
+gauge the discontent of the labourer who was then voiceless, voteless,
+and hopeless. His wages by 1872 had increased to 12s. a week, but had
+not kept pace with the rise in prices. Bread was 7-1/2d. a loaf; the
+labourer had lost the benefit of his children's labour, for they had
+now all gone to school; his food was 'usually potatoes, dry bread,
+greens, herbs, "kettle broth" made by putting bread in the kettle,
+weak tea, bacon sometimes, fresh meat hardly ever.'[662] It is
+difficult to realize that at the end of the third quarter of the
+nineteenth century, when Gladstone said the prosperity of the country
+was advancing 'by leaps and bounds', that any class of the community
+_in full work_ could live under such wretched conditions. Arch came to
+the conclusion that labour could only improve its position when
+organized, and the Agricultural Labourers' Union was initiated in
+1872. Not that the idea of obtaining better conditions by combination
+was new to the rural labourer. It was attempted in 1832 in Dorset, but
+speedily crushed, and not till 1865 was a new union founded in
+Scotland, which was followed by a strike in Buckinghamshire in 1867,
+and the foundation of a union in Herefordshire in 1871.[663] It was
+determined to ask for 16s. a week and a 9-1/2 hours' working day,
+which the farmers refused to grant, and the men struck. The agitation
+spread all over England, and was often conducted unwisely and with a
+bitter spirit, but the labourer was embittered by generations of
+sordid misery. Very reluctantly the farmers gave way, and generally
+speaking wages went up during the agitation to 14s. or 15s. a week,
+though Arch himself admits that even during the height of it they were
+often only 11s. and 12s. With the bad times, about 1879, wages began
+to fall again, and men were leaving the Agricultural Union; by 1882
+Arch says many were again taking what the farmer chose to give. From
+1884 the Union steadily declined, and after a temporary revival about
+1890, practically collapsed in 1894. Other unions had been started,
+but were then going down hill, and in 1906 only two remained in a
+moribund condition. Their main object, to raise the labourer's wages,
+was largely counteracted by the acute depression in agriculture, and
+though there has since been considerable recovery, there are districts
+in England to-day where he only gets 11s. and 12s. a week.
+
+The Labourers' Union helped to deal a severe blow to the 'gang
+system', which had grown up at the beginning of the century (when the
+high corn prices led to the breaking up of land where there were no
+labourers, so that 'gangs' were collected to cultivate it[664]), by
+which overseers, often coarse bullies, employed and sweated gangs
+sometimes numbering 60 or 70 persons, including small children, and
+women, the latter frequently very bad specimens of their sex. These
+gangs went turnip-singling, bean-dropping, weeding &c., while
+pea-picking gangs ran to 400 or 500. Though some of these gangs were
+properly managed, the system was a bad one, and the Union and the
+Education Acts helped its disappearance.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[613] Cylindrical pipes came in about 1843, though they had been
+recommended in 1727 by Switzer.
+
+[614] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1st series), xxii. 260.
+
+[615] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1890, pp. 1 sq.
+
+[616] Ibid., 1894, pp. 205 sq.
+
+[617] McCombie, _Cattle and Cattle Breeders_, p. 33.
+
+[618] These classes, however, did not comprise all the then known
+breeds of live stock.
+
+[619] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1892, pp. 479 sq.
+
+[620] At the show at Birmingham In 1898 there were 22 entries of
+Longhorns; in 1899 a Longhorn Cattle Society was established, and the
+herd-book resuscitated. More than twenty herds of the breed are now
+well established.
+
+[621] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1901, p. 24.
+
+[622] Caird, _English Agriculture in 1850-1_, pp. 252 sq.
+
+[623] Porter, _Progress of the Nation_, p. 142.
+
+[624] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1901, p. 25.
+
+[625] Ibid. 1896, p. 96.
+
+[626] Ibid. (1st ser.), vi. 2.
+
+[627] Ibid. (1st ser.), v. 102.
+
+[628] 1838, 64s. 7d; 1839, 70s. 8d.; 1840, 66s. 4d.; 1841, 64s. 4d.
+
+[629] Tooke, _History of Prices_, iv. 19.
+
+[630] C. Wren Hoskyns, _Agricultural Statistics_, p. 5.
+
+[631] The abnormal prices during the Crimean War cannot fairly be
+taken into account. The home and foreign supplies of wheat and flour
+from 1839-46 were:--
+
+               Home Supplies.   Foreign Supplies.
+                   qrs.               qrs.
+
+     1839-40     4,022,000         1,762,482
+     1840-1      3,870,648         1,925,241
+     1841-2      3,626,173         2,985,422
+     1842-3      5,078,989         2,405,217
+     1843-4      5,213,454         1,606,912
+     1844-5      6,664,368           476,190
+     1845-6      5,699,969         2,732,134
+
+      (Tooke, _History of Prices_, iv. 414.)
+
+1844-5 was a very abundant crop, and the threatened repeal of the Corn
+Laws induced farmers to send all the corn possible to market.
+
+[632] Tooke, _History of Prices_, iv. 32.
+
+[633] Cobden's Speech, March 12, 1844.
+
+[634] Tooke, _History of Prices_, iv. 142.
+
+[635] From evidence collected by Mr. Austin in the southern counties.
+
+[636] _Progress of Nation_, pp. 137 sq. For the amount imported before
+that date, see Appendix 2.
+
+[637] Walpole, _History of England_, iv. 63 sq. Cobden apparently
+never contemplated such low prices for corn as have prevailed since
+1883. In his speech of March 12, 1844, he mentioned 50s. a quarter as
+a probable price under free trade, and he died before the full effect
+of foreign competition was felt by the English farmer.
+
+[638] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_, 1847, p. 274. See below, pp.
+325 sq.
+
+[639] Caird, _English Agriculture in 1850-1_, p. 498.
+
+[640] Ibid. p. 490.
+
+[641] _Victoria County History: Warwickshire_, ii. 277.
+
+[642] Caird, _op. cit._, p. 481.
+
+[643] Caird, _op. cit._ p. 507.
+
+[644] Hasbach, _op. cit._ pp. 220, 226.
+
+[645] Cobden's Speech, March 12, 1844.
+
+[646] Mr. Pusey, one of the best informed agriculturists of the day,
+estimated the produce of wheat per acre in 1840 at 26
+bushels.--_R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1890, p. 20.
+
+[647] Caird, _English Farming in 1850-1_, p. 474.
+
+[648] _Progress of the Nation_.
+
+[649] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. 29.
+
+[650] _Progress of the Nation_, pp. 137-9.
+
+[651] Yet as the growth of population overtakes the corn and meat
+supply, these prophets may in the end prove correct.
+
+[652] The Great Exhibition of 1851 was said to have widely diffused
+the use of improved implements.--_R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1856, p. 54.
+
+[653] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1890, p. 34.
+
+[654] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1856, p. 60.
+
+[655] Ibid. 1901, p. 30. See below, p. 343.
+
+[656] _Board of Agriculture Returns_, 1878, and _R.A.S.E. Journal_,
+1868, p. 239. Young estimated the number of cattle in England in 1770
+at 2,852,048, including 684,491 draught cattle.--_Eastern Tour_, iv.
+456.
+
+[657] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, (2nd ser.), ii. 230.
+
+[658] Ibid. iii. 430.
+
+[659] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (2nd ser.), ii. 270.
+
+[660] See _Autobiography of Joseph Arch_.
+
+[661] Ibid. ix. 274.
+
+[662] In many districts, however, his food was better than this.
+
+[663] Hasbach, _op. cit._, pp. 276-7.
+
+[664] Hasbach, _op. cit._, pp. 193, et seq. The Gangs Act (30 & 31
+Vict. c. 130) had already brought the system under control.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+1875-1908
+
+AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS AGAIN.--FOREIGN COMPETITION.--AGRICULTURAL
+HOLDINGS ACTS.--NEW IMPLEMENTS.--AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS.--THE
+SITUATION IN 1908
+
+
+About the year 1875 the good times came to an end. The full force of
+free trade was at last felt. The seasons assisted the decline, and
+there was now no compensation in the shape of higher prices. In the
+eight years between 1874 and 1882 there were only two good crops. A
+new and formidable competitor had entered the field; between 1860 and
+1880 the produce of wheat in the United States had trebled. Vast
+stretches of virgin soil were opened up with the most astonishing
+rapidity by railroads, and European immigrants poured in. The cost of
+transport fell greatly, and England was flooded with foreign corn and
+meat. English land which had to support the landlord, the tithe-owner,
+the land agent, the farmer, the labourer, and a large army of
+paupers,[665] had to compete with land where often one man was owner,
+farmer, and labourer, with no tithe and no poor rates. Yet prices held
+up fairly well until 1884, when there was a collapse from which they
+have not yet recovered. In 1877 wheat was 56s. 9d., in 1883 41s. 7d.,
+and in 1884 35s. 8d.; by 1894 the average price for the year was 22s.
+10d.[666]
+
+Farmers' capital was reduced from 30 to 50 per cent., and rents and
+the purchase value of land in a similar proportion. Poor clays only
+fit for wheat and beans went out of cultivation, though much has since
+been laid down to grass, and much has 'tumbled down'. In fact most of
+the increased value of the good period between 1853-75 disappeared.
+
+The year 1879 will long be remembered as 'the Black Year'. It was the
+worst of a succession of wet seasons in the midland, western and
+southern counties of England, the average rainfall being one-fourth
+above the average, and 1880 was little better. The land, saturated and
+chilled, produced coarser herbage, the finer grasses languished or
+were destroyed, fodder and grain were imperfectly matured. Mould and
+ergot were prevalent among plants, and flukes producing liver-rot
+among live stock, especially sheep. In 1879 in England and Wales
+3,000,000 sheep died or were sacrificed from rot,[667] by 1881
+5,000,000 had perished at an estimated loss of L10,000,000, and many,
+alas! were sent to market full of disease. Cattle also were infected,
+and hares, rabbits, and deer suffered. In some cases entire flocks of
+sheep disappeared. The disease was naturally worst on low-lying and
+ill-drained pastures, but occurred even on the drier uplands hitherto
+perfectly free from liver-rot, carried thither no doubt by the
+droppings of infected sheep, hares, and rabbits, and perhaps by the
+feet of men and animals. Apart from medicine, concentrated dry food
+given systematically, the regular use of common salt, and of course
+removal from low-lying and damp lands, were found the best
+preventives.
+
+Besides this great calamity, this year was distinguished by one of the
+worst harvests of the century, outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, of
+pleuro-pneumonia, and a disastrous attack of foot-rot. The misfortunes
+of the landed interest produced a Commission in 1879 under the Duke of
+Richmond, which conducted a most laborious and comprehensive inquiry.
+Their report, issued in 1882, stated that they were unanimously
+convinced of the great intensity and extent of the distress that had
+fallen upon the agricultural community. Owner and occupier had alike
+been involved. Yet, though agricultural distress had prevailed over
+the whole country, the degree had varied in different counties, and in
+some cases in different parts of the same counties. Cheshire, for
+instance, had not suffered to anything like the same extent as other
+counties, nor was the depression so severe in Cumberland,
+Westmoreland, Northumberland, and parts of Yorkshire. The rainfall had
+been less in the northern counties. In the midlands, the eastern, and
+most of the southern counties the distress was severe, in Essex the
+state of agriculture was deplorable, but Kent, Devon, and Cornwall
+were not hardly hit.[668]
+
+The chief causes of the depression were said to be these:--
+
+  1. The succession of unfavourable seasons, causing crops
+     deficient in quantity and quality, and losses of live stock.
+
+  2. Low prices, partly due to foreign imports and partly to
+     the inferior quality of the home production.
+
+  3. Increased cost of production.
+
+  4. Increased pressure of local taxation by the imposition
+     of new rates, viz. the education rate and the sanitary rate;
+     and the increase of old rates, especially the highway rate, in
+     consequence of the abolition of turnpikes. Some exceptionally
+     bad instances of this were given. In the parish of
+     Didmarton, Gloucestershire, the average amount of rates paid
+     for the five years ending March 31, 1858, was L26 6s. 3d.,
+     for the five years ending March 31, 1878, L118 11s. 7d. In
+     the Northleach Union the rates had increased thus in decennial
+     periods from 1850:--
+
+         1850-1     L5,471
+         1860-1      5,534
+         1870-1      8,525
+         1878-9     10,089
+
+     On one small property in Staffordshire the increase of rates,
+     other than poor rates, amounted to 3s. 6d. in the L on the
+     rateable value.
+
+  5. Excessive rates charged by railway companies for the
+     conveyance of produce, and preferential rates given to foreign
+     agricultural produce; the railway companies alleging, in defence
+     of this, that foreign produce was consigned in much greater
+     bulk, by few consignors, than home grown, and could be conveyed
+     much more economically than if picked up at different
+     stations in small quantities.
+
+As to the effect of restrictive covenants on the depression, the
+balance of evidence did not incline either way.[669]
+
+The Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875 was stated to have done much
+good in the matter of compensation to tenants for improvements,
+notwithstanding its merely permissive character, as it had reversed
+the presumption of law in relation to improvements effected by the
+tenant, prescribed the amount of compensation, and the mode in which
+it should be given.
+
+As to the important subject of freedom of cropping and sale of
+produce, there were diverse opinions, some advocating it wholly,
+others not believing in it at all, others saying each landlord and
+each tenant should make their own bargains since each farm stands on
+its own footing, others again favouring modified restrictions. The
+preponderance of opinion was in favour of a modification of the law of
+distress.
+
+The Commission further said that the pressure of foreign competition
+was greatly in excess of the anticipations of the supporters and of
+the apprehensions of the opponents of Corn Law Repeal; if it had not
+been for this, English farmers would have been partly compensated for
+the deficient yield by higher prices. On the other hand, the farmer
+had had the advantage of an increased and cheapened supply of feeding
+stuffs, such as maize, linseed and cotton cakes, and of artificial
+manures imported from abroad. At the same time the benefit to the
+community from cheap food was immense. It seemed just, however, that
+as agriculture was suffering from low prices, by which the country
+gained as a whole, that the proportion of taxation imposed on the land
+should be lessened; it was especially unjust that personal property
+was exempted from local rates, contrary to the Act of 43 Eliz. c. 2,
+and the whole burden thrown on real property. The difficulties of
+farmers were aggravated by the high price of labour, which had
+increased 25 per cent. in twenty years, largely owing to the
+competition of other industries, and at the same time become less
+efficient. As provisions were cheap, and employment abundant, the
+labourer had been scarcely affected by the distress. His cottage,
+however, especially if in the hands of a small owner, with neither the
+means nor the will to expend money on improvements, was often still
+very defective.
+
+Farmers were already complaining of the results of the new system of
+education, for which they had to pay, while it deprived them of the
+labour of boys, and drained from the land the sources of future labour
+by making the young discontented with farm work. The Commission denied
+that rents had been unduly raised previous to 1875[670]; and in the
+exceptional cases where they had been, it was due to the imprudent
+competition of tenant farmers encouraged by advances made by country
+bankers, the sudden withdrawal of which had greatly contributed to the
+present distress. Districts where dairying was carried on had suffered
+least, yet the yield of milk was much diminished, and the quality
+deteriorated, owing to the inferiority of grass from a continuance of
+wet seasons. The production and sale of milk was increasing largely,
+so that the attention of farmers and landlords was being drawn to this
+important branch of farming, milk-sellers necessarily suffering less
+from foreign competition than any other farmers.
+
+Let us turn once more to the hop yards: in 1878 the acreage of hops in
+England reached its maximum. We have seen that in the first half of
+the eighteenth century hop yards covered 12,000 acres; which between
+1750 and 1780 increased to 25,000, and by 1800 to 32,000. In 1878,
+71,789 acres were grown. The great increase prior to that year was due
+to the abolition of the excise duty in 1862, which on an average was
+equal to an annual charge of nearly L7 an acre.[671] This encouraged
+hop-growing more than the taking off of the import duty in the same
+year discouraged it. In 1882 there was a very small crop in England,
+which raised the average price to L18 10s. a cwt.; some choice samples
+fetching L30 a cwt.; growers who had good crops realizing much more
+than the freehold value of the hop yards. This, however, was most
+unfortunate for them, as it led to a great increase in the use of hop
+substitutes, such as quassia, chiretta, colombo, gentian, &c., which,
+with the decreasing consumption of beer and the demand for lighter
+beer, has done more than foreign competition to lower the price and
+thereby cause so large an area to be grubbed up as unprofitable, that
+in 1907 it was reduced to 44,938 acres. Yet the quality of the hops
+has in the last generation greatly improved in condition, quality, and
+appearance. Growers also have in the same period often incurred great
+expense in substituting various methods of wire-work for poles; and
+washing, generally with quassia chips and soft soap and water, has
+become wellnigh universal, so that the expense of growing the crop has
+increased, while the price has been falling.[672] The crop has always
+been an expensive one to grow; Marshall in 1798 put it at L20 an acre,
+exclusive of picking, drying, and marketing[673]; and Young estimated
+the total cost at the same date at L31 10s. an acre[674]; to-day L40
+an acre is by no means an outside price. It may be some encouragement
+to growers to remember that hops have always been subject to great
+fluctuations in price; between 1693 and 1700, for instance, they
+varied from 40s. to 240s. a cwt., so that they may yet see them at a
+remunerative figure. 'Upon the whole', says an eighteenth-century
+writer, 'though many have acquired large estates by hops, their real
+advantage is perhaps questionable. By engrossing the attention of the
+farmer they withdraw him from slower and more certain sources of
+wealth, and encourage him to rely too much upon chance for his rent,
+rather than the honest labour of the plough. To the landlord the
+cultivation of hops is an evil, defrauding the arable land of its
+proper quantity of manure and thereby impoverishing his estate.'
+
+It was by this time the general opinion of men with a thorough
+experience of farming, that in many parts of Great Britain no
+sufficient compensation was secured to the tenant for his unexhausted
+improvements. In some counties and districts this compensation was
+given by established customs, in others customs existed which were
+insufficient, in many they did not exist at all. It must be confessed
+that often when a tenant leaves his farm there is more compensation
+due to the landlord than to the tenant. Human nature being what it is,
+the temptation to get as much out of the land just before leaving it
+is wellnigh irresistible to many farmers.
+
+In these days, when the landlord is often called upon by the tenant to
+do what the tenant used to do himself, the question of compensation to
+the tenant must on many estates appear to the landlord extremely
+ironical. It is, in the greater number of cases, the landlord who
+should receive compensation, and not the tenant; and though he has
+power to demand it, such power is over and over again not put in
+force.
+
+At the same time there are bad men in the landlord class as in any
+other, and from them the tenant required protection. By the
+Agricultural Holdings (England) Act of 1875, 38 & 39 Vict. c. 92,
+improvements for which compensation could be claimed by the tenant
+were divided into three classes. First class improvements, such as
+drainage of land, erection or enlargement of buildings, laying down of
+permanent pasture, &c., required the previous consent in writing of
+the landlord to entitle the tenant to compensation. Second class
+improvements, such as boning of land with undissolved bones, chalking,
+claying, liming, and marling the land, the latter now hardly ever
+practised, required notice in writing by the tenant to the landlord of
+his intention, and if notice to quit had been given or received, the
+consent in writing of the landlord was necessary. For third class
+improvements, such as the application to the land of purchased manure,
+and consumption on the holding by cattle, sheep, or pigs, of cake or
+other feeding stuff not produced on the holding, no consent or notice
+was required. Improvements in the first class were deemed to be
+exhausted in twenty years, in the second in seven, and in the third in
+two. It was the opinion of the Richmond Commission of 1879 that,
+notwithstanding the beneficial effects of this Act, no sufficient
+compensation for his unexhausted improvements was secured to the
+tenant.
+
+The landlord and tenant also might agree in writing that the Act
+should not apply to their contract of tenancy, so in 1883 when the
+Agricultural Holdings Act of that year (46 & 47 Vict. c. 61)[675] was
+passed, it was made compulsory as far as regarded compensation, and
+the time limit as regards the tenant's claims for improvements was
+abolished, the basis for compensation for all improvements recognized
+by the Act being laid down as 'the value of the improvement to an
+incoming tenant'. Improvements for which compensation could be claimed
+were again divided into three classes as before, but the drainage of
+land was placed in the second class instead of the first, and so only
+required notice to the landlord. This was the only improvement in the
+second class; the other improvements which had been in the second
+class in the Act of 1875 were now placed in the third, where no
+consent or notice was required.
+
+The Act also effected three other important alterations in the law;
+first, as to 'Notices to Quit', a year's notice being necessary where
+half a year's notice had been sufficient, though this section might be
+excluded by agreement; secondly, after January 1, 1885, the landlord
+could only distrain for one year's rent instead of six years as
+formerly; and thirdly, as to fixtures. These formerly became the
+property of the landlord on the determination of the tenancy, but by
+14 & 15 Vict. c. 25 an agricultural tenant was enabled to remove
+fixtures put up by him with the consent of his landlord for
+agricultural purposes. Now all fixtures erected after the commencement
+of the Act were the property of and removable by the tenant, but the
+landlord might elect to purchase them.
+
+This Act was amended by the Act of 1900 (63 & 64 Vict. 50), and has
+been much altered by the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1906 (6 Edw.
+VII, c. 56), which has treated the landlord with a degree of severity,
+which considering the excellent relations that have for the most part
+existed between English landlords and tenants for generations, is
+utterly unwarranted. In several respects indeed he has been treated by
+the Act as if the land did not belong to him, while freedom of
+contract, until recent years one of the most cherished principles of
+our law, is arbitrarily interfered with. The chief alterations made by
+the Act of 1906 were:--
+
+1. _Improvements._--By the Act of 1883, in the valuation for
+improvements under the first schedule, such part of the improvement as
+is justly due to the inherent capabilities of the soil was not
+credited to the tenant This provision is repealed by the Act of 1906,
+in reference to which it must be said that the latent fertility of the
+soil, sometimes very considerable, may be developed by a small outlay
+on the part of the tenant for which outlay he is certainly entitled to
+compensation. But the greater part of the improvement may be due to
+the soil which belongs to the landlord, yet the Act credits the tenant
+with the whole of this improvement. An addition is made to the list of
+improvements which a tenant may make without his landlord's consent
+and for which he is entitled on quitting to compensation, viz. repairs
+to buildings, being buildings necessary for the proper working of the
+holding, other than repairs which the tenant is obliged to execute.
+
+2. _Damage by Game._ A tenant may now claim compensation for damage to
+crops by deer, pheasants, partridges, grouse, and black game.
+
+3. _Freedom of Cropping and Disposal of Produce._ Prior to this Act it
+had been the custom for generations to insert covenants in agreements
+providing for the proper cultivation of the farm; as, for instance,
+forbidding the removal from the holding of hay, straw, roots, green
+crops, and manure made on the farm. These and other covenants were
+merely in the interests of good farming, and to prevent the soil
+deteriorating. In recent times vexatious covenants formerly inserted
+had practically disappeared, and where still existing were seldom
+enforced. By this Act, notwithstanding any custom of the country or
+any contract or agreement, the tenant may follow any system of
+cropping, and dispose of any of his produce as he pleases, but after
+so doing he must make suitable and adequate provision to protect the
+farm from injury thereby: a proviso vague and difficult to enforce,
+and not sufficient to prevent an unscrupulous tenant greatly injuring
+his farm.
+
+4. _Compensation for unreasonable disturbance._ If a landlord without
+good cause, and for reasons inconsistent with good estate management,
+terminates a tenancy by notice to quit; or refuses to grant a renewal
+of the tenancy if so requested at least one year before the expiration
+thereof; or if a tenant quits his holding in consequence of a demand
+by the landlord for an increased rent, such demand being due to an
+increased value in the holding owing to improvements done by the
+tenant; in either of such events the tenant is entitled to
+compensation.
+
+This compensation for disturbance is in direct opposition to the
+recommendation of the Commission of 1894,[676] and seems to be an
+unwarrantable interference with the owner's management of his own
+land.
+
+Another benefit, and one long needed, was conferred on farmers by the
+Ground Game Act of 1880, 43 & 44 Vict., c. 47. Before the Act the
+tenant had by common law the exclusive right to the game, including
+hares and rabbits, unless it was reserved to the landlord, which was
+usually the case. By this Act the right to kill ground game, which
+often worked terrible havoc in the tenant's crops, was rendered
+inseparable from the occupation of the land, though the owner may
+reserve to himself a concurrent right. One consequence of this Act has
+been that the hare has disappeared from many parts of England.
+
+The greatest improvement in implements during this period was in the
+direction of reaping and mowing machines, which have now attained a
+high degree of perfection. As early as 1780 the Society of Arts
+offered a gold medal for a reaping machine, but it was not till 1812
+that John Common of Denwick, Northumberland, invented a machine which
+embodied all the essential principles of the modern reaper. Popular
+hostility to the machine was so great that Common made his early
+trials by moonlight, and he ceased from working on them.[677] His
+machine was improved by the Browns of Alnwick, who sold some numbers
+in 1822, and shortly afterwards emigrated to Canada taking with them
+models of Common's reapers. McCormick, the reputed inventor of the
+reaping machine, knew the Browns, and obtained from them a model of
+Common's machine which was almost certainly the father of the famous
+machine exhibited by him at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Various
+other inventors have assisted in improving this implement, and in 1873
+the first wire binder was exhibited in Europe by the American, W.A.
+Wood, wire soon giving place to string owing to the outcry of farmers
+and millers. The self-binding reaper is the most ingenious of
+agricultural machines, and has been of enormous benefit to farmers in
+saving labour. Though the hay-tedding machine was invented in 1814 it
+is only during the last thirty years that its use has become common,
+the spread of the mowing machine making it a necessity, cutting the
+grass so fast that only a very large number of men with the old forks
+could keep up with it. The tedder also rendered raking by hand too
+slow, and the horse-rake, patented first in 1841, has immensely
+improved in the last thirty years.
+
+Another enormous labour saver is the hay and straw elevator, having
+endless chains furnished with carrying forks at intervals of a few
+feet, driven by horse gear. The steam cultivator invented by John
+Fowler is much used, but cannot be said to have superseded the
+ordinary working stock of the farm, though for deep ploughing on large
+farms of heavy land it is invaluable. Improvements in dairying
+appliances have also been great, but the English farmer has generally
+fought shy of factories or creameries, so that his butter still lacks
+the uniform quality of his foreign rivals.
+
+In manures the most important innovation in the last generation has
+been the constantly growing use of basic slag, formerly left neglected
+at the pit mouth and now generally recognized as a wonderful producer
+of clover.
+
+Most of the suggestions of the Commission of 1879 were carried into
+effect. Rents were largely reduced, so that between 1880 and 1884 the
+annual value of agricultural land in England sank L5,750,000.[678]
+Grants were made by the Government in aid of local burdens, cottages
+were improved although the landowners' capital was constantly
+dwindling, Settled Land Acts assisted the transfer of limited estates,
+a Minister of Agriculture was appointed in 1889, and in 1891 the
+payment of the tithe was transferred from the tenant to the landlord,
+which generally meant that the whole burden was now borne by the
+latter.
+
+Still foreign imports continued to pour in and prices to fall. Wheat
+land, which was subject to the fiercest competition, began to be
+converted to other uses, and between 1878 and 1907 had fallen in
+England from 3,041,214 acres to 1,537,208, most of it being converted
+to pasture or 'tumbling down' to grass, while a large quantity was
+used for oats. The price of live stock was now falling greatly before
+increasing imports of live animals and dead meat, while cheese,
+butter, wool, and fruit were also pouring in. Farming, too, was now
+suffering from a new enemy, gambling in farm produce, which began to
+show itself about 1880 and has since materially contributed to
+lowering prices.[679] The enormous gold premium in the Argentine
+Republic, with the steady fall in silver, was another factor. As Mr.
+Prothero says, 'Enterprise gradually weakened, landlords lost their
+ability to help, and farmers their recuperative power. The capital
+both of landlords and tenants was so reduced that neither could afford
+to spend an unnecessary penny. Land deteriorated in condition,
+drainage was practically discontinued ... less cake and less manure
+were bought, labour bills were reduced, and the number of males
+employed in farming dwindled as the wheat area contracted.'[680] The
+year 1893 was remarkable for a prolonged drought in the spring; from
+March 2 to May 14 hardly any rain fell, and live stock were much
+reduced in quality from the parching of the herbage, while in many
+parts the difficulty of supplying them with water was immense.
+
+In the same year another Commission on Agriculture was appointed,
+whose description of the condition of agriculture was a lamentable
+one. The Commission in their final report[681] stated that the seasons
+since 1882 had on the whole been satisfactory from an agricultural
+point of view, and the evidence brought forward showed that the
+existing depression was to be mainly attributed to the fall in prices
+of farm produce. This fall had been most marked in the case of grain,
+particularly wheat, and wool also had fallen heavily. It was not
+surprising therefore to find that the arable counties[682] had
+suffered most; in counties where dairying, market gardening, poultry
+farming, and other special industries prevailed the distress was less
+acute, but no part of the country could be said to have escaped. In
+north Devon, noted for stock rearing, rents had only fallen 10 to 15
+per cent. since 1881, and in many cases there had been no reduction at
+all. In Herefordshire and Worcestershire good grass lands, hop lands,
+and dairy farms had maintained their rents in many instances, and the
+reductions had apparently seldom exceeded 15 per cent.; on the heavy
+arable lands, however, the reduction was from 20 to 40 per cent.
+
+In Cheshire, devoted mainly to dairying, there had been no general
+reduction of rent, though there had been remissions, and in some cases
+reductions, of 10 per cent.
+
+In fact, grazing and dairy lands, which comprise so large an area of
+the northern and western counties, were not badly affected, though the
+depreciation in the value of live stock and the fall in wool had
+considerably diminished farm profits and rents. But of the eastern
+counties, those in which there are still large quantities of arable
+land, a different tale was told. In Essex much of the clay land was
+going out of cultivation; many farms, after lying derelict for a few
+years, were let as grass runs for stock at a nominal rent The rent of
+an estate near Chelmsford of 1,418 acres had fallen from L1,314 in
+1879 to L415 in 1892, or from 18s. 6d. an acre to 5s. 10d.[683] The
+net rental of another had fallen from L7,682 in 1881 to L2,224 in
+1892, and the landlord's income from his estate of 13,009 acres in
+1892-3 was 1s. an acre. The balance sheet of the estate for the same
+year is an eloquent example of the landowner's profits in these
+depressed times[684]:
+
+  11:12 AM 7/25/2005RECEIPTS.
+                                      L    s.  d.
+
+  Tithe received                     798   5   9
+  Cottage rents                      495   8   6
+  Garden    "                        213   5  10
+  Estate    "                      7,452  14   8
+  Tithes refunded by tenants         530  15   2
+                                  --------------
+                                  L9,490   9  11
+                                  ==============
+
+  PAYMENTS.
+                                      L    s.  d.
+
+  Tithe, rates and taxes           2,964   1   9
+  Rent-charge and fee farm rents     179   0   4
+  Gates and fencing                    8   7   8
+  Estate repairs and buildings     4,350  12   8
+  Draining                           170   6   1
+  Brickyard                          170   1   8
+  Management                         936  14   7
+  Insurances                          58  11   5
+  Balance profit                     652  13   9
+                                 ---------------
+                                  L9,490   9  11
+                                 ===============
+
+In the great agricultural county of Lincoln rents had fallen from 30
+to 75 per cent.[685] The average amount realized on an acre of wheat
+had fallen from L10 6s. 3d. in 1873-7 to L2 18s. 11d. in 1892[686];
+and the fall in the price of cattle between 1882 and 1893 was a little
+over 30 per cent. Many of the large farmers in Lincolnshire before
+1875 had lived in considerable comfort and even luxury, as became men
+who had invested large sums, sometimes L20,000, in their business.
+They had carriages, hunters, and servants, and gave their children an
+excellent start in life. But all this was changed; a day's hunting
+occasionally was the utmost they could afford, and wives and daughters
+took the work from the servants. The small farmers had suffered more
+than the large ones, and the condition of the small freeholders was
+said to be deplorable; a fact to be noted by those who think small
+holdings a panacea for distress.[687]
+
+Even near Boston, where the soil is favourable for market gardening,
+the evidence of the small holder was 'singularly unanimous' as to
+their unfortunate condition. The small occupiers were better off than
+the freeholders, because their rents had been reduced and they could
+leave their farms if they did not pay; but their position was very
+unsatisfactory. From the evidence given to the assistant commissioner
+it is clear that the small occupier and freeholder could only get on
+by working harder and living harder than the labourer. 'We all live
+hard and never see fresh meat,' said one. 'We can't afford butcher's
+meat,' said another. Another said, 'In the summer I work from 4 a.m.
+to 8 p.m., and often do not take more than an hour off for meals. That
+is penal servitude, except you have your liberty. A foreman who earns
+L1 a week is better off than I am. He has no anxiety, and not half the
+work.' These instances could be multiplied many times, so that it is
+not surprising that the children of these men have flocked to the
+towns.
+
+In Norfolk, 'twenty or thirty years ago, no class connected with the
+land held their heads higher' than the farmers. Many of them owned the
+whole or a part of the land they farmed, and lived in good style. All
+this was now largely changed. 'The typical Norfolk farmer of to-day is
+a harassed and hardworking man,' engaged in the struggle to make both
+ends meet. Many were ruined.
+
+However, there were farmers who, by skill, enterprise, and careful
+management, made their business pay even in these times, such as the
+tenant of the farm at Papplewick in Nottinghamshire who gained the
+first prize in the Royal Agricultural Society's farm competition in
+1888.[688]. This farm consisted of 522 acres, of which only 61 were
+grass, but chiefly owing to the trouble taken in growing fine root
+crops, a large number of live stock were annually purchased and sold
+off, the following balance sheet showing a profit of L3 1s. 0d. per
+acre:
+
+                           DR.                            L
+
+  Rent, tithes, rates, taxes, &c.                        278
+  Wages                                                  387
+  Purchase of cake, corn, seeds, manure, &c.             688
+  Purchase of live stock                               2,654
+                                                       -----
+                                                      L4,007
+  Profit                                               1,589
+                                                      ------
+                                                      L5,596
+                                                      ======
+
+                            CR.                           L
+
+  Corn, hay, potatoes, and like product sold             655
+  Live stock, poultry, dairy produce, and wool sold    4,941
+                                                      ------
+                                                      L5,596
+                                                      ======
+
+The reductions of rents in various counties were estimated thus[689]:
+
+                       Per cent.                 Per cent.
+
+  Northumberland       20 to 25     Hereford     20 to  30
+  Cumberland           20 to 40     Somerset     20 to  40
+  York                 10 to 50     Oxford       25 to  50
+  Lancaster             5 to 30     Suffolk      up to  70
+  Stafford             10 to 25     Essex        25 to 100
+  Leicester               40        Kent         15 to 100
+  Nottingham           14 to 50     Hants        25 to 100
+  Warwick              25 to 60     Wilts        10 to  75
+  Huntington           40 to 50     Devon        10 to  25
+  Derby                14 to 25     Cornwall     10 to 100
+
+This large reduction in the rent rolls of landowners has materially
+affected their position and weakened their power. Many, indeed, have
+been driven from their estates, while others can only live on them by
+letting the mansion house and the shooting, and occupying some small
+house on the lands they are reluctant to leave. The agricultural
+depression, which set in about 1875, may in short be said to have
+effected a minor social revolution, and to have completed the ruin of
+the old landed aristocracy as a class. The depreciation of their
+rents may be judged from the following figures[690]:
+
+  Gross annual value of lands, including
+  tithes, under Schedule A in England.             Decrease.
+
+       1879-80               1893-4            Amount.   Per cent.
+          L                     L                 L
+
+      48,533,340            36,999,846       11,533,494      23.7
+
+These figures, however, are far from indicating the full extent of
+the decline in the rental value of purely agricultural land, as they
+include ornamental grounds, gardens, and other properties, and do not
+take into account temporary remissions of rent. Sir James Caird, as
+early as 1886, estimated the average reduction on agricultural rents
+at 30 per cent.
+
+The loss in the capital value of land has inevitably been great from
+this reduction in rents, and has been aggravated by the fact that the
+confidence of the public in agricultural land as an investment has
+been much shaken. In 1875 thirty years' purchase on the gross annual
+value of land was the capital value, in 1894 only eighteen years'
+purchase; and whereas the capital value of land in the United Kingdom
+was in 1875 L2,007,330,000, in 1894 it was L1,001,829,212, a decrease
+of 49.6 per cent. Moreover, landlords have incurred increased
+expenditure on repairs, drainage, and buildings, and taxation has
+grown enormously. On the occupiers of land the effect of the
+depression was no less serious, their profits having fallen on an
+average 40 per cent.[691] Occupying owners had suffered as much as any
+other class, both yeomen who farmed considerable farms and small
+freeholders. Many of the former had bought land in the good times when
+land was dear and left a large portion of the purchase money on
+mortgage, with the result that the interest on the mortgage was now
+more than the rent of the land.[692]
+
+They were thus worse off than the tenant farmer, for they paid a
+higher rent in the shape of interest; moreover, they could not leave
+their land, for it could only be sold at a ruinous loss. The
+'statesmen' of Cumberland were weighed down by the same burdens and
+their disappearance furthered; for instance, in the parish of Abbey
+Quarter, between 1780 and 1812 their number decreased from 51 to 38.
+By 1837 it was 30; by 1864, 21; and in 1894 only 9 remained.
+
+The small freeholders were also largely burdened with mortgages, and
+even in the Isle of Axholme were said to have suffered more than any
+other class; largely because of their passion for acquiring land at
+high prices, leaving most of the purchase money on mortgage, and
+starting with insufficient capital.
+
+As regards the agricultural labourer, the chief effect of the
+depression had been a reduction of the number employed and a
+consequent decrease in the regularity of employment. [693]
+
+Their material condition had everywhere improved, though there were
+still striking differences in the wages paid in different parts; and
+the improvement, though partly due to increased earnings, was mainly
+attributable to the cheapening of the necessaries of life.[694] The
+great majority of ordinary labourers were hired by the week, except
+those boarded in the farm-house, who were generally hired by the year.
+Men, also, who looked after the live stock were hired by the year.
+Weekly wages ranged from 10s. in Wilts, and Dorset to 18s. in
+Lancashire, and averaged 13s. 6d. for the whole country.
+
+The fall in the prices of agricultural produce is best represented in
+tabular form:
+
+  TRIENNIAL AVERAGE OF BRITISH
+  WHEAT, BARLEY, AND OATS PER QUARTER.
+
+              Wheat.      Barley.       Oats.
+              s.  d.       s.  d.       s.  d.
+
+  1876-8     49   9       38   4       25   6
+  1893-5     24   1       24   0       16   9
+
+Thus wheat had fallen 53 per cent., barley 37, and oats 34.
+
+  TRIENNIAL AVERAGE PRICES OF BRITISH CATTLE,
+  PER STONE OF 8 LB.
+
+           Inferior quality.  Second quality.  First quality.
+
+                  s.  d.            s.  d.          s.  d.
+
+  1876-8          4   5             5   6           6   0
+  1893-5          2   8             4   0           4   7
+
+Or a fall of 24 per cent. in the best quality, and 40 per cent. in
+inferior grades.
+
+The decline in the prices of all classes of sheep amounted on the
+average to from so to 30 per cent., and in the price of wool of from
+40 to 50 per cent.; that is, from an average of 1s. 6d. a lb. in
+1874-6, to a little over 9d. in 1893-5.
+
+Milk, butter, and cheese were stated to have fallen from 25 to 33 per
+cent. between 1874 and 1891, and there had been a further fall since.
+In districts, however, near large towns there had been much less
+reduction in the price of milk.
+
+This general fall in prices seems to have been directly connected with
+the increase of foreign competition.[695] Wheat has been most affected
+by this development, and at the date of the Commission the home
+production had sunk to 25 per cent. of the total quantity needed for
+consumption. Other home-grown cereals had not been similarly
+displaced, but the large consumption of maize had affected the price
+of feeding barley and oats. As regards meat, while foreign beef and
+mutton had seriously affected the price of inferior British grades,
+the influence on superior qualities had been much less marked. Foreign
+competition had been, on the whole, perhaps more severe in pork than
+in other classes of meat, but had been confined mainly to bacon and
+hams.
+
+The successful competition of the foreigner in our butter and cheese
+markets was attributed mainly to the fact that the dairy industry is
+better organized abroad than in Great Britain.
+
+The Commission found that another cause of the depression was the
+increased cost of production, not so much from the increase of wages,
+as from the smaller amount of work done for a given sum. Where wages
+in the previous twenty years had remained stationary, the cost of work
+had increased because the labourer did not work so hard or so well as
+his forefathers.
+
+The following table[696] is a striking proof of the increased ratio of
+the cost of labour to gross profits:
+
+                                                             Ratio of
+                                          Average             cost of
+        Acreage  Period      Average       annual   Average    labour
+             of      of        gross      cost of  cost per  to gross
+  County. farm.   acct.      profit.      labour.     acre.  profits.
+
+                           L   s. d.     L  s. d.    s.  d.  Per cent.
+
+  Suffolk   590 1839-43  1,577 13  3    773 11  0    26   2     49.03
+                1863-67  1,545  0  9    836  9  0    28   4     54.07
+                1871-75  1,725  0  1  1,026 14  8    35   2     59.48
+                1890-94    728 10  5    973  1  5    33   0    133.50
+
+On a farm in Wilts., between 1858 and 1893, the ratio of the cost of
+labour to gross profits had increased from 47.0 per cent. to 88.3 per
+cent.; on one in Hampshire, between 1873 and 1890, from 44.4 per
+cent. to 184.3 per cent.; and many similar instances are given,
+illustrating very forcibly the economic revolution which has led to
+the transfer of a larger share of the produce of the land to the
+labourer.
+
+On the other hand, this Commission found, like the last, that the
+farmer had derived considerable benefit from the decrease in cost of
+cake and artificial manure, while the low price of corn had led to
+its being largely used in place of linseed and cotton cakes.
+
+Before leaving the subject of this famous Commission it is well to
+state the answer of Sir John Lawes, than whom there was no higher
+authority, to the oft-repeated assertion that high farming would
+counteract low prices. 'The result of all our experiments,' he said,
+'is that the reverse is the case. As you increase your crops so each
+bushel after a certain amount costs you more and more ... the last
+bushel always costs you more than all the others.' As prices went
+lower 'we must contract our farming to what I should call the average
+of the seasons'; and in the corn districts, the higher the farmer had
+farmed his land by adding manure the worse had been the financial
+results.[697]
+
+In 1896 the injustice of the incidence of rates on agricultural land
+was partly remedied, the occupier being relieved of half the rates on
+the land apart from the buildings, which Act was continued in
+1901.[698] But the system is still inequitable, for a farmer who pays
+a rent of L240 a year even now probably pays more rates than the
+occupier of a house rated at L120 a year. Yet the farmer's income
+would very likely not be more than L200 a year, whereas the occupier
+of the house rated at L120 might have an income of L2,000 a year.
+
+In 1901 and 1902 Mr. Rider Haggard, following in the footsteps of
+Young, Marshall, and Caird, made an agricultural tour through England.
+He considered that, after foreign competition, the great danger to
+English farming was the lack of labour,[699] for young men and women
+were everywhere leaving the country for the towns, attracted by the
+nominally high wages, often delusive, and by the glamour of the
+pavement. Yet the labourer has come better out of the depression of
+the last generation than either landowner or farmer: he is better
+housed, better fed, better clothed, better paid, but filled with
+discontent. Since Mr. Haggard wrote, however, there seems to be a
+reaction, small indeed but still marked, against the townward
+movement, and in most places the supply of labour is sufficient. The
+quality, however, is almost universally described as inferior; the
+labourer takes no pride in his work, and good hedgers, thatchers,
+milkers, and men who understand live stock are hard to obtain[700];
+and the reason for this is in large measure due to the modern system
+of education which keeps a boy from farm work until he is too old to
+take to it. His wages to-day in most parts are good; near
+manufacturing towns the ordinary farm hand is paid from 18s. to 20s. a
+week with extras in harvest, and in purely agricultural districts from
+13s. to 15s. a week, often with a cottage rent free at the lower
+figure. His cottage has improved vastly, especially on large estates,
+though often leaving much to be desired, and the rent usually paid is
+L4 or L5 a year, rising to L7 and L8 near large towns. The wise custom
+of giving him a garden has spread, and is nearly always found to be
+much more helpful than an allotment. The superior or more skilled
+workmen,[701] such as the wagoner, stockman, or shepherd, earns in
+agricultural counties like Herefordshire from 14s. to 18s. a week, and
+in manufacturing counties like Lancashire from 20s. to 22s. a week,
+with extras such as 3d. a lamb in lambing time. At the lower wages he
+often has a cottage and garden rent free.
+
+The improved methods of cutting and harvesting crops have so enabled
+the farmer to economize labour that the once familiar figure of the
+Irish labourer with his knee-breeches and tall hat, who came over for
+the harvest, has almost disappeared. Women, who formerly shared with
+the men most of the farm work, now are little seen in most parts of
+England at work in the fields, and are better occupied in attending to
+their homes.
+
+The divorce of the labourer from the land by enclosure had early
+exercised men's minds, and many efforts were made to remedy this.
+About 1836 especially, several landowners in various parts of England
+introduced allotments, and the movement spread rapidly, so that in
+1893 the Royal Commission on Labour stated that in most places the
+supply was equal to or in excess of the demand.[702] However, previous
+Allotments and Small Holdings Acts not being considered so successful
+as was desired, in 1907 an effort was made to give more effect to the
+cry of 'back to the land' by a Small Holdings and Allotments Act[703]
+which enables County Councils to purchase land by agreement or take it
+on lease, and, if unable to acquire it by agreement, to do so
+compulsorily, in order to provide small holdings for persons desiring
+to lease them. The County Council may also arrange with any Borough
+Council or Urban District Council to act as its agent in providing and
+managing small holdings. The duty of supplying allotments rests in the
+first instance with the Rural Parish Councils, though if they do not
+take proper steps to provide allotments, the County Council may itself
+provide them.
+
+It is a praiseworthy effort, though marked by arbitrary methods and
+that contempt for the rights of property, provided it belongs to some
+one else, that is a characteristic of to-day. That it will succeed
+where the small holder has some other trade, and in exceptionally
+favoured situations, is very probable; most of the small holders who
+were successful before the Act had something to fall back upon: they
+were dealers, hawkers, butchers, small tradesmen, &c. There is no
+doubt, too, that an allotment helps both the town artisan and the
+country labourer to tide over slack times. Whether it will succeed in
+planting a rural population on English soil is another matter. It is a
+consummation devoutly to be wished, for a country without a sound
+reserve of healthy country-people is bound to deteriorate. The small
+holder, pure and simple, without any by-industry, has hitherto only
+been able to keep his head above water by a life which without
+exaggeration may be called one of incessant toil and frequent
+privation, such a life as the great mass of our 'febrile factory
+element' could not endure. And if there is one tendency more marked
+than another in the history of English agriculture, it is the
+disappearance of the small holding. In the Middle Ages it is probable
+that the average size of a man's farm was 30 acres, with its attendant
+waste and wood; since then amalgamation has been almost constant.
+
+It is true that the occupier of a few acres often brings to bear on it
+an amount of industry which is greater in proportion than that
+bestowed on a large farm; but the large farmer has, as Young pointed
+out long ago, very great advantages. He is nearly always a man of
+superior intelligence and training. He has more capital, and can buy
+and sell in the best markets; he can purchase better stock, and save
+labour and the cost of production by using the best machinery. By
+buying in large quantities he gets manures, cakes, seeds, &c., better
+and cheaper than the small holder.
+
+Besides the small holders who have outside industries to fall back
+upon, those who are aided by some exceptionally favourable element in
+the soil or climate, or proximity to good markets, should do well. Yet
+in the Isle of Axholme, the paradise of small holders, we have seen
+that the Commission of 1894 reported that distress was severe. This,
+however, seems to have been largely due to the exaggerated land-hunger
+in the good times, which induced the tenants to buy lands at too high
+a price; and under normal conditions, such as they are now returning
+to, the tenants seem to thrive. In this district the preference for
+ownership as opposed to tenancy is, in spite of recent experiences,
+unqualified, though it is admitted that the best way is to begin by
+renting and save enough to buy.[704] The soil is peculiarly favourable
+to the production of celery and early potatoes; and large tracts of
+land are divided into unfenced strips locally known as 'selions' of
+from a quarter of an acre to 3 acres each, cultivated by men who live
+in the villages, each having one or more strips, some as much as 20
+acres, and it is considered that 10 acres is the smallest area on
+which a man can support a family without any other industry to help
+him.
+
+Yet in the fen districts and on the marsh lands between Boston and the
+east coast of Lincolnshire, where the land is naturally very
+productive, many people are making livings out of 5 or 6 acres, mainly
+by celery and early potatoes.[705] Other districts adapted naturally
+to small holdings are those of Rock and Far Forest, the famous Vale of
+Evesham, the Sandy and Biggleswade district of Bedfordshire; Upwey,
+Dorset; Calstock and St. Dominick, Cornwall; Wisbech, Cambridgeshire;
+and Tiptree, Essex. Apart, however, from by-industries, and
+exceptional climate, soil, and situation, the small holding for the
+purpose of raising corn and meat, as distinguished from that which is
+devoted to dairying, fruit-growing, and market gardening, does not
+seem to-day to have much chance of success. If farms were still
+self-sufficing, and simply provided food and clothing for the farmer,
+the small producer even of corn and meat might do as well as the
+larger farmer on a lower scale, but such conditions have gone; all
+holdings now are chiefly manufactories of food, and the smaller
+manufactory has little chance in competition with the greater.
+
+The example of foreign countries is usually held up to Englishmen in
+this connexion, and the argument naturally used is that 'if small
+holdings answer in France and Belgium, why can they not do so in
+England?' On this point the testimony of Sir John Lawes is worth
+quoting.[706] 'In most, if not in all continental countries' he says,
+'the success of small holdings depends very materially on whether or
+not the soil and the climate are suitable for what may be called
+industrial crops: such as tobacco, hops, sugar beet, colza, flax,
+hemp, grapes, and other fruit and vegetables; where these conditions
+do not exist the condition of the cultivators is such _as would not be
+tolerated in this country_.' That is the reason probably why small
+holdings, apart from exceptional conditions, do not answer in England;
+the Englishman of to-day is not anxious to face the hard and grinding
+conditions under which the continental small holder lives.
+
+Since Mr. Haggard's tour the black clouds which have so long lowered
+over agriculture have shown signs of lifting. Rents have been adjusted
+to a figure at which the farmer has some chance of competing with the
+foreigner,[707] though the price of grain keeps wretchedly low; stock
+has improved, and there is undoubtedly to-day (1908) a brisker demand
+for farms, and in some localities rents have even advanced slightly.
+The yeoman--that is, the man who owns and farms his own land, perhaps
+the most sound and independent class in the community--has,
+unfortunately for England, largely disappeared. Even of those who
+remain, some prefer to let their property and rent holdings from
+others! It has been noticed that the labourer's lot has improved in
+this generation of adversity; and well it might, for his previous
+condition was miserable in the extreme. The farmers have suffered
+severely, many losing all their capital and becoming farm labourers.
+The landlords have suffered most; they have not been able to throw up
+their land like the farmer, and until quite recently have watched it
+becoming poorer and poorer. The depression, in short, has driven from
+their estates many who had owned them for generations. Those who have
+survived have usually been men with incomes from other sources than
+land, and they have generally deserved well of their country by
+keeping their estates in good condition in spite of falling rents and
+increasing taxation.
+
+No class of men, indeed, have been more virulently and consistently
+abused than the landlords of England, and none with less justice.
+There have been many who have forgotten that property has its duties
+as well as its rights; they have erred like other men, but as a rule
+they play their part well. Even the worst are to some extent obliged
+by their very position to be public spirited, for the mere possession
+of an estate involves the employment of a number of people in healthy
+outdoor occupations which Englishmen to-day so especially need to
+counteract the degenerating influences of town life. Many of the great
+estates[708] are carried on at a positive loss to their owners, and it
+may be doubted whether agricultural property pays the possessor a
+return of 2 per cent. per annum; which is as much as to say that the
+landlord furnishes the tenant with capital in the form of land at that
+rate for the purpose of his business. What other class is content with
+such a scanty return? They are often charged with not managing their
+estates on business principles, and no charge is worse founded. It
+would be a sad day for the tenants on many an estate if they were
+managed on commercial lines. One of the first results would be that
+many properties would be given up as a dead loss. They could only be
+made to pay by raising the rents or cutting down the ever-recurring
+expenditure on repairs and buildings which are necessary for the
+welfare of the tenants. The Duke of Bedford, in his _Story of a Great
+Estate_, has said that the rent has completely disappeared from three
+of his estates. On the Thorney and Woburn estates over L750,000 was
+spent on new works and permanent improvements alone between 1816 and
+1895, and the result, owing to agricultural depression and increased
+burdens on the land, was a net loss of L7,000 a year; and every one
+with any knowledge of the management of land knows that this is no
+isolated case, though it may be on an exceptionally large scale. Where
+would many tenants be if commercial principles ruled on rent audit
+days? The larger English landlords of to-day are as a rule not
+dependent on their rent rolls. To their great advantage, and to the
+advantage of their tenants, they generally own other property, so that
+they need not regard the land as a commercial investment. They can
+therefore support the necessary outlay on a large estate, the capital
+expenditure on improvements of all kinds, and thus relieve the tenant
+of any expense of this kind. The farms are let at moderate, not rack
+rents, such as the tenants can easily pay. Also the landlord can make
+large reductions of rent in years of exceptional distress.[709] Rents
+are generally collected three months after they are due, a
+considerable concession; and even then arrears are numerous, for any
+reasonable excuse for being behind with the rent is generously
+listened to. It is owing to forbearance in this and other matters that
+the relations between landlord and tenant are generally excellent.
+Where are the best farm buildings, where the best cottages, where does
+the owner carry on a home farm often for the assistance of the tenant
+by letting him have the use of entire horses, well-bred bulls, and
+rams, if not on the larger estates? The restrictions in leases, so
+much decried of late years, were nearly always in the interest of good
+farming, and their abolition will lead to the deterioration of many a
+holding.
+
+Bacon said, 'Where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it
+multiplieth riches exceedingly' and wiser words were never uttered.
+Yet these are the men who are singled out for attack by agitators, who
+are only listened to because the greater number of modern Englishmen
+are ignorant of the land and everything connected with it. At a time
+when rents have dwindled, in some cases almost to vanishing point,
+taxation has increased, and confiscatory schemes and meddlesome
+restrictions have frightened away capital from the land. Many of the
+landlords of England would clearly gain by casting off the burden of
+their heavily weighted property, but they nearly all stick nobly to
+their duty, and hope for that restoration of confidence in the
+sanctity of property and of respect for freedom of contract which
+would do so much towards the rehabilitation of what is still the
+greatest and most important industry in the country.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[665] And an ever increasing burden of taxation.
+
+[666] See Appendix III.
+
+[667] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1881, pp. 142, 199.
+
+[668] _Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners_, 1882, xiv. pp. 9 sq.
+
+[669] _Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners_, 1882, xiv. 14.
+
+[670] The rise between 1857 and 1878 has been estimated at 20 per
+cent., and between 1867 and 1877 at 11-1/2 per cent. Hasbach, _op.
+cit._, p. 291.
+
+[671] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1890, p. 324.
+
+[672] See infra, p. 330.
+
+[673] _Rural Economy of Southern Counties_, i. 285-6.
+
+[674] _Victoria County History: Hereford, Agriculture_.
+
+[675] In one respect the Act of 1883 restricted the rights of tenants
+to compensation, for while the Act of 1875 had expressly reserved the
+rights of the parties under 'custom of the country', the Act of 1883
+provided that a tenant 'shall not claim compensation by custom or
+otherwise than in manner authorized by this Act for any improvement
+for which he is entitled to compensation under this Act' (Sec. 57).
+
+[676] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 96.
+
+[677] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1892), p. 63.
+
+[678] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1901), p. 33. Cf. infra, p. 310.
+
+[679] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1893), p. 286; (1894), p. 677. Sometimes to
+artificially raising them.
+
+[680] Ibid. (1901), p. 34.
+
+[681] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv.
+
+[682] Broadly speaking, the arable section, or eastern group, included
+the counties of Bedford, Berks., Bucks, Cambridge, Essex, Hants,
+Hertford, Huntingdon, Kent, Leicester, Lincoln, Middlesex, Norfolk,
+Northampton, Notts, Oxford, Rutland, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Warwick,
+and the East Riding of York; the grass section, or western group,
+included the remaining counties.
+
+[683] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1894), xvi. (1), App. B.
+ii.
+
+[684] Ibid. App. B. iii.
+
+[685] Ibid. (1895), xvi. 169.
+
+[686] Ibid. p. 164.
+
+[687] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1895), xvi. 187-8.
+
+[688] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (2nd ser.), xxiv. 538
+
+[689] Ibid. (1894), p. 681.
+
+[690] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 22. Cf. p.
+319 n.
+
+[691] Ibid. pp. 30-1.
+
+[692] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 31.
+
+[693] Ibid. p. 37:
+
+  NUMBER OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS
+  IN ENGLAND AND WALES.
+
+   1871.     1881.     1891.     1901.
+
+  996,642   890,174   798,912   595,702
+
+The figures for 1901 are from Summary Tables, _Parliamentary Blue
+Book_ (C, d. 1, 523), p. 202, Table xxxvi.
+
+[694] According to the Report of the Royal Commission on Labour,
+1893-4, the labourer was 'better fed, better dressed, his education
+and language improved, his amusements less gross, his cottage
+generally improved, though generally on small estates there were many
+bad ones still'.--_Parliamentary Reports_, 1893, xxxv. Index 5 et seq.
+
+[695] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 53, 85. Sir
+Robert Giffen suggested that the decline in the price of wheat pay be
+partly attributed to the great increase in the supply and consumption
+of meat.
+
+[696] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. App. iii.
+Table viii. From an examination of the accounts of seventy-seven
+farms, the average expenditure on labour was found to be 31.4 per
+cent. of the total outlay.
+
+[697] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 106. But see
+above, p. 271.
+
+[698] 59 & 60 Vict., c. 16; I Edw. VII, c. 13.
+
+[699] _Rural England_, ii. 539. Yet the census returns of 1871, 1881,
+and 1891 gave no support to the idea that _young_ men were leaving
+agriculture for the towns. See _Parl. Reports_ (1893), xxxviii. (2)
+33.
+
+[700] The author speaks from information derived from answers to
+questions addressed to landowners, farmers, and agents in many parts
+of England, to whom he is greatly indebted.
+
+[701] It is, however, a fallacy to assume, as is nearly always done,
+that the ordinary farm labourer, at all events of the old type, is
+unskilled. A good man, who can plough well, thatch, hedge, ditch, and
+do the innumerable tasks required on a farm efficiently, is a much
+more skilled worker than many who are so called in the towns.
+
+[702] _Parl. Reports_ (1893), xxxv. Index.
+
+[703] 7 Edw. VII, c. 54, amending the Allotments Acts of 1887 and 1890
+and the Small Holdings Act of 1892. The Allotments Act of 1887 defined
+an 'allotment' as any parcel of land of not more than 2 acres held by
+a tenant under a landlord; but for the purposes of the Acts of 1892
+and 1907 a 'small holding' means an agricultural holding which exceeds
+one acre and either does not exceed 50 acres or, if exceeding 50
+acres, is of an annual value not exceeding L50. At the same time the
+Act defines an allotment as a holding of any size up to 5 acres, so
+that up to that size a parcel of land may be treated as a small
+holding or an allotment.
+
+[704] Jebb, _Small Holdings_, p. 25.
+
+[705] Jebb, _op. cit._, p. 28.
+
+[706] _Allotments and Small Holdings_ (1892), p. 19 et seq.
+
+[707] The gross income derived from the ownership of lands in Great
+Britain, as returned under Schedule A of the Income Tax, decreased
+from L51,811,234 in 1876-7 to L36,609,884 in 1905-6. In 1850 Caird
+estimated the rental of English land, exclusive of Middlesex, at
+L37,412,000. Cf. above, p. 310.
+
+[708] According to the Commission of 1894, the amount expended on
+improvements and repairs alone on some great estates was: On Lord
+Derby's, in Lancashire, of 43,217 acres, L200,000 in twelve years, or
+L16,500, or 7s. 8d. an acre, each year. On Lord Sefton's, of 18,000
+acres, L286,000 in twenty-two years, or about L13,000, or 14s. an
+acre, each year. On the Earl of Ancaster's estates in Lincolnshire, of
+53,993 acres, L689,000 was spent in twelve years, or 11s. 7d. an acre
+each year; and many similar instances are given.--_Parliamentary
+Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 287-9.
+
+[709] Shaw Lefevre, _Agrarian Tenures_, p. 19.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.--LIVE STOCK
+
+
+It is a curious fact that the barriers which protected the British
+farmer were thrown down shortly before he became by unforeseen causes
+exposed to the competition of the whole world. Down to 1846 Germany
+supplied more than half the wheat that was imported into England,
+Denmark sent more than Russia, and the United States hardly any.
+Other competitors who have since arisen were then unknown. By the end
+of the next decade Russia and the United States sent large
+quantities, as may be gathered from the following table [710]:
+
+  ANNUAL AVERAGE IMPORTS OF WHEAT AND FLOUR FOR
+  THE SEVEN YEARS 1859-1865.
+                                                   Cwt.
+
+  Russia                                        5,350,861
+  Denmark and the Duchies                         969,890
+  Germany                                       6,358,229
+  France                                        3,828,691
+  Spain                                           331,463
+  Wallachia and Moldavia                          295,475
+  Turkish dominions, not otherwise specified      528,568
+  Egypt                                         1,423,193
+  Canada                                        2,223,809
+  United States                                10,080,911
+  Other countries                               1,036,968
+
+In the years 1871-5 the United States held the first place, Russia
+came next, and Germany third with only about one-sixth of the
+American imports, and Canada was running Germany close. Other
+formidable competitors were now arising, and by 1901 the chief
+importing countries[711] were:
+
+                                               Cwt.
+
+  Argentina                                  8,309,706
+  Russia[712]                                2,580,805
+  United States of America                  66,855,025
+  Australia                                  6,197,019
+  Canada                                     8,577,960
+  India                                      3,341,500
+
+Since then the imports of wheat and flour from the United States have
+decreased, and in 1904 India took the first place, Russia the second,
+Argentina the third, and the United States the fourth. However, in
+1907 the United States sent more than any other country, followed by
+Argentina, India, Canada, Russia, and Australia, in the order named.
+
+It is probable in the near future that the imports from the United
+States will decline considerably, for in the last quarter of a
+century its population has increased 68 per cent. and its wheat area
+only 25 per cent. On the other hand, the population of Canada
+increased 33 per cent. and her wheat area 158 per cent. in the same
+time; while in Argentina an addition of 70 per cent. to the
+population has been accompanied by an increase of the wheat area from
+half a million to fourteen million acres. It is probable also that
+India and Australia will continue to send large supplies, and there
+are said to be vast wheat-growing tracts opened up by the Siberian
+Railway, so that there seems little chance of wheat rising very much
+in price for many years to come, apart from exceptional causes such
+as bad seasons and 'corners'.
+
+McCulloch, writing in 1843,[713] says that, except Denmark and
+Ireland, no country of Western Europe 'has been in the habit of
+exporting cattle'. Danish cattle, however, could rarely be sold in
+London at a profit, and Irish cattle alone disturbed the equanimity
+of the English farmer.
+
+For a few years after the repeal of the corn laws and of the
+prohibition of imports of live stock, the imports of live stock, meat,
+and dairy produce were, except from Ireland, almost nil[714]; since
+then they have increased enormously, and in 1907 the value of live
+cattle, sheep, and pigs imported was L8,273,640, not so great,
+however, as some years before, owing to restrictions imposed; but this
+decrease has been made up by the increase in the imports of meat,
+which in 1907 touched their highest figure of 18.751,555 cwt, valued
+at the large sum of L41,697,905.[715]
+
+Forty years ago hardly any foreign butter or cheese was imported;
+to-day it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that not one hundredth
+part of the butter eaten in London is British; in 1907 the amount of
+butter imported was 4,310,156 cwt., and of cheese, 2,372,233 cwt. The
+increase in the imports was largely assisted by the fact that in the
+last half of the nineteenth century English farmers had directed their
+attention chiefly to meat-producing animals and neglected the milch
+cow. However, of late years great efforts have been made to recover
+lost ground, and in England the number of cows and heifers in milk or
+in calf has increased from 1,567,789 in 1878 to 2,020,340 in 1906.
+
+The regulation of the imports and exports of live stock did not
+concern the legislature so early as those of corn. One of the earliest
+statutes on the subject is II Hen. VII, c. 13, which forbade the
+export of horses and of mares worth more than 6s. 8d., because many
+had been conveyed out of the land, so that there were few left for its
+defence and the price of horses had been thereby increased. A
+subsequent statute, 22 Hen. VIII, c. 7, says this law was disobeyed by
+many who secretly exported horses, so it was enacted that no one
+should export a horse without a licence; and 1 Edw. VI, c. 5,
+continued this. But after this date the export of horses does not seem
+to have occupied the attention of Parliament.
+
+22 Hen. VIII, c. 7, also forbade the export of cattle and sheep
+without a licence because so many had been carried out of the realm
+that victual was scarce and cattle dear. By 22 Car. II, c. 13, oxen
+might be exported on payment of a duty of 1s. each, the last statute
+on the subject.
+
+As for sheep, their export without the king's licence had been
+forbidden by 3 Hen. VI, c. 2, because men had been in the habit of
+taking them to Flanders and other countries, where they sheared them
+and sold the wool and the mutton. 8 Eliz., c. 3, forbade their export,
+and 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18, declared the export of sheep and wool a
+felony.
+
+The importation of cattle was forbidden by 15 Car. II, c. 7, which
+stated that the 'comeing in of late of vast numbers of cattle already
+fatted' had caused 'a very great part of the land of this kingdom to
+be much fallen and like dayly to fall more in their rents and values';
+therefore every head of great cattle imported was to pay 20s. to the
+king, 10s. to the informer, and 10s. to the poor after July 1, 1664.
+By 18 Car. II, c. 2, the importation of cattle was declared a common
+nuisance, and if any cattle, sheep, or swine were imported they were
+to be seized and forfeited. By 32 Car. II, c. 2, this was made
+perpetual and continued in force till 1842, though it was repealed as
+to Ireland, as we have seen.[716]
+
+It appears from the laws dealing with the matter that in the time of
+the Plantagenets England exported butter and cheese. In the reign of
+Edward III they were merchandise of the staple, and therefore when
+exported had to go to Calais when the staple was fixed there. This
+caused great damage, it is said, to divers persons in England, for the
+butter and cheese would not keep until buyers came; therefore 3 Hen.
+VI, c 4, enacted that the chancellor might grant licence to export
+butter and cheese to other places than to the staple.
+
+The regulation of the export of wool frequently occupied the attention
+of Parliament It has been noticed[717] that the laws of Edgar fixed
+its price for export, and Henry of Huntingdon mentions its export in
+the twelfth century, while during the reign of Edward I it was for
+some time forbidden except by licence, which led to its being smuggled
+out in wine casks.[718] The _Hundred Rolls_ give the names of several
+Italian merchants who were engaged in buying wool for export, the
+ecclesiastical houses, especially the Cistercians, furnishing a great
+quantity, and the chief port then for the wool trade was Boston, The
+export was again prohibited in 1337, the great object being to make
+the foreigner pay dearly for our staple product: an object which was
+certainly effected, for when Queen Philippa redeemed her crown from
+pawn at Cologne in 1342 by a quantity of English wool, 1s. 3-1/2d. a
+lb. was the price, and it was even said to sell in Flanders at 3s. a
+lb., a price which, expressed in modern money, seems fabulous.[719]
+However, in the next reign English wool began to decline in price,
+owing probably to changes in fashion, but the long wools maintained
+their superiority and their export was forbidden by Henry VI and
+Elizabeth.[720]
+
+In the reign of James I it was confessed 'that the cloth of this
+kingdom hath wanted both estimation and vent in foreign parts, and
+that the wools are fallen from their stated values', so that export
+was prohibited entirely; and 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18, declared the
+export of wool a felony, though 7 and 8 Will. III, c. 28, says this
+did not deter people from exporting it, so that the law was made more
+stringent on the subject, and export continued to be forbidden until
+1825.[721] In a letter written in 1677 the fall of rents in England,
+which had caused the value of estates to sink from twenty-one to
+sixteen or seventeen years' purchase, is ascribed mainly to the low
+price of wool,[722] owing to the prohibition of export and increased
+imports from Ireland and Spain. It was now, said the writer, worth 7d.
+instead of 12d., and a great quantity of Spanish wool was being sold
+in England at low rates. These 'low rates' were 2s. and 2s. 2d. a lb.
+for the best wool, whereas in 1660 the best Spanish wool was 4s. and
+4s. 2d. a lb.
+
+We have seen[723] that Spanish wool was imported into England in the
+Middle Ages. In 1677, according to Smith,[724] England imported 2,000
+bags of 200 lb. each from Spain[725]; in the three years 1709-11,
+14,000 bags; in the three years 1713-14, 20,000 bags; and about 1730
+some came from Jamaica, Maryland, and Virginia, and down to 1802
+imports were free.[726] In that year a duty of 5s. 3d. a cwt. was
+imposed, which in 1819 was raised to 56s. a cwt., which, however, was
+reduced to 1d. a lb. on 1s. wool and 1/2d. a lb. on wool under 1s. in
+1824. In 1825 colonial wool was admitted free, and in 1844 the duty
+taken off altogether, and imports from our colonies and foreign
+countries soon assumed enormous proportions. Down to 1814 nearly all
+our imports of wool came from Spain; after that the greater part came
+from Germany and the East Indies; but Russia and India soon began to
+send large quantities, and in recent times Australasia has been our
+chief importer, in 1907 sending 321,470,554 lb., while New Zealand
+sent 158,406,255 lb. out of a total import of 764,286,625 lb. About
+1800 our imports of wool were 8,609,368 lb.![727] Of our enormous
+imports of wool, however, a very large quantity is re-exported.
+
+In 1828 it was stated before the House of Lords that English wool had
+deteriorated considerably during the previous thirty years, owing
+chiefly to the farmer increasing the weight of the carcase and the
+quantity of wool, so that fineness of fleece was injured. The great
+extension of turnips and the introduction of a large breed of sheep
+also appeared to have lessened the value of the fleece, yet English
+wool to-day still commands a high price in comparison with that of
+other countries, though the price in recent years has declined
+greatly; in 1871 it was 1s. 5-1/2d. a lb., in 1872 1s. 9-1/2d., in
+1873 1s. 7d. In 1907 Leicester wool was 12-1/2d., Southdown 14d. to
+15d., and Lincoln 12d. a lb.; Australian at the same date being 11d.,
+and New Zealand 11-1/2d.
+
+The fruit-grower has also had to contend with an enormous foreign
+supply, which nearly always has a better appearance than that grown in
+these islands, though the quality is often inferior. In 1860 apples
+were included with other raw fruits in the returns, so that the exact
+figures are not given, but apparently about 500,000 cwt. came in; by
+1903 this had increased to 4,569,546 bushels, and in 1907 3,526,232
+bushels arrived. Enormous foreign supplies of grapes, pears, plums,
+cherries, and even strawberries have also combined to keep the home
+price down.
+
+The decrease in the acreage of hops, from its maximum of 71,789 acres
+in 1878 to 44,938 in 1907, was ascribed by the recent Commission to
+the lessening demand for beer in England, the demand for lighter kinds
+of beer, and the use of hop substitutes, and not to increase in
+foreign competition; which the following figures seem to bear out:
+
+  IMPORTS OF HOPS.
+                                                           Cwt.
+
+  1861                                                   149,176
+  1867                                                   296,117
+  1869                                                   322,515
+  1870                                                   127,853
+  1875                                                   256,444
+  1877 (the year before the record acreage planted)      250,039
+  1879                                                   262,765
+  1903                                                   113,998
+  1904                                                   313,667
+  1905                                                   108,953
+  1906                                                   232,619
+  1907                                                   202,324
+
+In recent years they have been a loss to the grower; as the average
+crop is a little under 9 cwt. per acre, and the total cost of growing
+and marketing from L35 to L45 an acre, it is obvious that prices of
+about L3 per cwt., which have ruled lately, are unremunerative.
+
+However disastrous to the farmer and landowner, the increased
+quantities and low prices of food thus obtained have been of
+inestimable benefit to the crowded population of England. In 1851 the
+whole corn supply, both English and foreign, afforded 317 lb. per
+annum per head of the population of 27 millions. In 1889 the total
+supply gave 400 lb. per head to a population of 37-1/2 millions at a
+greatly reduced cost.[728] The supply of animal food presents similar
+contrasts; in 1851 each person obtained 90 lb., in 1889 115 lb. The
+average value of the imports of food per head in the period 1859-65
+was about 25s.; in the period 1901-7, 65s.[729] The products which
+have stood best against foreign competition are fresh milk, hay and
+straw, the softer kinds of fruit that will not bear carriage well, and
+stock of the finest quality. These islands still maintain their great
+reputation for the excellent quality of their live stock, and exports,
+chiefly of pedigree animals, touched their highest figure in 1906:
+
+                                            Average per
+                 No.        Total Value.       head.
+                                L                 L
+
+  Cattle        5,616        327,335             58
+  Sheep        12,716        204,061             16
+  Pigs          2,221         20,292              9
+
+
+  1877.[730]
+
+  Acreage under crops and
+    grass in England           24,312,033
+
+  _Corn crops._
+  Wheat                         2,987,129
+  Barley or bere                2,000,531
+  Oats                          1,489,999
+  Rye                              48,604
+  Beans                           470,153
+  Peas                            306,356
+                                ---------
+                         Total  7,302,772
+
+  _Green crops._
+  Potatoes                        303,964
+  Turnips and swedes            1,495,885
+  Mangels                         348,289
+  Carrots                          14,445
+  Cabbage, kohl rabi, and rape    176,218
+  Vetches and other green crops   420,373
+                                ---------
+                          Total 2,759,174
+
+  Flax                              7,210
+  Hops                             71,239
+  Barefallow or uncropped arable  576,235
+  Clover, sainfoin, and
+    grasses under rotation      2,737,387
+                               ----------
+                  Total arable 13,454,017
+
+  Permanent grass, exclusive
+    of mountain or heath land  10,858,016
+                               ----------
+                               24,312,033
+
+
+  1907.
+
+  Total acreage under
+    crops and grass            24,585,455
+
+  _Corn crops._
+  Wheat                         1,537,208
+  Barley                        1,411,163
+  Oats                          1,967,682
+  Rye                              53,837
+  Beans                           296,186
+  Peas                            164,326
+                              -----------
+                         Total  5,430,402
+
+  Potatoes                        381,891
+  Turnips and swedes            1,058,292
+  Mangels                         436,193
+  Cabbage                          65,262
+  Kohl rabi                        20,572
+  Rape                             79,913
+  Vetches or tares                145,067
+  Lucerne                          63,379
+  Hops                             44,938
+  Small fruit                      73,372
+  Clover, sainfoin, and
+    grasses under rotation      2,611,722
+  Other crops                     117,914
+  Bare fallow                     248,678
+                               ----------
+                  Total arable 10,777,595
+               Permanent grass 13,807,860
+                               ----------
+                               24,585,455
+
+  The small fruit was divided into:
+    Strawberries                   23,623
+    Raspberries                     6,479-1/2
+    Currants and gooseberries      24,178-3/4
+    Others                         19,090
+                              ---------------
+                                   73,371-1/4
+
+As arable land has suffered much more than grass from foreign
+imports, it was inevitable that this country should become more
+pastoral; in 1877 the arable land of England amounted to 13,454,017
+acres, and permanent grass to 10,858,016. By 1907 this was
+practically reversed, the permanent grass amounting to 13,807,860
+acres and the arable to 10,777,595. In corn crops the great decrease
+has been in the acreage of wheat, but barley, beans, and peas have
+also diminished, while oats have increased. In green crops there has
+been a great decrease in turnips and swedes, compensated to some
+extent by an increase in mangels, and a sad decrease in hops. The
+changes in thirty years can be gathered from the tables of the Board
+of Agriculture given on p. 331.
+
+In 1877 no separate return of small fruit was made, but in 1878 the
+orchards of England, including fruit trees of any kind, covered
+161,228 acres, which by 1907 had grown to a total area under fruit of
+294,910 acres, among which were 168,576 acres of apples, 8,365 of
+pears, 11,952 of cherries, and 14,571 of plums. Much of the small
+fruit is included in the orchards.
+
+'Other crops' were further divided into:
+
+                            Acres.
+
+  Carrots                   11,897
+  Onions                     3,416
+  Buckwheat                  5,226
+  Flax                         355
+  Others                    97,020
+                           -------
+                           117,914
+
+The average yield per acre of various crops in England for the ten
+years 1897-1906 was:
+
+                                                Bushels.
+
+  Wheat                                         31.1[731]
+  Barley                                        32.88
+  Oats                                          41.38
+  Beans                                         29.28
+  Peas                                          27.15
+
+                                                 Tons.
+
+  Potatoes                                        5.74
+  Turnips and swedes                             12.19
+  Mangels                                        19.24
+
+                                                 Cwt.
+
+  Hay from clover, and grasses under rotation    29.40
+  Hay from permanent grass                       24.33
+  Hops                                            8.81
+
+The live stock in 1877 consisted of:
+
+  Horses used solely for purposes of agriculture         761,089
+  Unbroken horses and mares kept solely for breeding     309,119
+                                                       ---------
+                                                       1,070,208
+                                                       ---------
+  Cattle. Cows and heifers in milk or in calf          1,557,574
+          Two years old and over                       1,072,407
+          Under two years of age                       1,349,669
+                                                       ---------
+                                                       3,979,650
+                                                       ---------
+  Sheep                                               18,330,377
+  Pigs                                                 2,114,751
+
+In 1907:
+
+  Horses used solely for agriculture                     863,817
+  Unbroken                                               325,330
+                                                       ---------
+                                                       1,189,147
+                                                       ---------
+  Cattle. Cows and heifers in milk or in calf          2,032,284
+          Two years old and over                       1,043,034
+          Under two years of age                       1,912,413
+                                                       ---------
+                                                       4,987,731
+                                                       ---------
+  Sheep[732]                                          15,098,928
+  Pigs                                                 2,257,136
+
+The decrease in sheep and the increase in cattle and horses (though
+of late years the latter have shown a tendency to decrease) are to be
+noted.
+
+The number of live stock per 1,000 acres of cultivated land in the
+United Kingdom and other countries is:
+
+  Country.            Cattle.    Sheep.    Pigs.    Total.
+
+  United Kingdom        247       619        76       942
+  Belgium               411        54       240       705
+  Denmark               264       126       209       599
+  France                167       207        88       462
+  Germany               221        90       216       527
+  Holland               322       116       164       602
+
+It will be observed that in cattle the United Kingdom comes out
+badly, but is pre-eminent in sheep and has the largest total; though,
+as cattle require more acreage, Belgium nearly equals its aggregate
+produce for 1,000 acres.
+
+As regards prices at the two periods 1871-5 and 1906-7, if we take
+100 as the price at the former the following are the prices at the
+latter:
+
+  Beef          71
+  Mutton        93
+  Bacon        121
+  Wheat         56
+  Butter        97
+  Cheese       100
+
+Turning once more to the occupation of land, the percentage of land
+occupied by owners in 1907 in England was 12.4, the rest being
+occupied by tenants, and the following is a statement of the number
+of agricultural holdings of various sizes in 1875 and 1907:
+
+ 1875.[733]
+
+  50 acres    50 to    100 to   300 to   500 to   Above
+  and         100      300      500      1,000    1,000
+  under.      acres.   acres.   acres.   acres.   acres.
+
+  293,469    44,842   58,450   11,245    3,871     463
+
+ 1907.
+
+    Above 1 and      Above 5 and     Above 50 and       Above
+  not exceeding    not exceeding    not exceeding         300
+       5 acres.        50 acres.       300 acres.      acres.
+
+    80,921             165,975            109,927      14,652
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[710] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1882), p. 449.
+
+[711] See _Returns of the Board of Agriculture_.
+
+[712] The imports from Russia were that year exceptionally small.
+
+[713] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1852), p. 274.
+
+[714] In 1860 the number of live cattle imported was 104,569; in 1897,
+618,321; in 1907, 472,015.
+
+[715] In 1860 the quantity of beef imported was 283,332 cwt.; in 1907,
+6,033,736 cwt.
+
+[716] See above.
+
+[717] Supra, p. 38.
+
+[718] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 176, 192; _Hundred
+Rolls_, i. 405, 414.
+
+[719] Burnley, _History of Wool_, p. 65.
+
+[720] Ibid. p. 70.
+
+[721] Cf. supra, p. 172.
+
+[722] Smith, _Memoirs of Wool_, i. 222.
+
+[723] See above.
+
+[724] Smith, _Memoirs of Wool_, ii. 252.
+
+[725] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, iii. 156.
+
+[726] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_, p. 1431. For imports see
+Appendix, p. 354.
+
+[727] Of which 6,000,000 lb. came from Spain. The first Spanish Merino
+sheep were introduced into Australia in 1797. See Cunningham,
+_Industry and Commerce_, ii. 538, and cf. below.
+
+[728] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1890), p. 29.
+
+[729] _Board of Agriculture Returns_ (1907), p. 187.
+
+[730] Cf. Appendix IV.
+
+[731] In 1907 the average wheat crop was 33.96 bushels per acre in
+England and 39.18 in Scotland. The average yield per acre of wheat in
+Holland is 34.1 bushels; Belgium, 34; Germany, 30.3; Denmark, 28.2
+France, 197.
+
+[732] The total number of sheep in Great Britain in 1877 was
+28,161,164; in 1907, 26,115,455. In 1688 Youatt estimates it at
+12,000,000; In 1741, 17,000,000; in 1800 26,000,000; in 1830
+32,000,000.
+
+[733] Unfortunately the class 50 acres and under at this time included
+holdings _under_ one acre, so that it is useless for the comparison of
+the number of small holdings at the two dates, for in 1907 none appear
+under one acre.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+MODERN FARM LIVE STOCK
+
+CART HORSES
+
+
+Arthur Young at the end of the eighteenth century found only two
+kinds of cart horses worthy of mention, the Shire and the Suffolk
+Punch; to-day, besides these two, we have the Clydesdale.
+
+The Shire horse, according to Sir Walter Gilbey, is the purest
+survival of the Great Horse of mediaeval times, known also as the War
+Horse, and the Old English Black Horse. It is the largest of draught
+horses, attaining a height of 17 to 17.3 hands and a weight of 2,200
+lb., its general characteristics being immense strength, symmetrical
+proportions, bold free action, and docile disposition. In 1878 the
+Shire Horse Society was established to improve the breed, and
+distribute sound and healthy sires through the country.
+
+The Clydesdale, whose native home is the valley of the Clyde, is not
+so large as the Shire, but strong, active, and a fine worker. They
+are either derived from a cross between Flemish stallions and
+Lanarkshire mares, or are an improvement of the old Lanark breed.[734]
+
+The Suffolk Punch looks what he is-a thorough farm horse. He stands
+lower than the two former breeds, but weighs heavily, often 2,000 lb.
+They are generally chestnut or light dun in colour, and their legs
+are without the feather of the Clydesdale and Shire. They have been
+long associated with Suffolk, and were mentioned by Camden in 1586.
+According to the Suffolk _Stud Book_ of 1880, the Suffolk horses
+of to-day are with few exceptions the descendants in the direct male
+line of the original breed described by Arthur Young.
+
+
+CATTLE
+
+What was the original breed of cattle in this island is uncertain. The
+Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in
+1887 favours the view that the herds of wild cattle, such as still
+exist at Chillingham, represent the original breed of Great Britain.
+It states that the 'urus' was the only indigenous wild ox in this
+country, and the source of all our domesticated breeds as well as of
+the few wild ones that remain, such as the Chillingham breed, which is
+small, white, with the inside of the ear red, and a brownish muzzle.
+Some, however, assert they are merely the descendants of a
+domesticated breed run wild, which have reverted somewhat to the
+ancient type.[735]
+
+According to Thorold Rogers, the cattle of the Middle Ages were small
+rough animals like the mountain breeds of to-day, and at the end of
+the sixteenth century we have seen they had large horns, were low and
+heavy, and for the most part black.[736] The great variety of cattle
+in Great Britain may be due to their being the descendants of several
+species, or to difference of climate and soil, or to spontaneous
+variation, but the chief cause is the diligent selection of breeders.
+Marshall is quite positive[737] that the Hereford, Devon, Sussex, and
+the black mountain breeds of Scotland and Wales are all descended from
+the original native breed of this island, that the Shorthorns came
+from the Continent, and the Longhorns probably from Ireland. Bradley's
+division of cattle into black, white, and red tells us little.[738]
+There was very little attempt at improvement until the middle of the
+eighteenth century, for peace was necessary for long continued
+effort, and 1746, the date of Culloden, the last battle fought on
+British soil, may be taken practically as the commencement of the era
+of progress.
+
+The Shorthorn is the most famous and widely-spread breed of this
+country, if not in the world; it exceeds in number any other breed in
+the United Kingdom, and most cross-breds have Shorthorn blood in them.
+It adapts itself to any climate, and is equally noted for beef-making
+and milk-yielding.
+
+The origin of the Shorthorns is uncertain; they originated from the
+Teeswater and Holderness varieties, but where these came from is a
+matter of dispute. Young, in his _Northern Tour_,[739] says, 'In
+Yorkshire the common breed was the short-horned kind of cattle called
+Holderness, but really the Dutch sort'; and many have said the
+Holderness and the Teeswater breeds both came from Holland, and were
+practically the same, while others assert the original home of the
+Teeswaters was the West Highlands.[740]
+
+John Lawrence speaks of the Dutch breed with short horns in 1726;[741]
+but, unless they were smuggled over, it certainly seems strange that
+any Dutch cattle should have been imported in the eighteenth century,
+for the importation of cattle was strictly forbidden during the whole
+century. It was George Culley's opinion that they came from Holland,
+because few were found except along the eastern coast; he also knew
+farmers who went over to Holland to buy bulls.[742]
+
+Be this as it may, it was the cattle of the Teeswater district in
+Durham that the Collings improved, and they are still called Durhams
+in many parts. The work of the Collings[743] was carried on by Thomas
+Booth, who farmed his own estate of Killerby in Yorkshire, where he
+turned his attention to Shorthorns about 1790, and by 1814 he was as
+well known as the Collings. He improved the Shorthorns by reducing the
+bone, especially the length and coarseness of the legs, the too
+prominent hips, and the heavy shoulder bones. In 1819 he removed to
+Warlaby, and died there in 1835, having given up the Killerby estate
+to his son John, who with his brother Richard ably sustained their
+father's reputation. 'Booth strains' equally with 'Bates strains', the
+results of the work of Bates of Kirkleavington, whose cattle we have
+seen at the Oxford Show in 1839, and whose herd was dispersed in 1850,
+have been the foundation of many famous herds, and can be traced in
+many a pedigree animal of to-day.
+
+The palmy days of the Shorthorns were the 'seventies' of the last
+century, when they made fabulous prices. At the great sale at New York
+Mills, in 1873, eleven females of the Duchess tribe averaged L4,522
+14s. 2d., and one cow sold for L8,458 6s. 8d. In 1877 Mr. Loder bought
+Third Duchess of Hillhurst for 4,100 guineas; in 1876 Lord Bective
+gave 4,300 guineas for Fifth Duchess of Hillhurst, then 16 months old;
+and in 1875 the bull Duke of Connaught sold for 4,500 guineas. It was
+not likely that with the advent of bad times these prices would
+continue, and nothing like them in the Shorthorn world has occurred
+since.
+
+
+_Herefords._[744]
+
+Herefordshire cattle have long been famous as one of the finest
+breeds in the world. Marshall, writing in 1788, does not hesitate to
+say, 'The Herefordshire breed of cattle, taking it all in all, may
+without risque be deemed the first breed of cattle in the land.'
+Their origin has been accounted for in various ways. Some say they
+were originally brown or reddish-brown from Normandy or Devon, others
+that they came from Wales, while it is recorded that Lord Scudamore
+in the latter half of the seventeenth century introduced red cows
+with white faces from Flanders. However, they do not emerge from
+obscurity until about the middle of the eighteenth century, when
+Messrs. Tomkins, Weyman, Yeomans, Hewer, and Tully devoted their
+energies to establishing a county breed. There were four varieties of
+Herefords, which have now practically merged into the red with white
+face, mane, and throat: the mottle face, with red marks intermixed
+with the parts usually white; the dark greys; light greys; and the
+red with the white face. The rivalry between the breeders of the
+white and the mottle faces almost caused the failure of the Herd-Book
+commenced in 1845 by Mr. Eyton. The mottle-faced party seems to have
+been then the most influential, but the dark and light grey varieties
+also had strong adherents. In 1857 Mr. Duckham took over the
+management of the Herd-Book, and to his exertions the breed owes a
+deep debt of gratitude. One of the greatest supporters of the
+Herefordshire breed was Mr. Westcar of Creslow, who, starting in
+1779, attended Hereford October Fair for forty years, and when the
+Smithfield Show commenced in 1799 won innumerable first prizes there
+with Herefordshire cattle. Between 1799 and 1811 twenty of his
+Herefordshire prize oxen averaged L106 6s. each, and at the sale of
+Mr. Ben Tomkins's herd after his death in 1819 twenty-eight breeding
+animals averaged L152, one cow fetching L262 15s. Herefords are
+famous for their feeding qualities at grass, and good stores are
+scarce, the best being fattened on their native pastures. They are
+not only almost the only breed in their own county, but few English
+counties south of Shropshire are without them; they have done well in
+Ireland, and in Canada, the United States, South America, and
+Australia have attained great success. They are not so well qualified
+for crossing as Shorthorns, but have blended well with that breed,
+and produced good crosses with Ayrshires and Jerseys, but not with
+Devons. It has been said that they are not a favourite sort with
+London butchers, as they require time to ripen, which does not suit a
+hurrying age. Hence they probably flourished best under the old
+school of graziers, who sometimes kept them to six or seven years
+old. At all events they are a very fine breed for beef purposes,
+their meat being particularly tender, juicy, and fine-grained. They
+are seldom kept for dairy purposes, being poor milkers; consequently
+the calf is nearly always allowed to run with the dam, which accounts
+for the fact that one seldom sees pure-bred Herefords that are not
+well grown. The highest price paid for a Hereford was 4,000 guineas
+for Lord Wilton in 1884.
+
+
+_Devons._
+
+The cattle of North Devon can be traced as the peculiar breed of the
+county from which they take their name from the earliest records.
+Bradley mentioned the red cattle of Somerset in 1726, and no doubt
+there were many in Devonshire.[745] William Marshall states (1805),
+and he is supported by subsequent writers, that 'they are of the
+middle horn class', and in his time so nearly resembled the
+Herefordshire breed in frame, colour, and horn, as not to be
+distinguishable from them, except in the greater cleanness of the head
+and fore-quarters, and their smaller size. Yet they could not have had
+the white faces and throats of the Herefords, as they have always been
+famous for their uniformity in colour--a fine dark red.[746] He also
+compares them to the cattle of Sussex and the native cattle of
+Norfolk.[747] The Devons then differed very much in different parts of
+the county; those of North Devon taking the lead, being 'nearly what
+cattle ought to be'. They were, considered as draught animals, the
+best workers anywhere beyond all comparison, though rather small, for
+which deficiency they made up in exertion and agility. As dairy cattle
+they were not very good, since rearing for the east country graziers
+had long been the main object of Devon cattle farmers, but as grazing
+cattle they were excellent.
+
+Vancouver, a few years after this, praised their activity in work and
+their unrivalled aptitude to fatten, but says they were then
+declining in their general standard of excellence, and in numbers,
+owing to the great demand for them from other parts of England, where
+the buyers (Mr. Coke, who had established a valuable herd of them,
+and others) spared neither pains nor price to obtain those of the
+highest excellence.
+
+This danger was clearly perceived by Francis Quartly of Molland, who
+set to work to remedy it by systematically buying the choicest cows he
+could procure. As the reputation and perhaps continuance of the Devon
+breed is due to him more than to any other man, his account of his own
+efforts on behalf of it is specially valuable.[748] At the end of the
+eighteenth century the principal North Devon yeomen were all breeders,
+and every week you might see in the Molton Market, their natural
+locality, animals that would now be called choice. There were few
+cattle shows in those days, and therefore the relative value of
+animals was not so easily tested. The war prices tempted many farmers
+to sell their best bulls and cows out of the district, so that good
+animals were becoming scarce, and the breed generally going back. Mr.
+Quartly therefore for years bought all the best animals he could find
+with rare skill and judgement, and continued to improve his stock till
+he brought it to perfection. About the year 1834 cattle shows began at
+Exeter, and for the first year or two Mr. Quartly did not compete;
+then he allowed his nephews to enter in all the classes, and they
+brought home all the prizes. This lead they kept, and at the Royal
+Show at Exeter in 1850 their stock obtained nine out of the ten prizes
+for Devons. The _Devon Herd-Book_ was first published in 1851 by
+Captain T.T. Davy, and a writer in 1858 says that of twenty-nine
+prize bulls in the first three volumes twenty-seven were descended
+from the Quartly bull Forester, and of thirty-four prize cows
+twenty-nine from the cow Curly, also of their stock.
+
+Among other famous breeders of Devons contemporary with Quartly were
+Messrs. Merson, Davy, Michael Thorne, Yapp, Buckingham, the Halses,
+and George Turner.
+
+In 1829 Moore says, 'The young heifers of North Devon, with their
+taper legs, the exact symmetry of their form, and their clear coats of
+dark red, are pictures of elegance.' Their superiority for grazing and
+draught was proved by the high prices demanded for them, but they were
+not equally esteemed as dairy animals,[749] though of late years this
+reproach has been removed. The ploughing of two acres of fallow land
+was the common work of four oxen, which, when fattened at five years
+old, would reach eleven score a quarter.
+
+Since the publication of the Herd-Book, Devons have spread all over
+the world, to Mexico, Jamaica, Canada, Australia, France, and United
+States, and the fact that in their original home they have been
+largely kept by tenant farmers proves them a good rent-paying breed.
+Yet it cannot be pretended that away from their native country they
+are as much valued as the Shorthorn and Hereford.
+
+The South Hams breed of South Devon is a distinct variety, though it
+is believed to be descended from the 'Rubies'[750] and apparently has
+at some time been crossed with the Guernsey; they are good milkers and
+attain a great size, but the quality of the meat is decidedly inferior
+to that of North Devon.
+
+From the earliest times the real Devon colour has been red, varying
+from a dark to a lighter or almost chestnut shade; half a century ago
+the lighter ones were more numerous than at present, and they are
+often of richer quality though less hardy than the dark ones.
+
+The Sussex is larger and coarser than the Devon, of a deep brown
+chestnut colour, very hardy, a beef-producing but not a milk-yielding
+sort.
+
+Longhorns,[751] a generation ago nearly extinct, once the favourite
+cattle of the midlands and portions of the north, are descended from a
+breed long established in the Craven district of Yorkshire. 'The true
+Lancashire,' said Young in 1770, 'were Longhorns, and in Derbyshire
+were a bastard sort of Lancashires.'[752] It was this breed that
+Bakewell improved, and of late years great efforts, chiefly in
+Warwickshire and Leicestershire, have been made to revive it.
+
+The Red Polled, or Norfolk Polled, is the only hornless breed of
+English cattle, and they are good milkers and fatteners.
+
+The Lincoln Red is a small red variety of the Shorthorn.
+
+Many of the Welsh breeds have spread into the adjacent parts of
+England, and may be classified as North and South Welsh, or Angleseys
+and Castle Martins; black in colour, and generally with long horns.
+
+The Scottish cattle--the Aberdeen Angus, the Galloways, the Highland
+breed, and the Ayrshires--are also seen in England, but not so often
+as the Jerseys and Guernseys from the Channel Islands, while the
+small Dexters and Kerrys from Ireland are favourites with some
+English farmers.
+
+
+SHEEP
+
+The sheep of the British Isles may be divided into three main
+classes:--
+
+1. Longwools, containing Leicesters, Border Leicester's, Cotswolds,
+Lincolns, Kentish, Devon Longwool, South Devon, Wensleydale, and
+Roscommon.
+
+2. Shortwools: the Oxford Downs, Southdowns, Shropshires, Hampshire
+Downs, Suffolks, Ryelands, Somerset and Dorset Horned, and Clun
+Forest.
+
+3. Mountain breeds: Cheviots, Blackfaced Mountain, Herdwick, Lonk,
+Dartmoor, Exmoor, Welsh Mountain, and Limestone.
+
+These are all English except the Border Leicester, Cheviot, and
+Blackfaced Mountain, which are Scotch; the Welsh Mountain is of
+course Welsh, and the Roscommon Irish.
+
+1. The Leicesters, the largest and in many respects the most
+important of British longwool sheep, are the sheep which Bakewell
+improved so greatly. They are capable of being brought to a great
+weight, and their long fine wool averages 7 lb. to the fleece.
+
+The Border Leicesters are an offshoot of the last named, bred on the
+Scottish Border, and originating from the flock which George and
+Matthew Culley in 1767 took from the Tees to the Tweed.
+
+The Cotswolds have been on the Gloucestershire hills for ages, and
+have long been famous for the length of their fleece, hardiness, and
+breeding qualities.
+
+The Lincoln is the result of the old native breed of the county
+improved by Leicester blood. They have larger heads and denser and
+heavier wool than the Leicesters, averaging 8 to 9 lb. to the fleece,
+but have been known to yield 14 lb.
+
+The Kentish or Romney Marsh have long existed in the district whence
+they obtain their name, but are not much known away from that
+locality.
+
+The Devon Longwool is a result of the infusion of Leicester blood
+among the old Bampton stock of Devonshire called Bampton Notts or
+polled sheep.
+
+The South Devons or South Hams are another local breed, and are a
+result of the improvement of the South Hams Notts by the Leicester.
+
+The Wensleydales are descendants of the old Teeswater breed, itself a
+variety of the old Leicester and improved by the new Leicesters of
+Culley.
+
+2. Oxford Downs, a modern black-faced breed, now widely spread all
+over the midland counties, are a mixture of Cotswolds with Hampshire
+Downs and Southdowns, and originated at the beginning of Queen
+Victoria's reign, but were not definitely so called till 1857. This
+cross of two distinct varieties, the long and the short wool, has
+approximated to the shortwool type.
+
+The Southdown, formerly Sussex Down, an old breed bred for ages on
+the chalky soils of the South Downs, is 'perhaps', says Youatt, 'the
+most valuable breed in the kingdom.' It was to John Ellman of Glynde,
+at the end of the eighteenth century, that they owe their present
+perfection, and they have exercised as much influence among the
+shortwools as the Leicesters among the longwools.
+
+The Shropshire sheep is a descendant of the original Longmynd or old
+Shropshire sheep, which began to be crossed by the Southdown at the
+commencement of the nineteenth century.[753] They were recognized as a
+distinct breed in 1853, and since then have become one of the most
+valued breeds, combining the symmetry and quality of the Southdown
+with the weight of the Cotswold and the fattening tendency of the
+Leicester, with a hardier constitution.
+
+The Hampshire Down is another instance of the widespread influence of
+the Southdown, being the result of crossing that breed with the old
+Wiltshire sheep, which had long curling horns, and the Berkshire
+Knott. They are heavier than the Shropshire, and are perhaps more
+distinguished for early maturity than any other breed.
+
+The Suffolk is derived from the old horned Norfolk ewe mated with the
+Southdown, and was first granted its name in 1859.
+
+The Ryeland is a small, hornless, white-faced breed which has been in
+Herefordshire for centuries, but of late years has dwindled in numbers
+before the advent of the Shropshire.
+
+The Somerset and Dorset Horned is another old breed, preserved in a
+pure state, much improved in modern times, and very hardy.
+
+The Clun Forest breed of West Shropshire and the adjacent parts of
+Wales is a mixture of the Ryeland, Shropshire, and Welsh breeds.
+
+3. The Cheviot is found on both sides of the hills of that name,
+though Northumberland is said to be its original home, and it was
+improved in the eighteenth century by crossing with the Lincoln.
+
+The Blackfaced Mountain breed is found chiefly in Scotland, but
+thrives on the bleak grazing lands of the north of England.
+
+The Herdwicks' home is the hills of Cumberland and Westmoreland,
+where they are hardy enough to fatten on the poor, thin pasture.
+
+The Lonk is the largest mountain breed, belonging to the fells of
+Yorkshire and Lancashire.
+
+The Dartmoors and Exmoors almost certainly came from one stock,
+though the former are now the larger, and are the few real survivors
+of the old forest or mountain breeds of England. The Exmoor is
+horned, the Dartmoor hornless.
+
+The Welsh Mountain is a small, hardy, soft-woolled breed, their
+mutton having the best flavour of any sheep, and their wool making
+the famous Welsh flannel.
+
+The Limestone is little known outside the fells of Westmoreland.
+
+
+PIGS
+
+Our pigs may be roughly divided into white, black, and red; the first
+comprising the Large, Middle, and Small Whites, formerly called
+Yorkshires; the second the Small Black (Suffolk or Essex), the Large
+Black only recently recognized, but apparently very ancient, and the
+Berkshire, which often has white marks on face, legs, or tail. The
+red is the Tamworth, one of the oldest breeds, its skin being red
+with dark spots.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[734] Youatt, _Complete Grazier_ (1900), p. 388; cf. pp. 104-5.
+
+[735] Youatt, _Complete Grazier_ (1900), p. 6.
+
+[736] See above.
+
+[737] _Rural Economy of West of England_, i. 235 cf. above, p. 235.
+
+[738] See above.
+
+[739] ii. 126; about 1770.
+
+[740] Youatt, _Complete Grazier_, p. 18, and see 'Druid', _Saddle and
+Sirloin_.
+
+[741] Cf. supra, p. 167.
+
+[742] _Culley on Live Stock_ (1807), p. 42.
+
+[743] See p. 233.
+
+[744] Much of these accounts of Herefords and Devons is from the
+author's articles in the _Victoria County History_.
+
+[745] See above.
+
+[746] Risdon, _Survey_ (1810), Introd. p. viii.
+
+[747] _Rural Economy of West of England_, i. 235. Risdon says of
+Devonshire: 'As to cattle, no part of the Kingdom is better supplied
+with beasts of all sorts, whether for profit or pleasure,' those for
+pleasure being apparently wild ones kept in parks.--Chapple's _Review
+of Risdon's Survey_, p. 23.
+
+[748] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1st ser.), xi. 680. See also ibid. xix. 368,
+and (2nd ser.) v. 107; xiv. 663; xx. 691.
+
+[749] _History of Devon_, i. 456.
+
+[750] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (3rd ser.), i. 527.
+
+[751] See above.
+
+[752] _Northern Tour_, ii. 126.
+
+[753] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1858), p. 42.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX I
+
+AVERAGE PRICES FROM 1259 TO 1700[754]
+
+
+CORN PER QUARTER.
+
+                  WHEAT.          BARLEY.        OATS.
+
+  1259-1400    5s. 10-3/4d.    4s. 3-3/4d.    2s.  5-3/4d.
+  1401-1540    5s. 11-3/4d.    3s. 8-3/4d.    2s.  2-1/4d.
+  1541-82     13s. 10-1/2d.    8s. 5-3/4d.    5s.  5-1/2d.
+  1583-1700   39s.  0-1/2d.   21s. 4d.       13s. 10d.
+
+                  RYE.            BEANS.
+
+  1259-1400    4s. 4-7/8d.     4s. 3-1/2d.
+  1401-1540    4s. 7-3/4d.     3s. 9-1/4d.
+  1541-82        --            9s. 1-1/2d.
+  1583-1700      --           22s. 3-1/4d.
+
+
+ LIVE STOCK.
+
+                OXEN.             COWS.      CART HORSES.[755]
+
+  1259-1400   13s. 1-1/4d.       9s. 5d.     16s. 4d.
+  1401-1540   moderate increase    14s.      unaltered
+  1541-82         55s.             32s.      great increase
+  1583-1700      100s.             60s.      1580-1640  L5 to L10
+                                             1640-1700  L8 to L15
+
+                                               PIGS
+              SHEEP.              LAMBS.      (GROWN).         BOARS.
+
+  1259-1400   1s. 2d. to 1s. 5d.    8d.          3s.           4s. 7d.
+  1401-1540   moderate increase     9d.       unaltered           6s.
+  1541-82     3s. to  4s. 6d.   2s. to 3s.  6s. 8d. to 8s.        --
+  1583-1700     10s. 7d.            --               great increase
+
+
+ POULTRY AND EGGS.
+
+                HENS.        DUCKS.      GEESE.      EGGS.
+
+  1259-1400     1-6/8d.          2d.     3-5/8d.     4-1/2d. per 120
+  1401-1540     2-1/4d.      2-1/4d.     4-3/4d.     6-1/2d     "
+  1541-82       4-3/4d.      4-3/4d.        10d.     7-1/2d.    "
+  1583-1700     8d.-1s.      9-1/4d.         2s.     3s. 3d.    "
+
+              WOOL.          CHEESE.             BUTTER.
+              Per lb.
+
+  1259-1400   3-5/7d.     4-1/2d. per 7 lb.   4-3/4d. per 7 lb.
+  1401-1540   3-5/7d.       1/2d. per lb.         1d. per lb.
+  1541-82     7-1/2d.         1d.    "            3d.    "
+  1583-1702   9d.-1s.     3-1/2d.    "        4-1/2d.    "
+
+                  HAY.              HOPS.
+                  Per load.         Per cwt.
+
+  1259-1400        3s. 8d.            --
+  1401-1540    unaltered 14s.       0-1/2d.
+  1541-82          9s. 6d.          26s. 8d.
+  1583-1702       26s. 4d.          82s. 9d.
+
+
+ LABOUR.
+
+               Reaping          Reaping                  Labourer per
+                 wheat           oats         Mowing      day without
+               per acre.        per acre.    per acre.       food.
+
+  1261-1350     5-5/8d.          4-7/8d.      5-1/4d.        2d.
+  1351-1400     8-1/2d.          8-1/4d.      7d.            3d.
+  1401-1540     9-3/4d.          8-1/4d.      8-1/8d.        4d.
+  1541-82        --[756]           --           --            6-1/2d.
+  1583-1640      --                --          1s. 7d.        8-1/2d.
+  1640-1700      --                --          1s. 8d.        10d.
+
+
+ PRICE OF LAND PER ACRE.
+
+                        To Rent.                    To Buy.
+                  Arable.       Grass.
+
+  1261-1350       4d.-6d.       1s.-2s.        12 years' purchase
+  1351-1400         6d.           2s.                  "
+  1401-1540         6d.           2s.             15-20 years
+  1541-82           slight increase                unaltered
+  1583-1640         great increase                 20 years
+  1641-1700         5s.           8s.                 "
+  1770                    10s.                     30 years
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[754] Summarized from Thorold Rogers' prices in his _History of
+Agriculture and Prices_, with some alterations.
+
+[755] Affri, 13s. 5d. cart horses, 19s. 4d. A good saddle horse about
+1300 was worth L5. By 1580 it was worth L10 to L15, by 1700 L20 to
+L25.
+
+[756] A decided increase, but prices fluctuate so much that it is hard
+to strike an average.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX II
+
+
+  TABLE SHOWING EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF
+  WHEAT AND FLOUR FROM AND INTO ENGLAND,
+  UNIMPORTANT YEARS OMITTED
+
+           Exports.      Imports.
+           Quarters.     Quarters.
+
+  England.
+  1697      14,699           400
+  1703     166,615            50
+  1717      22,954          none
+  1728       3,817        74,574
+  1733     427,199             7
+  1750     947,602           279
+
+  Great Britain.
+  1757      11,545       141,562
+  1758       9,234        20,353
+  1761     441,956          none
+  1767       5,071       497,905
+  1770      75,449            34
+  1775      91,037       560,988
+  1776     210,664        20,578
+  1780     224,059         3,915
+  1786     205,466        51,463
+  1787     120,536        59,339
+  1789     140,014       112,656
+  1791      70,626       469,056
+  1796      24,679       879,200
+  1801      28,406     1,424,765
+  1808      98,005        84,889
+  1810      75,785     1,567,126
+  1815     227,947       384,475
+  1825      38,796       787,606
+  1837     308,420     1,109,492
+  1839      42,512     3,110,729
+  1842      68,047     3,111,290
+
+The above figures are taken from McCulloch's _Commercial
+Dictionary_, 1847, p. 438, and agree roughly with those given by
+McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, iii. 674, and iv. 216 and 532.
+
+After 1842, exports played a very small part, and imports continued
+to increase; in 1847, 4,612,110 _quarters_ of wheat and flour
+came in; and the following figures show their growth in recent
+times:--
+
+   AVERAGE OF ANNUAL IMPORTS
+   OF WHEAT AND FLOUR IN CWTS.
+
+     1861-5        34,651,549
+     1866-70       37,273,678
+     1871-5        50,495,127
+     1876-80       63,309,874
+     1881-5        77,285,881
+     1886-90       77,794,380
+     1891-5        96,582,863
+     1896-1900     95,956,376
+     1901-5       111,638,817
+
+With regard to the exports and imports of all kinds of corn, large
+quantities were exported in the first half of the eighteenth century.
+In 1733, 800,000 quarters were sent to France, Portugal, Spain, and
+Italy,[757] and exports reached their maximum in 1750 with 1,667,778
+quarters, but by 1760 had decreased to 600,000, and after that fell
+considerably; in 1771, for instance, the first year of the corn
+register, they only amounted to 81,665 quarters, whereas imports were
+203,122. The figures of the imports were swollen by the large
+quantities of oats which came into England at this time. The following
+years are typical of the fluctuations in the trade:--
+
+                  Exports.             Imports.
+  1774             47,961              803,844
+  1776            376,249              444,121
+  1780            400,408              219,093
+  1782            278,955              133,663
+  1783            104,274              852,389
+  1784-8      large excess of imports, mainly oats
+  1789            652,764              478,426
+
+the last year when exports of all kinds of corn exceeded imports.[758]
+
+To sum up, according to these figures, England's exports of wheat
+regularly exceeded her imports from 1697 until 1757, with the
+exception of the years 1728-9; then they fluctuated till 1789, the
+last year in which exports of wheat exceeded imports, and as the same
+year is the last time when our exports of all kinds of corn exceeded
+our imports, England at that date ceased to be an exporting country.[759]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[757] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, iii. 198.
+
+[758] Ibid. iii. 674; iv. 216, 532.
+
+[759] The excess of exports of wheat in 1808 was accidentally due to
+the requirements of the army in Spain.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX III
+
+
+AVERAGE PRICES PER IMPERIAL QUARTER OF BRITISH CORN IN ENGLAND
+AND WALES, IN EACH YEAR FROM 1771 TO 1907 INCLUSIVE, ACCORDING TO
+THE RETURNS OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE
+
+  YEARS.   WHEAT.   BARLEY.    OATS.
+           s. d.     s. d.     s. d.
+
+  1771     48  7     26  5     17  2
+  1772     52  3     26  1     16  8
+  1773     52  7     29  2     17  8
+  1774     54  3     29  4     18  4
+  1775     49 10     26  9     17  0
+
+  1776     39  4     20  9     15  5
+  1777     46 11     21  1     16  1
+  1778     43  3     23  4     15  7
+  1779     34  8     20  1     14  5
+  1780     36  9     17  6     13  2
+
+  1781     46  0     17  8     14  1
+  1782     49  3     23  2     15  7
+  1783     54  3     31  3     20  5
+  1784     50  4     28  8     18 10
+  1785     43  1     24  9     17  8
+
+  1786     40  0     25  1     18  6
+  1787     42  5     23  4     17  2
+  1788     46  4     22  8     16  1
+  1789     52  9     23  6     16  6
+  1790     54  9     26  3     19  5
+
+  1791     48  7     26 10     18  1
+  1792     43  0     27  7     16  9
+  1793     49  3     31  1     20  6
+  1794     52  3     31  9     21  3
+  1795     75  2     37  5     24  5
+
+  1796     78  7     35  4     21 10
+  1797     53  9     27  2     16  3
+  1798     51 10     29  0     19  5
+  1799     69  0     36  2     27  6
+  1800    113 10     59 10     39  4
+
+  1801    119  6     68  6     37  0
+  1802     69 10     33  4     20  4
+  1803     58 10     25  4     21  6
+  1804     62  3     31  0     24  3
+  1805     89  9     44  6     28  4
+
+  1806     79  1     38  8     27  7
+  1807     75  4     39  4     28  4
+  1808     81  4     43  5     33  4
+  1809     97  4     47  0     31  5
+  1810    106  5     48  1     28  7
+
+  1811     95  3     42  3     27  7
+  1812    126  6     66  9     44  6
+  1813    109  9     58  6     38  6
+  1814     74  4     37  4     25  8
+  1815     65  7     30  3     23  7
+
+  1816     78  6     33 11     27  2
+  1817     96 11     49  4     32  5
+  1818     86  3     53 10     32  5
+  1819     74  6     45  9     28  2
+  1820     67 10     33 10     24  2
+
+  1821     56  1     26  0     19  6
+  1822     44  7     21 10     18  1
+  1823     53  4     31  6     22 11
+  1824     63 11     36  4     24 10
+  1825     68  6     40  0     25  8
+
+  1826     58  8     34  4     26  8
+  1827     58  6     37  7     28  2
+  1828     60  5     32 10     22  6
+  1829     66  3     32  6     22  9
+  1830     64  3     32  7     24  5
+
+  1831     66  4     38  0     25  4
+  1832     58  8     33  1     20  5
+  1833     52 11     27  6     18  5
+  1834     46  2     29  0     20 11
+  1835     39  4     29 11     22  0
+
+  1836     48  6     32 10     23  1
+  1837     55 10     30  4     23  1
+  1838     64  7     31  5     22  5
+  1839     70  8     39  6     25 11
+  1840     66  4     36  5     25  8
+
+  1841     64  4     32 10     22  5
+  1842     57  3     27  6     19  3
+  1843     50  1     29  6     18  4
+  1844     51  3     33  8     20  7
+  1845     50 10     31  8     22  6
+
+  1846     54  8     32  8     23  8
+  1847     69  9     44  2     28  8
+  1848     50  6     31  6     20  6
+  1849     44  3     27  9     17  6
+  1850     40  3     23  5     16  5
+
+  1851     38  6     24  9     18  7
+  1852     40  9     28  6     19  1
+  1853     53  3     33  2     21  0
+  1854     72  5     36  0     27 11
+  1855     74  8     34  9     27  5
+
+  1856     69  2     41  1     25  2
+  1857     56  4     42  1     25  0
+  1858     44  2     34  8     24  6
+  1859     43  9     33  6     23  2
+  1860     53  3     36  7     24  5
+
+  1861     55  4     36  1     23  9
+  1862     55  5     35  1     22  7
+  1863     44  9     33 11     21  2
+  1864     40  2     29 11     20  1
+  1865     41 10     29  9     21 10
+
+  1866     49 11     37  5     24  7
+  1867     64  5     40  0     26  0
+  1868     63  9     43  0     28  1
+  1869     48  2     39  5     26  0
+  1870     46 11     34  7     22 10
+
+  1871     56  8     36  2     25  2
+  1872     57  0     37  4     23  2
+  1873     58  8     40  5     25  5
+  1874     55  9     44 11     28 10
+  1875     45  2     38  5     28  8
+
+  1876     46  2     35  2     26  3
+  1877     56  9     39  8     25 11
+  1878     46  5     40  2     24  4
+  1879     43 10     34  0     21  9
+  1880     44  4     33  1     23  1
+
+  1881     45  4     31 11     21  9
+  1882     45  1     31  2     21 10
+  1883     41  7     31 10     21  5
+  1884     35  8     30  8     20  3
+  1885     32 10     30  1     20  7
+
+  1886     31  0     26  7     19  0
+  1887     32  6     25  4     16  3
+  1888     31 10     27 10     16  9
+  1889     29  9     25 10     17  9
+  1890     31 11     28  8     18  7
+
+  1891     37  0     28  2     20  0
+  1892     30  3     26  2     19 10
+  1893     26  4     25  7     18  9
+  1894     22 10     24  6     17  1
+  1895     23  1     21 11     14  6
+
+  1896     26  2     22 11     14  9
+  1897     30  2     23  6     16 11
+  1898     34  0     27  2     18  5
+  1899     25  8     25  7     17  0
+  1900     26 11     24 11     17  7
+
+  1901     26  9     25  2     18  5
+  1902     28  1     25  8     20  2
+  1903     26  9     22  8     17  2
+  1904     28  4     22  4     16  4
+  1905     29  8     24  4     17  4
+
+  1906     28  3     24  2     18  4
+  1907     30  7     25  1     18 10
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX IV
+
+MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION
+
+
+Gregory King, at the end of the seventeenth century, estimated the
+acreage of England and Wales at 39,000,000--not at all a bad
+estimate, the area, excluding water, according to the Board of
+Agriculture Returns of 1907, being 37,130,344. The different
+estimates by Grew, Templeman, Petty, Young, Halley, Middleton, and
+others varied between 31,648,000 and 46,916,000 acres. The last, that
+of Arthur Young, was actually adopted by Pitt for his estimate of the
+income-tax.[760]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Caird in 1850[761] estimated the cultivated lands of England at
+27,000,000 acres (in 1907 they were 24,585,455 acres), cultivated
+thus:--
+
+  Permanent grass      13,333,000
+  Arable               13,667,000
+
+the latter being divided as follows:--
+
+                                    Acres.    Bushels     Produce,
+                                              per acre.   quarters.
+
+  Wheat                           3,416,750      27      11,531,531
+  Barley                          1,416,750      38       6,729,562
+  Oats and rye                    2,000,000      44      11,000,000
+  Clover and seeds                2,277,750
+  Beans and peas                  1,139,000      30       4,271,250
+  Turnips, marigolds, & potatoes  2,116,750
+  Rape and fallow                 1,300,000
+
+Davenant, at the end of the seventeenth century, made the following
+estimate showing the importance of wool in English trade[762]:--
+
+  Annual income of England        L43,000,000
+  Yearly rent of land              10,000,000
+  Value of wool shorn yearly        2,000,000
+    "      woollen manufactures    10,000,000
+
+Thus the rents of land formed nearly one-fourth the total income of
+the country, and wool paid one-fifth of the rents.[763]
+
+In the eighteenth century a great quantity of wool was smuggled out
+of England in defiance of the law; in the space of four months in
+1754, 4,000 tods was 'run' into Boulogne.[764]
+
+
+  FOREIGN AND COLONIAL WOOL
+  IMPORTED INTO ENGLAND.[765]
+
+                   lb.
+
+  1766          1,926,000
+  1771          1,829,000
+  1780            323,000
+  1790          2,582,000
+  1800          8,609,000
+  1810         10,914,000
+  1820          9,775,000
+  1830         32,305,000
+  1840         49,436,000
+  1850         74,326,000
+  1855         99,300,000
+  1857        127,390,000
+
+
+  PRICES OF LABOUR IN SURREY IN 1780.[766]
+
+                                                               s.  d.
+
+  Day labourer, per day, in winter                             1   4
+       "           "     in summer                             1   6
+  Reaping wheat, per acre                                      7   0
+        "          "      and according to the crop up to     12   0
+  Mowing barley, per acre                                      2   6
+     "   oats,     "                               1s. 6d. to  2   0
+     "   grass     "                                           2   6
+  Hand-hoeing turnips, per acre, first time                    6   0
+           "              "      second time                   4   0
+  Thatching hayricks, per square of 100 ft.                    1   0
+  Washing and shearing sheep, per score                        3   0
+  Ploughing light land, per acre                               5   0
+      "     stiff   "     "                           7s. to  10   0
+  Common hurdles, each                                             5
+
+
+OCCUPIERS OF LAND.
+
+In 1816 there were said to be 589,374 occupiers of land in Great
+Britain[767]--
+
+  With incomes under L50              114,778
+  Between L50 and L150                432,534
+  Over L150                            42,062
+                                      -------
+                                      589,374
+                                      =======
+
+In 1907 there were 510,954 occupiers of one acre and more.
+
+MULHALL'S CALCULATION OF AVERAGE ANNUAL WAGES IN ENGLAND.
+
+        Bailiff.   Shepherd.   Labourer.   Woman.   Boy.
+
+  1800    L20         L16         L12        L8      L6
+  1850     40          25          20        10       8
+  1880     52          36          30        15      10
+
+The average annual cost of living of an agricultural family of five
+was in 1823 L31, in 1883, L37.
+
+   COMPARATIVE STATEMENT BY A. YOUNG OF PRICES AND WAGES IN ENGLAND
+   FROM 1200 TO 1810 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF REPRESENTING FACTS
+   IN 1810 BY THE NUMBER 20, AND THE FACTS OF THE PRECEDING PERIODS
+   BY THE PROPORTION BORNE BY THEM TO THAT NUMBER.
+
+                                           Labourer's
+ Periods.    Wheat.     Meat.      Wool.      Wages.     Horses.
+
+ 1200-99     5-1/2          ...        3-1/2       ...
+ 1300-99     6-1/4          ...        4-3/4       ...
+ 1400-99     3              ...        5-1/2       ...
+ 1500-99     6              ...        5-1/2       ...
+ 1600-99     9-1/4          ...        8           ...
+ 1700-66     7-3/4       7-1/2     12         10          15-3/4
+ 1767-89    11          11-1/2     15-1/3     12-1/2      17-1/4
+ 1790-1803  13          16-1/2     16-1/6     16-3/4      19-1/2
+ 1804-10    20          20         20         20          20
+
+Thus wheat in 1804-10 had risen 233 per cent. since the sixteenth
+century.
+
+
+THE LABOURER'S WAGES.
+
+The following table, published by Mr. Barton in 1817,[768] shows
+the depreciation of the labourer's wages in purchasing power between
+1742 and 1808:--
+
+             Weekly      Price of    Wages in
+  Period.     pay.        wheat.     pints of
+              s.  d.      s.   d.     bread.
+
+  1742-52     6   0       30   0        102
+  1761-70     7   6       42   6         90
+  1780-90     8   0       51   2         80
+  1795-9      9   0       70   8         65
+  1800-8     11   0       86   8         60
+
+In answer to inquiries sent by the Poor Law Commissioners in 1834 to
+900 parishes in England the average weekly wages of labourers were--
+
+  in summer,
+                                                  s.     d.
+
+         in 254 parishes, with beer or cider      10   4-3/4
+            522    "      without beer or cider   10   5-1/2
+
+  in winter,
+
+         in 200    "      with beer or cider       9   2-1/4
+            544    "      without beer or cider    9   11-3/4
+
+The annual average inclusive earnings of the labourer
+
+                                           L     s.   d.
+
+  himself were stated at                   27   17   10
+  and of his wife and children             13   19   10
+                                           ------------
+                                           41   17    8
+                                           ============
+
+It will thus be seen that the wife and children provided a third of
+the income. The majority of the parishes said the labourer could
+maintain his family on these wages.
+
+Here is the weekly budget of a labourer with an average family in
+1800:--[769]
+
+            Cr.            s.  d.
+
+  Wages                    15  0
+  Garden                    1  6
+  Extras                    1  0
+                           -----
+                           17  6
+                           =====
+
+            Dr.             s. d.
+
+  Rent                      1  7-1/2
+  Bread                     6  0
+  Bacon                     2  6
+  Tea and sugar             1  3
+  Cheese                    1  6
+  Butter                    1  6
+  Fuel                      1  3
+  Candles and soap          0  6
+  Clothes                   1  6
+  Schooling                 0  3
+  Sundries                  0  6
+                           ---------
+                           18  4-1/2
+                           =========
+
+There is no fresh meat, and it is hard to say where any economy could
+be practised.
+
+   CONTRACT PRICES OF
+   BUTCHER'S MEAT PER CWT.
+   AT GREENWICH HOSPITAL,
+   1730-1842.[770]
+
+           L    s.   d.
+
+   1730    1    5    8
+   1740    1    8    0
+   1750    1    6    6
+   1760    1   11    6
+   1770    1    8    6
+   1780    1   12    6
+   1790    1   16   10
+   1800    4    4
+   1810    3   12    0
+   1815    3    8    0
+   1820    3   10    4
+   1825    2   19    6
+   1830    2    3    6
+   1835    2    0    7
+   1840    2   14    0
+   1842    2   12    8
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[760] C. Wren Hoskyns, _Pamphlet on Agricultural Statistics_, p. 19.
+
+[761] _English Agriculture in 1850-1_, p. 521. Cf. above, p. 331.
+
+[762] Smith, _Memoirs of Wool_, i. 157.
+
+[763] In 1908 the rental of agricultural land was 3-1/2 per cent. of
+the total income of the country. See _The Times_ May 13, 1909.
+
+[764] Ibid. ii. 264.
+
+[765] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, ii. 693. Cf. above, p. 328.
+
+[766] Trusler, _Practical Husbandry_, p. 153.
+
+[767] Farmer's Magazine (1817), p. 6. Statistics at this date,
+however, must be taken with caution. They were usually estimates. Cf.
+above, p. 334, for holdings in England.
+
+[768] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1881), xvi, 305.
+
+[769] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1881), xvi. 310.
+
+[770] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1852), p. 271.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+A
+
+Abbot's Ripton, 72.
+
+Aberdeen Angus cattle, 288, 343.
+
+Accounts, keeping, 29, 49.
+
+Accumulation of estates, 123.
+
+Acre, 2; tenantry, 253.
+
+Advantages of large farms, 202.
+
+Affer, the, 35.
+
+Agricultural Holdings Acts, 283, 296, 299-303.
+
+Agricultural revolution, the, of eighteenth century, 162.
+
+Agriculture,
+  state of, 28, 38, 111, 113, 115, 123, 132, 160, 162, 192, 204,
+    211, 221, 229, 244, 245, 250, 265, 267, 274, 287, 305;
+  seventeenth-century writers on, 127;
+  state of, in eighteenth century, 162, 192, 221, 229;
+  nineteenth, 244, 245, 262-70, 271, 287.
+
+Aitchison, 237.
+
+Akermanni, 13.
+
+Alderney cattle, 233.
+
+Ale, 10.
+
+Allotments, 196, 230, 253, 255n., 315-7.
+
+Allowance system, 237.
+
+Allowances, parish, 238, 241, 257, 284.
+
+Almaine, corn from, 20.
+
+Almonds, 93, 136.
+
+Amalgamation of farms, 29, 46, 47, 95, 119, 120, 162, 202, 258, 317.
+
+America,
+  gold discoveries in, 287;
+  imports from, 262, 293, 323-4.
+
+Ancaster, Earl of, estate of, 321.
+
+Andover, 39.
+
+Anti-Corn Law League, 280.
+
+Apples, 15, 65, 93, 129, 130, 131, 135-6, 143, 171, 186-9, 329, 332.
+  (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Apprentices, 108.
+
+Apricots, 93, 136.
+
+Arable district of England (1893), 306n.
+
+Arable fields, 1, 2, 4, 16, 73.
+
+Arable land, 56, 99, 100, 195;
+  amount of, in 1688, 155;
+  decrease of, 59;
+  extent of, in Domesday, 19;
+  in 1770, 199;
+  in 1850, 353;
+  in 1877 and 1907, 332;
+  preponderance of, 25, 30;
+  produce of, in 1688, 155;
+  suffers more than grass, 248, 266, 281, 285, 286, 306;
+  value of, 19, 40, 58, 115-7, 139.
+
+Arch, Joseph, 290-2.
+
+Ardley, Inquisition of, 9.
+
+Argentina, imports from, 324.
+
+Arley, Upper, wine made at, 145.
+
+Artificial grasses, _see_ Clover, improve commons, 166.
+
+Ash timber, value of, 137.
+
+Assize of beer, 13, 14n.
+
+Association, British, 336.
+
+Average crops of corn (1770), 197.
+  (_See under_ Wheat, Oats, Barley, &c.)
+
+Average size of farms in 1768, 202.
+
+Averagium, 10.
+
+Australia, gold discoveries in, 287;
+  imports from, 324;
+  sheep introduced into, 328;
+  wool from, 328.
+
+Axholme, 123, 260, 311, 318.
+
+Ayrshires, 339, 343.
+
+
+B
+
+Bacon, Lord, 322,
+
+Bacon, 'the necessary meate' of the labourer, 102, 140;
+  price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+Badger, a corn dealer, 134.
+
+Bailiff, 12, 29, 49, 51, 61, 71, 103, 109, 110, 137, 139, 355.
+
+Bakewell, 146, 163-7, 214-7, 226, 233, 343, 344.
+
+Balance sheet, estate, 307;
+  farm, in 1805, 247;
+  in 1888, 309.
+
+Balks, 3.
+
+Ball, John, 60.
+
+Banbury cheese, 173.
+
+Bank Restriction Act, 239, 240, 263.
+
+Barking Nunnery, vineyard at, 144.
+
+Barley, 20, 33, 36, 65, 91, 124, 135, 142, 155, 182, 227, 331-2, 353;
+  cost of, per acre, 198;
+  produce, per acre, 165n., 197-8;
+  profit on, 179, 180. (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Barns, size of, 51.
+
+Barren years at end of seventeenth century, 115, 157.
+
+Basic slag, 304.
+
+Bassingthorpe, 103.
+
+Bates, Thomas, 274, 338.
+
+Bath, wine made at, 145.
+
+Beale, John, 128, 130.
+
+Beans, 17, 33, 49, 124, 155, 187, 201, 262, 331-2, 353;
+  cost of growing, 199;
+  profit on, 180. (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Bedford, Duke of, 225, 318, 321.
+
+Bedfordshire, 3, 18, 79, 120, 123, 238, 306.
+
+Beef, price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+Beer, 36, 329.
+
+Belgium,
+  live stock in, 334;
+  wheat crops in, 332n.
+
+Belvoir estate, 115, 286.
+
+Berkeley estates, 3, 27n., 35n., 48, 56, 64, 74, 75.
+
+Berkshire, 104, 175, 237, 284, 286, 306n.
+
+Berkshire Knotts, 345;
+  pigs, 346.
+
+Berlin decrees, 242.
+
+Best, Henry, accounts of, 138-40.
+
+Bideford, 262.
+
+Biggleswade, 318.
+
+Birds eating fruit, 129.
+
+Black Death, 27, 41-3, 59, 75.
+
+Black Year, the, 294.
+
+Blight, Hop, 150.
+
+Blyth, 113, 127, 137, 152.
+
+Board of Agriculture, 192, 193, 214, 229-33, 255;
+  (Government), 290.
+
+Bones for manure, 154-5, 273, 275-6, 299.
+
+Booth, Thomas, 337-8.
+
+Bordarii, 8, 11.
+
+Boston, 308, 318, 327.
+
+Boys' wages, 206.
+
+Bradley, 152, 167, 168-9, 170, 171, 181, 336.
+
+Brampton, 235.
+
+Bread, different kinds of, 54, 102, 206-7, 230;
+  rye, 101, 134, 206;
+  wheaten, a luxury, 101;
+  common, 207, 240;
+  made of turnips, 157;
+  price of (_see_ Prices).
+
+Breeding of stock, 37, 146, 167, 215-7, 256, 273.
+
+Brentford, 157.
+
+Bridport, 262.
+
+Bright, John, 280.
+
+Buckinghamshire, 78, 146, 172, 291, 306n.
+
+Buckwheat, 332.
+
+Budget, labourer's weekly, 206, 208, 356.
+
+Buildings, farm, and repairs, 51, 272, 279, 282, 299, 302, 307, 310.
+
+Bull, description of a (1726), 167.
+
+Burford, riot at, 185.
+
+Buri, 8, 11.
+
+Bury St. Edmunds, 110, 147.
+
+Butter, 33, 63n., 66, 114, 138, 140, 161, 174, 205, 206n., 241, 247
+  (_see_ Prices), 304, 305, 313, 325;
+  exports of, 326-7.
+
+By-industries of peasant, 110, 239, 250, 257, 260, 269, 317.
+
+
+C
+
+Cabbages, 112, 143, 187, 191, 194, 200, 201, 331.
+
+Cadaveratores, 13.
+
+Caird, Sir James, 279, 281, 285, 287, 310, 314, 319n.
+
+Cake, 296, 300, 305, 314.
+
+Calstock, 318.
+
+Calves, killing of, forbidden, 86;
+  rearing, 125.
+
+Cambridgeshire, 79, 151, 167, 222, 262, 306n., 318.
+
+Camden, 173, 335.
+
+Canada, imports from, 323-4.
+
+Canterbury, hops from, 171.
+
+Capital of farmers, 197, 203-4.
+
+Carrington, Lord, 231.
+
+Carrots, 112, 128, 143, 167, 191, 194, 331. 332.
+
+Carter, wages of, 110.
+
+Cart-horses, price of, 35, 114.
+
+Carts, 153.
+
+Cattle, Chillingham, 336;
+  diseases, 85;
+  export of, 326, 330;
+  improvement in, 336, 337, 338 (_see_ Cattle, size of);
+  number of, in 1867 and 1878, 288;
+  in 1907, 333-4;
+  original breed of, 336;
+  price of, _see_ Prices;
+  size of, 37, 104, 146, 169, 288, 336, 342;
+  separation of, for summer pasture, 124;
+  sorts of (1726), 167 (_see under_ Various breeds);
+  about 1800, 235;
+  in 1839, 274;
+  in 1892, 274, 336;
+  time to buy, 125. (_See_ Bakewell, Collings, Exports, _and_ Imports.)
+
+Cattle plagues, of eighteenth century, 172, 185-6, 290;
+  of nineteenth century, 289-90, 294.
+
+Cauliflowers, 143.
+
+Causes of high prices at end of eighteenth century, 240.
+
+Celery, 318.
+
+Chamberlayne, 259.
+
+Cheddar cheese, 173.
+
+Cheese, 33, 63n., 66, 161, 173, 174, 200, 206n., 276, 305, 313, 325.
+  (_See_ Prices, Exports, _and_ Imports.)
+
+Chelmsford, 110, 171, 307.
+
+Chemistry, agricultural, 232, 243, 275.
+
+Cherries, 15, 129, 130, 131, 136, 143, 171, 329, 332.
+
+Cheshire, 3, 110, 167, 173, 224, 276, 295, 306.
+
+Chestnuts, 136.
+
+Cheviots, 344, 346,
+
+Child, Josiah, 117.
+
+Christ Church, Canterbury, 42.
+
+Cider, 37, 130, 131, 135-6, 149, 187-9, 207, 269.
+
+Cistercians, good farmers, 29, 327.
+
+Civil War, checks improvement, 113;
+  family settlements after, 123.
+
+Claret made in Oxfordshire, 145.
+
+Clarke, 236.
+
+Close parishes, 158, 284.
+
+Cloth made in England, 69, 70.
+
+Clothes, part of wages, 28, 109;
+  of labourer, 54, 71, 109, 185, 206-8, 211, 311;
+  of farmer, 105, 213.
+
+Clover, cost of growing, 198;
+  extent of, 331, 333, 353;
+  introduced, 111, 112;
+  spread of, 115, 141-2, 164, 166, 178, 179, 191, 194;
+  seed, price of, 223;
+  sown with corn, 166.
+
+Clun Forest sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Clydesdale horse, 335.
+
+Cobbett, 107, 226, 265, 268.
+
+Cobden, Richard, 279n., 280, 285n.
+
+Coinage, depreciation of, 44, 59, 89.
+
+Coke of Holkham, 163, 182, 224-8, 275, 341.
+
+'Coke's Clippings', 227.
+
+Coleseed, 115.
+
+Coliberti, 8.
+
+Collings, the, 146, 163, 167, 233-5, 337.
+
+Combe, 53.
+
+'Comet,' 234, 235.
+
+Commissions, Royal, on Agriculture, &c., 260, 266, 289, 294-6, 300, 303,
+  304, 305, 311-14, 316, 318, 320, 329.
+
+Committees, Parliamentary, 256, 258, 263n., 266, 267.
+
+Common, John, 303.
+
+Common fields, 22, 26, 78, 112, 113, 118-9, 120, 194, 253, 258.
+
+Common land, 3, 145, 148;
+  evils of, 148, 194, 256, 257;
+  improvement of, 166.
+
+Common pasture, _see_ Pasture _and_ Meadows.
+
+Commons, advantages of, 165;
+  extent of, in 1795, 231;
+  rights of, lost, 253.
+
+Communities and corporations contrasted, 2.
+
+Commutation of labour services for money, 27, 45.
+
+Compensation for improvements, 296, 299-302.
+
+Competition, foreign, 296, 297, 312, 315, 319, 323-30.
+
+Consolidation of farms, _see_ Amalgamation.
+
+Contractors for labour, 209.
+
+Co-operation in agriculture, 1.
+
+Copyholders, 59, 121-2.
+
+Corn laws, 63, 64, 69, 70, 159, 160, 242, 248, 250, 265-6, 277-80.
+
+Cornwall, 136, 186, 295, 309, 318.
+
+Cost of living (1773-1800), 241.
+
+Cotarii, 8, 11, 25.
+
+Cotswold sheep, 233, 275, 343, 344;
+  wool, famous, 172.
+
+Cottages, 52, 117, 121n., 139, 158, 159, 206, 209, 250, 254, 255,
+  267-8, 285, 297, 304, 311n., 315-6.
+
+Court Rolls, of Manydown, 13.
+
+Cowper, John, 165.
+
+Cows, decrease in number of, 96;
+  increase, 325;
+  let out by the year, 34, 57, 65;
+  yield of, 33, 64. (_See_ Prices of Cattle.)
+
+Craik improves drill, 202.
+
+Craven, migration from, 44.
+
+Crimean War, effect of, 277n., 287.
+
+Crondall, 28.
+
+Crows' and magpies' nests to be destroyed, 100.
+
+Culley, George, 217, 234, 337, 344.
+
+Cultivated land, amount of, in 1685, 120;
+  in 1867, 288.
+
+Cultivation, Walter of Henley on, 32;
+  of England, in 1688, 155;
+  the old and new ways of, 177, 180, 194, 200-2.
+
+Cultivation, clauses, 57, 178, 218, 296, 302, 322.
+
+Cumberland, 238, 295, 309, 311, 346.
+
+Currants, 331.
+
+Custom of the country, 299, 300n., 302 (_see_ Tenant right).
+
+Cuxham, manor of, 24.
+
+Cylindrical drain pipes, 272.
+
+
+D
+
+Dairy, the, and dairying, 33, 59, 168, 170, 173, 199-200, 297, 307,
+  306, 313, 319, 325, 340-1.
+  (_See_ Butter, Cheese, _and_ Milk.)
+
+Damsons, 15, 136.
+
+Danegeld, 6.
+
+Dartmoor sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Davenant, 115, 117, 120, 260, 354.
+
+Daventry, common fields at, 115, 117, 120, 260, 354.
+
+Davy, Sir H., 232, 276;
+  T.T., 342.
+
+Dealers, legislation against, 86, 93, 134;
+  complaints against, 237.
+
+Defoe, Daniel, 166, 168, 169, 171, 174, 220, 259.
+
+Degge, Simon, 122.
+
+Demesne, 7, 15, 30, 45, 56, 58, 65, 74, 97, 99.
+
+Denmark, imports from, 241, 262, 323-4;
+  livestock in, 334;
+  wheat crops in, 332n.
+
+Depression, agricultural, 163, 183, 184, 223, 228, 242, 248,
+  262-70, 281, 292, 293-6, 305-14.
+
+Derby, Lord, estate of, 320n.
+
+Derbyshire, 44, 167, 309, 343.
+
+Devon cattle, 168, 217, 225, 233, 274, 288, 336, 339, 340-3.
+  (_See_ Southams.)
+
+Devon sheep, 343, 344.
+
+Devonshire, 37, 73, 107, 113, 128, 132, 136, 186, 187, 244, 245, 269,
+  272, 295, 306, 309, 338.
+
+Devonshiring, 141.
+
+D'Ewes, Sir S., quoted, 117, 133.
+
+Dexters, 343.
+
+Dibbling wheat, 135.
+
+Digging for wheat, 135.
+
+Diseases of Animals Act (1890), 290.
+
+Dishley, 214-6.
+
+Distress, law of, 296, 301;
+  periods of, 42, 68 (_see_ Depression, agricultural), 237, 242.
+
+Divining rod, 232.
+
+Domesday, 5, 14, 16, 19, 60, 79, 144.
+
+Doncaster, roads near, 221.
+
+Dorking, manor of, 65.
+
+Dorset, 3, 263, 285, 291, 312, 318;
+  sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Dovecotes, _see_ Pigeons.
+
+Drainage, 16, 32, 113, 128, 129, 137, 154, 163, 201, 202, 213-4, 219, 230,
+  271, 273, 279, 282, 288, 299, 300, 305, 307, 310.
+
+Drills, 113, 152, 175-7, 180, 183, 200-2, 226, 227, 271, 274.
+
+Drinking habits, 207-8, 269.
+
+Drying hops, 151.
+
+Duchesses, the, 234, 274, 338.
+
+Duckham, Mr., 339.
+
+Ducks, 170 (_see_ Poultry).
+
+Dugdale, 77.
+
+Du-Hamel, 202.
+
+Durham, 119, 337.
+
+Durham ox, 234, 235.
+
+Dutch breed of cattle, _see_ Shorthorns.
+
+
+E
+
+Eakring, common meadows at, 22.
+
+Eardisley, 5.
+
+East Indies, wool from, 328.
+
+Eden, account of potatoes, 106, 207, 238, 256.
+
+Education Acts, 292, 297.
+
+Egypt, imports from, 323.
+
+Eighteenth century, general characteristics of, 162.
+
+Electricity applied to vegetables, 236.
+
+Elevator, hay and straw, 304.
+
+Elkington of Princethorpe, 213-4, 230, 271.
+
+Ellis, Chiltern and Vale Farming, 180.
+
+Ellman, John, 217, 345.
+
+Enclosers prosecuted in Star Chamber, 120.
+
+Enclosure, 74-82, 85, 92, 96, 97, 119, 173, 182, 194, 228, 252-261;
+  agreement as to, 98;
+  acts of, 119, 163, 196, 231, 233, 252, 253, 258;
+  amount of, exaggerated, 121;
+  different kinds of, 73, 119, 165, 196;
+  eighteenth century, 163, 165, 173, 182, 183, 194, 196, 253;
+  evils of, 194, 195, 252-3, 254-61, 316;
+  expense of, 196, 252;
+  non-parliamentary,165, 253;
+  a deed of, 75;
+  a sign of progress, 76, 114, 139, 145-8, 253;
+  legislation against, 79, 80, 120;
+  checked, 120.
+
+England, appearance of, in fifteenth century, 78;
+  in the seventeenth, 120-1.
+
+English invaders, 1.
+
+Entails, barred, 122.
+
+Essex, 62, 78, 106, 128, 173, 190, 225, 286, 295, 306, 309, 319.
+
+Estates, great, accumulation of, 123;
+  advantages of, 322;
+  often a loss, 321.
+
+Evelyn, John, 127, 149.
+
+Evesham, Vale of, 318.
+
+Ewes, milking of, 33, 64, 200.
+
+Exhibition, Great, 287, 304.
+
+Exmoor sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Exporting country, England ceases to be an, 161, 163.
+
+Exports of butter and cheese, 326-7.
+
+Exports of corn, 63n., 64, 70, 159-161, 183, 185, 242, 267, 348-9;
+  reaches its maximum, 186;
+  of livestock, 325-6;
+  of wool, 39, 69, 172, 327.
+
+Extensive cultivation, 2.
+
+Extent of the Manor, 10.
+
+Eyton, Mr., 339.
+
+
+F
+
+Faggots, price of, 114.
+
+Fairs for hops, 171;
+  horses, 105;
+  sheep, 172n.;
+  wool, 172n.
+
+Fallows, utilized, 112, 177, 181, 191, 195;
+  in 1877, 1907, 331;
+  in 1850, 353.
+
+Families employed on common and on enclosed land, 195.
+
+Farm or feorm, 5.
+
+Farmer, day's work of, in seventeenth century, 134;
+  discontent of, 127-8, 184;
+  financial position of, 101, 103, 156, 162, 184, 195, 204, 212-3, 243,
+    247, 257-8, 264-5, 293, 307, 308, 310, 320;
+  growing more skilful, 101, 132.
+
+_Farmer's Letters_, Young's, 192.
+
+Farmhouses, 51, 101, 116, 119, 213, 226.
+
+Farming, bad, 273, 281;
+  improvement in, 28, 111, 113, 115, 132, 160, 162, 192, 204, 211, 221,
+    229, 244, 265, 267, 271, 274, 275, 281, 288.
+
+Farming calendar, 17, 124.
+
+Farms, in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 116-7;
+  size of (1768), 202.
+
+Farnham, hops, 171.
+
+Fashion, farming becomes the, 192, 193.
+
+Fattening oxen, 31, 58, 125, 136-7, 166, 214, 216, 225n., 235, 288;
+  sheep, 112, 166, 225n.;
+  chickens, 170.
+
+'Favourite', 234.
+
+Feeding pigs, 16, 125.
+
+Fences, legislation as to, 4.
+
+Fens, the, 78, 123, 170, 318.
+
+Feversham, fruit growing near, 128, 171.
+
+Fifteenth century, character of, 68.
+
+Figs, 15, 93, 136.
+
+Filberts, 93, 136.
+
+Fitzherbert, 31, 61, 76, 77, 83-5, 111, 132, 135.
+
+Fixtures, 301.
+
+Flanders, cattle, 338;
+  clover from, 111, 166;
+  hops from, 86, 150;
+  wool exported to, 39, 327;
+  sheep exported to, 326.
+
+Flax, 17, 105, 135, 141, 151-2, 191, 251, 331, 332.
+
+Fleece, weight of, 37, 41, 104, 200, 215.
+
+Fleta, quoted, 12, 13.
+
+Floor, for hop-picking, 91, 151.
+
+Flour, exports and imports of, 348-9.
+
+Fluctuations in price of corn, 35, 66, 89, 133, 142, 157, 186, 221,
+  223, 277.
+
+Fold soke, 9.
+
+Folding quality, of sheep, 253.
+
+Food, labourer's, 9, 25, 34, 37, 53, 54, 61, 62, 102, 110, 134,
+    139-40, 164, 200-8, 211, 240n., 268, 290-1, 297, 308, 311;
+  farmer's, 101, 128, 213, 240n., 246, 308.
+
+Foot-and-mouth disease, _see_ Cattle Plagues.
+
+Foot-rot, 294.
+
+Foreman, requirements of, 139.
+
+Forncett, manor of, 25, 45, 46.
+
+Fountains Abbey, 81.
+
+Four-course rotation, 183.
+
+Four-field system, 99.
+
+Fourteenth century, characteristics of, 38.
+
+Fowler, John, 304.
+
+Fox, the, 140, 244.
+
+France, exports to, 349;
+  imports from, 243, 323;
+  livestock in, 334;
+  small holders of, 202-3;
+  wheat crops in, 332.
+
+Freeholders, _see also_ Yeoman, 119, 121-2.
+
+Freemen, 7.
+
+Free tenants, 24, 29, 45.
+
+Free trade, 161, 277-81, 323;
+  effect of, 281, 284, 288, 293, 296.
+
+French War, great, _see_ Wars.
+
+Fruit, 15, 93, 128, 143;
+  imports of 305.
+
+Fruit-growing in seventeenth century, 129-131, 132, 136;
+  in eighteenth century, 171, 186-9;
+  in nineteenth century, 319, 329, 330.
+
+Furlongs, 3, 118.
+
+Furniture of manor house, 52;
+  labourer's home, 52.
+
+
+G
+
+Gafol, 9, 10.
+
+Galloway cattle, 169, 343.
+
+Game, damage by, 302.
+
+Game law, the first, 55.
+
+Gang system, 292.
+
+Geese, 34, 170. (_See_ Poultry.)
+
+Gentry, at the Revolution, 156;
+  estates of under Walpole, 183;
+  status of 50, 97;
+  supplanted, 122, 128, 137, 140, 156, 184, 211, 312, 310.
+ (_See_ Landlords _and_ Squire).
+
+Gerard, 106, 111.
+
+'Gerefa, the', 15.
+
+Germany, exports to, 63;
+  imports from, 20, 66, 69, 241, 243, 262, 323-4, 328;
+  livestock in, 334;
+  wheat crops in, 332n.
+
+Gilbert, 275.
+
+Gilbert's Act, 237.
+
+Gilbey, Sir W.,335.
+
+Glamorganshire, vineyards in, 145.
+
+Glastonbury Abbey, 13.
+
+Gleaning, 133.
+
+Gloucestershire, 19, 78, 128, 136, 143, 144, 173, 207, 295, 344.
+
+Gloves, gifts of, 62.
+
+Gold premium, 305.
+
+Googe, Barnaby, 144, 173.
+
+Gooseberries, 331.
+
+Grafting in seventeenth century, 130.
+
+Grain crops, chief source of lord's income, 25.
+
+Grapes, 136, 329 (_see_ Vineyards).
+
+Grass, acreage under, in 1877 and 1907, 331-2;
+  in 1850, 353;
+  arable land laid down to, 56, 58, 75, 79, 91, 93-4, 117-9, 120, 196,
+    219, 231, 305;
+  converting, to tillage, 231, 263;
+  more profitable than arable, 199;
+  seeds, 165, 191, 194, 226-7.
+
+Grass land, price of, _see_ Pasture and meadow, price of;
+  ploughed up, 186, 218, 245.
+
+Grass section of England in 1893, 306n.
+
+Grasshoppers, plague of, 185.
+
+Graziers, profits of, 184,
+
+Greycoats of Kent, 259.
+
+Ground Game Act, 303.
+
+Guano, 232, 276.
+
+Guernsey cattle, 342, 343.
+
+Gun, the, in seventeenth century, 140.
+
+
+H
+
+Haggard, Rider, Mr., 314-5.
+
+Hallam, 210.
+
+Hambleton, Sir A. Barker of, 142.
+
+Hamlets, 5.
+
+Hampshire, 28, 36, 79, 116, 132, 145, 165n., 240, 253, 266, 268, 306n.,
+    309, 314;
+  sheep, 275, 288, 344, 345.
+
+Handborough, 53.
+
+Harrison, 'Description of England,' 19, 28, 50, 56, 86, 91, 95, 101,
+  104, 149.
+
+Harrow, the, and harrowing, 17, 65, 84, 125, 135, 141, 153-4, 166,
+  176, 176, 179, 194, 201, 203, 246.
+
+Hartlib, Simon, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 142-3.
+
+Harvest, importance of, 9, 108.
+
+Harvest homes, 104, 269.
+
+Harvest work, 25, 62, 125, 138, 209.
+
+Hatfield Chase, 78.
+
+Hawsted, 20, 30, 35, 54, 57, 58, 62, 63, 67, 112, 115, 116, 178,
+  179, 205, 207.
+
+Hay, 112;
+  price of, _see_ Prices;
+  carrying off, 178, 219, 302;
+  imports of, 262.
+
+Hay tedder, 304.
+
+Haymaking, 4, 44, 124, 125, 138, 142.
+
+Headlands, 3.
+
+'Heaths', Shropshire, 220.
+
+Hedges, 124, 148, 150, 163, 178, 282.
+
+Hemp, 100, 105, 135, 151.
+
+Henley, Walter of, 19n., 31, 36, 83.
+
+Henry of Huntingdon, 327.
+
+Hens, number of eggs from, 35.
+
+Herdwick sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Hereford cattle, 233, 235, 274, 288, 336, 338-40, 342.
+
+Herefordshire, 5, 40, 128, 130, 132, 136, 143, 171, 186-7, 188, 240,
+  247, 249, 250, 267, 291, 306, 309, 316.
+
+Hertfordshire, 150, 174, 179, 225, 238, 306n.
+
+Hentzner's description of English fanning, 104.
+
+Hide, 16.
+
+Highland, West, cattle, 217, 343.
+
+Hoeing, 153, 166, 188, 201-2, 354;
+  horse, 198, 201.
+
+Holder, the small, 73, 76, 119, 121-2, 164, 191, 195, 202, 205, 220,
+    253-61, 268, 308, 310, 311, 316-9;
+  decrease of, causes of, 122, 259;
+  new class of, 260.
+
+Holderness cattle, 337.
+
+Holdings, various sizes of, 334.
+
+Holland,
+  Shorthorns from, 337;
+  live stock in, 334;
+  wheat crops in, 332n.
+
+Honey, 10, 144.
+
+Hops, 28, 86-7, 89-91, 111, 125, 128, 143, 149, 150, 171, 297-9,
+    329-30, 331;
+  acreage of, in 1729, 171, 297-8, 329;
+  average crop, 333;
+  duty on, 297-8;
+  imports of, 329-30;
+  profit on, 90, 150, 171, 298-9, 330;
+  substitutes, 298, 329.
+
+Horse fairs, 105.
+
+Horse shoes, 36.
+
+Horses,
+  deterioration of; 85, 146;
+  export of, 325-6;
+  kinds of, 274, 335;
+  number of, 333;
+  size of, 104, 105, 217;
+  tax on, 249;
+  working powers of, 31, 153, 204.
+  (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Houghton, account of potatoes, 106, 127, 165.
+
+Houses, wooden, 50 (_see_ Farmhouses);
+  of the squire and yeoman, 103, 212.
+
+Housing cattle and horses, 126.
+
+Howberry, 175-6.
+
+'Hubback', 234.
+
+Hundred Rolls, 28, 76, 327.
+
+Hunting, 140, 210.
+
+Huntingdonshire, 3, 25n., 72, 120, 123, 222, 306n., 309.
+
+Hurdles, 354.
+
+Husbandry, old and new, _see_ Cultivation.
+
+
+I
+
+Implements, cost of, rises, 242;
+  in seventeenth century, 135, 152-3, 154;
+  in eighteenth century, 188, 194, 203, 229, 236;
+  in nineteenth century, 271, 273-5, 276, 287n., 303-4, 316;
+  improvement in, 113;
+  list of, in eleventh century, 17-52;
+  prices of, 83, 138.
+
+Importing country, England becomes an, 163.
+
+Imports cause low prices, 295.
+
+Imports
+  of clover seed, 166;
+  of corn, 20, 63n., 66, 69, 70, 159-61, 183, 184, 223, 224, 230, 240,
+    241-4, 247, 248, 249, 262, 266, 267, 277-80, 287, 293, 305, 323-4,
+    330, 348-9;
+  of dairy produce, 325;
+  of fruit, 188, 329;
+  of hops, 150;
+  of linen, 105;
+  of livestock, 161, 280-1, 305, 324-6, 337;
+  of meat, 161, 305, 325, 330;
+  of wool, 39, 161, 305, 328, 354.
+
+Improvements, amount expended in, 320-1;
+  needed in eighteenth century, 191;
+  in farming in eighteenth century, 192 (_see_ Agriculture, state of), 193,
+    204 (_see_ Farming).
+
+Inbreeding, Bakewell and, 214;
+  the Collings and, 234-5.
+
+Income and expenditure of landed classes (1688), 156.
+
+Incubators, early, 132.
+
+India,
+  imports from, 324;
+  wool from, 328.
+
+Ine, laws of, as to fencing, 5.
+
+Inherent capabilities of the soil, 301.
+
+Inns, markets for produce, 323.
+
+Inoculation of fruit trees, 131.
+
+Intensive cultivation, 2.
+
+Irish imports, 161, 262, 324-5, 328;
+  labourers, 209, 306.
+
+Irrigation, 113, 132, 217.
+
+Isle of Wight, 172n.
+
+Italy, exports to, 349;
+  wool exported to, 39, 327.
+
+
+J
+
+Jamaica, wool from, 328.
+
+Jersey cattle, 275, 339, (_See_ Alderney.)
+
+Jus faldae, 64.
+
+Justices regulate wages, 107.
+
+
+K
+
+Kent, 40, 128, 143-7, 157, 171, 173, 186, 259, 265, 283, 295, 306n., 309.
+
+Kentish
+  cattle, 168;
+  sheep, 343, 344.
+
+Kerry cattle, 343.
+
+Kett, rising of, 96.
+
+Ketton, 233, 235.
+
+Kilns, hop, 151.
+
+King's, Gregory, statistics, 120, 140, 141, 155, 258-9, 260, 353.
+
+Kingston, Lord, estate rents of, 116.
+
+Knights Hospitallers' estates, 40.
+
+
+L
+
+Labour,
+  cost of, per acre, 313;
+  services, 6, 12, 25, 27, 42, 45, 56, 61.
+
+Labourer, character of, in eighteenth century, 175, 184, 201, 204,
+    205, 210;
+  condition of, at end of eighteenth century, 237-9;
+  condition of, in nineteenth century, 257, 266-8, 269, 270, 279,
+    283-4, 285, 290-2, 297, 311-2, 313-4, 315, 320, 355;
+  decrease of, 305, 311n., 315;
+  life of, in Middle Ages,53, 54, 67, 71, 103;
+  made a land-less man by enclosure, 196, 257;
+  number of (1688), 156;
+  savings of, 102-3, 156;
+  sports of, 55;
+  the home of the, 52, 158;
+  wages of, _see_ Wages.
+
+Lambs, to fall March 25, 126.
+
+Lammas, 4, 112, 137.
+
+Lancashire, 44, 78, 106, 110, 147, 163, 167, 207, 216, 219, 282,
+  283, 284, 309, 312, 316, 320, 343, 346.
+
+Land, value of, 19, 36, 40, 66, 117, 133, 149, 183, 243, 286-7,
+  293, 304, 310, 328, 348.
+
+Landlords,
+  absentee, 184, 191;
+  of the fourteenth century, 48;
+  new class of, 59;
+  houses of the 103 (_see_ Cottages);
+  improve estates, 132, 162, 224, 232, 255, 268, 320;
+  protectionists, 160-1;
+  ignorant of estate management, 175, 193, 249, 281;
+  in nineteenth century, 265, 281, 304, 307, 309, 320-2;
+  position, weakened, 309;
+  relations of, and tenant, 218, 226, 282-3, 299, 301, 322;
+  suffered most from present depression, 320;
+  reserve sporting rights, 115;
+  take to farming, 182.
+
+Landlordship, 6.
+
+Lawes, Sir John, 275, 276, 314, 319.
+
+Lawrence, John, 152, 165, 166, 167, 173, 337.
+
+Laxton, Notts, 22.
+
+Leases,45, 56, 57, 65, 81, 97, 113, 115-6, 121-2, 178, 218, 219,
+  263n., 272, 282, 283.
+
+Leicester sheep, 215-6, 235, 274, 275, 343, 344.
+
+Leicestershire, 8, 78, 79, 120, 151, 172, 174, 214-6, 268, 306n.,
+  309, 343.
+
+'Lemmons', 93.
+
+Leominster,
+  manor of, 18;
+  wool, 40, 171, 172n.
+
+Liberi homines, 7.
+
+Liebig, 275, 276.
+
+Lime, 112, 141, 177, 187, 197.
+
+Limestone sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Liming the land, 77, 113, 218, 219, 246, 300.
+
+Lincoln
+  red cattle, 343;
+  sheep, 215, 235, 275, 288, 343, 344, 346.
+
+Lincolnshire, 3, 8, 40, 99, 100, 103, 123, 151, 168, 172, 250, 252, 255,
+  283, 306n., 307, 318, 321.
+
+Liquorice, 143, 191.
+
+Liverpool,
+  apples at, 188;
+  wheat at, 185.
+
+Liverpool, Lord, 232, 264.
+
+Live stock,
+  depreciation of, 306, 330;
+  exports of, 325-6, 330;
+  number of (1877 and 1907), 333-4;
+  in England (1688), 155, 164;
+  duty on, repealed, 280.
+
+Locusts in England, 185.
+
+London,
+  affects wages, 205;
+  attracts country folk, 209, 210;
+  potato grown near, 106;
+  carrots grown near, 167, 168;
+  roads near, 222;
+  sheep and cattle driven to, 221.
+
+Longhorn cattle, 167, 216-7, 233, 234, 274, 275n., 336, 343.
+
+Longmynd, 345.
+
+Lonk sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Lord of the manor, 6, 14, 19, 25, 42, 121, 127, 255;
+  small holder suffers at his hand, 121.
+
+'Lord Wilton', 340.
+
+Lucerne, 143, 167n., 191, 201.
+
+Luffenham,
+  South, 22;
+  North, 103.
+
+Luxury, spread of, an, 243, 264.
+
+Lyttelton,
+  Sir H., 145;
+  Lord, 183.
+
+
+M
+
+Macadam, 220, 223, 230.
+
+Machinery, use of, 271.
+
+Madder, 17, 143, 191, 194.
+
+Maidstone hops, 171.
+
+Maize, imports of, 262, 296, 313.
+
+Mangolds, 237, 331-2, 333, 353.
+
+Manor, regulations of the, 13, 99.
+
+Manor, the typical, 14.
+
+Manorial balance sheets, 26, 65.
+
+Manorial system, 6, 7, 18, 24, 45, 76, 97.
+
+Manors, 6, 7, 14, 18, 25, 42, 45, 65, 97, 99, 118.
+
+Mansion house, 14, 50.
+
+Manufactures, influence of, on wages, 284, 297, 315.
+
+Manures, 113, 119, 136, 144, 150-4, 177, 178, 179, 187, 191, 197, 201,
+  219, 221, 254, 275-6, 296, 299, 300, 304, 305, 314.
+
+Manydown, Hants, 13.
+
+Market gardening, 306, 308, 319.
+
+Markham, Gervase, 127, 134-7, 146, 151, 171.
+
+Marling, 77, 113, 183, 191, 197, 202, 219, 300.
+
+Marshall, William, 188, 204, 207, 213, 222, 298, 314, 336, 338, 340.
+
+Maryland, wool from, 328.
+
+Mattocks for breaking clods, 129.
+
+McCormick, 303.
+
+McCulloch, 281, 324, 349.
+
+Meadowland, 2, 19, 22, 40, 58, 155.
+
+Meadows,
+  16, 30, 73, 99, 100, 118, 124, 148, 253, 258;
+  value of, 40, 58, 115-6, 139, 231.
+
+Meat, imports of, 161, 305, 325.
+
+Medlars, 136.
+
+Meikle, 230, 236.
+
+Menzies, 236.
+
+Merino sheep, 233, 328n.
+
+Messor, the, 13.
+
+Middlesex, 41, 145, 306n.
+
+Midland counties,
+  enclosure in, 120;
+  sheep in, 216, 218.
+
+Migration of labourers, 44, 158n., 209, 238.
+
+Milk, 63n., 168 (_see_ Dairy), 170, 205, 275, 297, 330.
+
+Mill, suit of, 9.
+
+Mills, excessive number of, 114.
+
+Minimum wage proposed, 241.
+
+Minister of Agriculture, 305.
+
+Mixtil, or mastlin, or mesling, 9, 102, 125, 138, 207n.
+
+Moles, 114, 124.
+
+Molton Market, 341.
+
+Monasteries, 68, 81.
+
+Money payments, 24, 27, 45, 56.
+
+Mortimer abuses the law, 74.
+
+Moryson, 102, 105, 122.
+
+Mountain sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Mowing corn,
+  Fitzherbert's advice, 84, 125, 135, 138, 199, 354;
+  machines for, 303-4.
+
+Mowing grass,
+  cost of, 34, 44, 65, 71, 109, 138, 142, 348, 354;
+  Fitzherbert's advice, 84.
+
+Mulberries, 15, 146.
+
+Murrain, 13, 42n., 68.
+
+Mutton, price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+
+N
+
+New world, influx of precious metals from, 89, 111.
+
+New Zealand, wool from, 328.
+
+Newark, 157.
+
+Nitrate of soda, 276.
+
+Non-intercourse Act of United States, 242.
+
+Norden, Sir John, 127-8, 220.
+
+Norfolk, 8, 40, 45, 63n., 94, 96, 97, 167n., 169, 170, 182, 217,
+  224-8, 306n., 308, 340.
+
+Norfolk, or four-course rotation, 183.
+
+Normandy, 338.
+
+North,
+  difference of wages between, and South, 283-5;
+  superior thrift in, 207-8.
+
+Northamptonshire, 8, 78, 79, 120, 151, 157, 172, 222, 306n.
+
+Northleach, rates at, 295.
+
+Northumberland, 193n., 256, 295, 303, 309, 346.
+
+Norwich, 169, 182.
+
+Nottinghamshire, 8, 22, 78, 116, 144, 172, 237, 276, 283, 306n., 308, 309.
+
+Nowton, Suffolk, 57.
+
+Nucleated villages, 5.
+
+Nuts, 136.
+
+
+O
+
+Oak timber,
+  value of, 137;
+  Coke's, 225-6.
+
+Oakham, 110.
+
+Oats, 20, 33, 65, 91, 124, 135-8, 142, 155, 227, 305, 331-2, 353;
+  cost of growing, in 1770, 199;
+  produce, per acre, in 1712, 105n.;
+  in 1770, 197-9;
+  profit on, 180. (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Occupiers of land, 355.
+
+'Old Comely', 216.
+
+Olives, 93, 136.
+
+Onions, 143, 332.
+
+Open parishes, 158, 284.
+
+Oranges, 93.
+
+Orchards, 17, 128, 131, 143, 186, 188, 255, 332;
+  seventeenth century, 135-6.
+
+Owners and occupiers, percentage of, 334.
+
+Owners of Land, return, 260-1.
+
+Owners, small, _see_ Holders, small.
+
+Ox teams, 16, 31, 64, 84, 143, 147, 153, 191, 204, 340.
+
+Oxen,
+  description of, in 1592, 104;
+  value of, 19, 20, 35, 57, 66, 114. (_See_ Cattle, price of.)
+
+Oxford, 63, 273, 338.
+
+Oxford Down sheep, 275, 288, 344, 345.
+
+Oxfordshire, 24, 40, 78, 99, 145, 151.
+
+
+P
+
+Pack-horses, use of, 138.
+
+Packing fruit in seventeenth century, 129, 130.
+
+Paring and burning, 141, 153.
+
+Parsnips, 143.
+
+Pasture, breaking up, 218.
+
+Pasture,
+  common, 2, 4, 16, 19, 73, 99, 113, 195;
+  often worth little, 256;
+  permanent, in Holdings Act, 299;
+  extent of, in 1688, 155;
+  in 1770, 196;
+  ploughed up during French War, 243;
+  sparing, 124.
+
+Pasture land, price of, 41, 59, 115-7, 139.
+
+Patents, 113, 236.
+
+Peaches, 15, 93, 136.
+
+Pears, 15, 93, 130, 131, 136, 143, 329, 333.
+
+Peas, 33, 69, 124, 155, 200, 227, 331-2, 353.
+
+Peasants' revolt, 60.
+
+Peel's drainage loans, 272.
+
+Penalty for breaking up pasture, 178.
+
+Perry, 130.
+
+Pestilences, 38, 42, 68, 79.
+
+Piecework, 28, 163, 206.
+
+Pigeons, number of, 49, 96, 105, 143, 244, 274, 275.
+
+Pigs,
+  export of, 330;
+  feeding, 16, 125;
+  foot-and-mouth disease attacks, 290;
+  import of, 326;
+  number of, 333-4;
+  profit on, in 1763, 200;
+  size of, in 1592, 104;
+  value of, 20, 35n., 96, 200-3;
+  varieties of, 170, 346.
+  (_See_ Prices.)
+
+Pinchbeck, 103.
+
+Pitt, William, 238, 239.
+
+Plat, Sir Hugh, 127, 152.
+
+Plattes, Gabriel, 76, 127.
+
+Pleuro-pneumonia, _see_ Cattle plagues.
+
+Plot, 145.
+
+Plough, eleventh- and twelfth-century, 17.
+
+Ploughing,
+  cost of, 33, 65, 135, 141, 177, 179, 246;
+  months for, 17, 124.
+
+Ploughland, the, 16, 18.
+
+Ploughs and ploughing, 65, 83, 113, 125, 129, 135, 143, 150,
+  153, 177, 191, 203, 217, 218, 225, 273, 342, 354.
+
+Plums, 15, 93, 130, 131, 136, 329, 332.
+
+Poaching, 48;
+  by labourers, 55, 210, 248, 282, 291.
+
+Population of England, 79, 89, 111, 120, 140, 156, 160, 163, 211, 240, 287.
+
+Pork, price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+Porter, 'Progress of Nation,' 276, 279, 286, 287.
+
+Portugal, exports to, 349.
+
+Potatoes, 106, 107, 112, 187, 191, 194, 227, 318, 331-3, 353;
+  disease, 277.
+
+Poultry, 41n., 66, 80, 132, 169, 170 (_see_ Prices);
+  carrying, to London,171.
+
+Praepositus, 12.
+
+Precarii, or boon days, 9.
+
+Precious metals,
+  influx of, 89, 111;
+  scarcity of, 66n.
+
+Prices:
+  Apples, 15, 65, 188, 189.
+  Bacon and pork, 96, 102, 238, 239, 263, 313, 334.
+  Barley, 20, 35, 69, 114, 133, 138, 142, 155, 179, 223, 247,
+    312, 347, 350-3.
+  Beans, 35, 155, 180, 347.
+  Beef, 96, 102, 114, 164, 206n., 239, 240, 241, 242, 247, 262, 263, 265.
+  Bread, 206n., 207n., 223, 230, 242n., 280, 285, 286, 291.
+  Butter, 33, 66, 114, 206n., 241, 247, 285-6, 312, 334, 347.
+  Carts, 203.
+  Cattle, 19, 20, 35, 41, 65, 89, 105, 114, 119, 133, 146, 163, 165n.,
+    167, 169, 203, 235, 263, 307, 312, 347.
+  Cheese, 173-4, 206n., 241, 242, 312, 334, 347.
+  Clover, 166.
+  Eighteenth century, 145, 160, 163, 164, 165n., 166, 167, 169, 170,
+    172, 173-4, 179, 180, 186, 188, 189, 200, 203, 206n., 222, 223, 227,
+    229, 230, 231, 237, 238, 239, 240, 285, 341, 355.
+  Fifteenth century, 40, 66, 69, 355.
+  Fourteenth century, 39, 40, 41, 59, 65, 327, 355.
+  Flax,152.
+  Grapes, 144.
+  Harness, 203.
+  Hay, 157, 165n., 166, 241-2, 262, 347.
+  Hops, 87, 89, 150, 247, 298, 330, 347.
+  Horses, 19, 20, 35, 36, 114, 142, 165n., 203, 347, 355.
+  Horse-shoes,96.
+  Implements, 83, 138.
+  Malt, 89, 240, 241.
+  Milk, 168, 170, 312.
+  Mutton, 96, 10-2, 206n., 239, 240, 241, 247, 262, 263, 265, 313, 334.
+  Nineteenth century, 227, 235, 240, 242-4, 245, 247-8, 262, 263, 264-6,
+    267, 277-81, 285, 287, 293, 295, 296, 305, 306, 307, 312, 324,
+    329, 330, 334.
+  Oats, 20, 35, 69, 114, 138, 155, 180, 223, 241, 312, 347, 350-3.
+  Peas, 69, 155, 200, 247.
+  Pedigree cattle, 234, 235.
+  Pigs, 20, 41, 96, 200, 203, 347.
+  Potatoes, 106.
+  Poultry and eggs, 41, 96, 114, 133, 170, 247, 347.
+  Rabbits,174.
+  Rams, 202, 215, 235.
+  Rollers, 203.
+  Rye, 4, 16, 91, 125, 133, 138, 155, 347.
+  Saffron, 106.
+  Seventeenth century, 89, 110, 111, 114, 118, 119, 127, 133-4, 138,
+    142, 144, 146, 150, 152, 157, 159, 160, 328, 355.
+  Sheep, 20, 3511., 36, 41, 80, 114, 138, 165n., 203, 206n., 263,
+    312, 347.
+  Sixteenth century, 80, 87, 89, 95, 96, 102-6, 109, 355.
+  Straw, 179, 180.
+  Tenth century, 19.
+  Thirteenth century, 33, 35, 39, 355.
+  Twelfth century, 20.
+  Vetches, 155.
+  Waggons, 203-4.
+  Wheat, 20, 35, 66, 69, 89, 110, 114, 133, 134, 138, 142, 155,
+    157, 160, 163, 164, 179, 186, 223, 231, 237, 238, 239, 240,
+    241, 242-4, 247-8, 262, 265, 277-8, 281, 293, 306, 312,
+    334, 347, 350-3, 355.
+  Wine, 145.
+  Wool, 39, 40, 80, 89, 96, 114, 118, 119, 142, 163, 172, 173,
+    223, 239, 242, 285-6, 306, 312, 327, 328, 329, 347.
+
+Prickly comfrey, 237.
+
+Proclamation as to wages and prices, 42.
+
+Production, increased cost of, 295, 313.
+
+Prosperity,
+  agricultural, 28, 101, 114, 103, 183, 210-1, 229, 243-4, 246,
+    264, 287;
+  during French War, 243-6, 247, 264.
+
+Protecting fruit from blight, Sec., 187.
+
+Protection,
+ effect of, 250, 278-9, 281;
+  highest limit of, 248; 265, 266, 277-9.
+
+Provender rents, 6.
+
+Pruning fruit trees, 131, 136.
+
+Pulverization of soil, 175.
+
+
+Q
+
+Quarter Sessions, assessment of wages by, 108.
+
+Quartly, Francis, 341.
+
+Quiet Emptores, statute of, 29.
+
+Quinces, 15, 136.
+
+Quit, notice to, 300, 301, 302.
+
+
+R
+
+Rabbits,
+  rearing, 174;
+  reserved to landlord, 115.
+
+Railway rates, 295-6.
+
+Rake, horse, 304.
+
+Raleigh introduces potatoes, 106.
+
+Rams,
+  ewes to, 126, 138;
+  price of, 202, 215, 235.
+
+Ramsey, 72.
+
+Raspberries, 331.
+
+Rates, 229, 238, 241, 245, 247, 248, 249, 255, 269, 284, 295, 296,
+  307, 314.
+
+Rathgib, Jacob, 104.,
+
+Reaping,
+  cost of, 34, 44, 65, 71, 109, 110, 138, 177, 179, 180, 246, 348, 354;
+  machines, 303-4;
+  time for, 124;
+  versus mowing corn, 135.
+
+Red Polled cattle, 343.
+
+Reeve, 12;
+  duties of a, 17.
+
+Reigate, Flaunchford near, 64.
+
+Rents:
+  Twelfth century, 27.
+  Thirteenth century, 36, 57, 75, 348.
+  Fourteenth century, 40, 41, 46, 65, 75, 348.
+  Fifteenth century, 57, 58, 66, 348.
+  Sixteenth century, 66, 76, 95, 115, 116, 348.
+  Seventeenth century, 115, 116, 117, 127, 133, 139, 143, 155, 161,
+    348, 354.
+  Eighteenth century, 116, 177, 179, 183, 189, 193n., 224, 227, 328,
+    348.
+  Nineteenth century, 243, 246, 248, 264, 266, 278, 285-6, 287, 297,
+    304, 306-9, 310, 319n., 321-2.
+
+Repairs, _see_ Buildings, farm.
+
+Restrictive covenants, _see_ Cultivation clauses.
+
+Revival, recent, in agriculture, 320.
+
+Revolt, Peasants', 60.
+
+Revolution, agricultural and industrial, 162.
+
+Ridges, high, 129, 175.
+
+Rinderpest, _see_ Cattle plagues.
+
+Riots, 185, 223, 262, 366,
+
+Ripon, 147.
+
+Roads, 21, 68, 105, 138, 171, 175, 182, 204, 210, 219, 220-3, 269,
+  274, 295.
+
+Rock and Far Forest district, 318,
+
+Rogers, Thorold, 107, 229.
+
+Roller, farm, in seventeenth century, 135.
+
+Rolling, 166, 194.
+
+Romney Marsh sheep, 344.
+
+Romsey Abbey, 15n.
+
+Roots, few, used for cows, 200 (_see_ Turnips).
+
+Roscommon sheep, 343.
+
+Roses, 143.
+
+Ross, John, of Warwick, 76.
+
+Rot, _see_ Sheep rot.
+
+Rotation of crops (_see_ Four-course and Three-field system) 225, 275.
+
+Rothamsted, 275.
+
+Roundsman system, 239.
+
+Royal Agrlctttonal Society, 273-4, 281, 308.
+
+Royal Society, helps agriculture, 114.
+
+Russia,
+  imports rom, 323-4;
+  wool from, 328.
+
+Rutland, 22, 102, 109, 110, 120, 134, 143, 151, 255, 268, 306n.;
+  Dukes of, 115, 286.
+
+Rye, 4, 16, 91, 125, 133, 138, 155;
+  in Norfolk, 182, 276;
+  produce, per acre, in 1770, 197.
+
+Rye-grass, 178-9, 218, 276.
+
+Ryeland sheep, 344, 345, 346.
+
+
+S
+
+Saffron, 62, 106, 143, 167;
+  Walden, 106, 167.
+
+Sainfoin, 112, 115, 143, 191, 194, 225, 331.
+
+Saint Paul's, manors of, 16, 29, 50, 57, 58.
+
+Sales, famous, 234n., 235, 338, 339.
+
+Salt, value of, 26.
+
+Samford Hall, 190.
+
+Scotland,
+  cattle of, 336, 343;
+  wheat crop in, 332n.
+
+Scott, Reynold, 89, 151.
+
+Scottish cattle, 168-9.
+
+Scudamore, Lord, 132, 3^8.
+
+Seasons,
+  bad, 20, 42n., 66, 69, 89, 115, 157, 179, 184, 185, 186, 210,
+    223, 224, 237, 239, 242, 243, 247, 262, 265, 277, 292, 293,
+    294, 295, 297, 305;
+  good, 239, 244, 262, 266, 287.
+
+Seed,
+  amount of, for wheat, 33, 67n.,84, 177, 179, 180, 227, 246;
+  for clover, 112, 166, 176, 218;
+  clover, price of, 166.
+
+Sefton, Lord, estate of, 320n.
+
+Selions, 318.
+
+Self-binding reaper, 304.
+
+Seneschal, 12.
+
+Settled Land Acts, 305.
+
+Settlement, law of parochial, 157-8, 209, 238, 269n., 284.
+
+Settlements, family, 123, 259-60.
+
+Seventeenth century, characteristics of, 111.
+
+Sheaf-binding apparatus, 237.
+
+Shearing sheep, 125.
+
+Sheep, 94, 104, 126, 137, 146, 161, 200, 225, 233, 236, 263, 274,
+    275, 288, 290;
+  diseases of, 84;
+  export of, 326, 330 (_see_ Live stock);
+  improvement of, 37, 164, 202;
+  number of,
+    in 1867, 288;
+    in 1877 and 1907, 333-4;
+  price of, _see_ Prices;
+  varieties of, 171, 172, 215-7, 233, 235, 275, 288, 343-6;
+  washing, cost of, 65, 125, 354.
+
+Sheep-rot, 184, 242, 265n., 294.
+
+Shepherd, wages of, 61, 71, 87, 109.
+
+Shire horse, 35, 335;
+  Society, 335.
+
+Shoeing, 36, 65, 84, 203.
+
+Shorthorn cattle, 167, 225, 233-5, 274, 288, 336-8, 339, 342.
+
+Shows, Agricultural, 233, 273-5, 341.
+
+Shropshire, 11n., 16n., 159, 173, 219, 220, 225, 250, 339;
+  sheep, 275, 288, 344, 345, 346.
+
+Siberian Railway, 324.
+
+Sicks, uncultivated patches, 99n.
+
+Sinclair, Sir J., 229, 230, 232.
+
+Sittingboume, 128, 143.
+
+Sixteenth century, character of, 89.
+
+Slaves, 8, 11, 20.
+
+Smith, Adam, 134, 210.
+
+Smith of Deanston, 214, 271-2.
+
+Smithfield, 168, 169;
+  cattle show, 218, 273, 339;
+  prices at, 239, 240, 241, 247, 265.
+
+Smyth, John, 111.
+
+Society, Royal Agricultural, 193.
+
+Society for Encouragement of Arts, &c., 194> 227, 303.
+
+Socmen, 7.
+
+Somerset, 19, 58, 107, 168, 250, 309, 340;
+  sheep, 344.
+
+Somerville, Loid, 231.
+
+Southams cattle, 342.
+
+Southdown sheep, 217, 225, 233, 236, 263, 274, 275, 344, 345.
+
+Spade, prejudice against, 112, 143;
+  for hops, 150.
+
+Spain,
+  exports to, 349;
+  imports from, 323.
+
+Spanish wool, 38-9, 328.
+
+Speculation,
+  in land, 243;
+  in produce, 305.
+
+Speenhamland Act, 237-8.
+
+Spencer, Earl, 273.
+
+Sporting rights reserved, 115.
+
+Spraying fruit, 136.
+
+Squatters, 220, 256.
+
+Squire, the, 103, 128, 137, 140, 193, 211-2.
+
+Stafford, Marquis of, 219.
+
+Staffordshire, 3, 44, 78, 122, 219, 286, 295, 309.
+
+Statesmen, 311.
+
+Statistics, agricultural, 230, 231, 232, 277, 288 (_see_ King, Gregory),
+  331-2, 353.
+
+Statute of labourers, 43.
+
+Statutes _quoted_:
+  20 Hen. III. c. 4, 73.
+  25 Edw. III. 2. c. 1, 43.
+  34 Edw. III. c. 20, 63.
+  12 Ric. II. c. 4, 61.
+  12 Ric. II. c. 5, 64.
+  12 Ric. II. c. 6, 55.
+  13 Ric. II. c. 13, 55.
+  15 Ric. II. c. 5, 71.
+  17 Ric. II. c. 7, 63.
+  4 Hen. IV. c. 14, 67n.
+  7 Hen. IV. c. 17, 70.
+  9 Hen. V. c. 5, 68n.
+  3 Hen. VI. c. 2, 326.
+  3 Hen. VI. c. 4, 327.
+  4 Hen. VI. c. 5, 64.
+  15 Hen. VI. c. 2, 69.
+  23 Hen. VI. c. 12, 71, 87.
+  3 Edw. IV. c. 2, 70.
+  3 Edw. IV. c. 5, 7in.
+  22 Edw. IV. c. 1, 7in.
+  4 Hen. VII. c. 19, 79, 94, 117.
+  11 Hen. VII. c. 13, 325.
+  11 Hen. VII. c. 22, 87.
+  6 Hen. VIII. c. 3, 87.
+  6 Hen. VIII. c. 5, 79.
+  21 Hen. VIII. c. 8, 86.
+  22 Hen. VIII. c. 7, 326.
+  24 Hen. VIII c. 3, 102.
+  24 Hen. VIII. c. 4, 105.
+  24 Hen. VIII. c. 10, 82n.
+  25 Hen, VIII. c. 1, 86.
+  25 Hen. VIII. c. 13, 80.
+  27 Hen. VIII. c. 6, 85.
+  27 Hen. VIII. c. 22, 94.
+  32 Hen. VIII. c. 13, 85.
+  I Edw. VI. c. 5, 326.
+  3 and 4 Edw. VI. c. 19, 86.
+  5 Edw. VI. c. 14, 86.
+  2 and 3 Phil. and Mary, c. 3, 96.
+  5 Eliz. c. 4, 107.
+  5 Eliz. c. 5, 105.
+  8 Eliz. c. 3, 326.
+  8 Eliz. c. 15, 82n.
+  13 Eliz. c. 25, 96.
+  14 Eliz. c. 11, 82n.
+  31 Eliz. c. 7, 121n., 159.
+  39 Eliz. c. 1, 117.
+  39 Eliz, c. 2, 118.
+  39 Eliz. c. 18, 82n.
+  43 Eliz. c. 2, 296.
+  1 Jac. I. c. 18, 150.
+  21 Jac. I. c. 28, 118n.
+  12 Car. II. c. 4, 161.
+  13 and 14 Car. II. c. 18, 326, 327.
+  14 Car. II. c. 12, 157.
+  15 Car. II. c. 7, 134, 326.
+  18 Car. II. c. 2, 161, 326.
+  22 Car. II. c. 13, 326.
+  32 Car. II. c. 2, 161, 326.
+  3 W. and M. c. 2, 158.
+  8 and 9 W. and M. c. 30, 158.
+  7 and 8 Wm. III. c. 28, 327.
+  36 Geo. III. c. 23, 238.
+  41 Geo. III. c. 109, 231-2.
+  9 Geo. IV. c. 60, 278.
+  4 and 5 Wm. IV. c. 76, 269.
+  6 and 7 Wm. IV. c. 71, 270.
+  5 Vict. c. 14, 278.
+  9 and 10 Vict. c. 22, 280.
+  9 and 10 Vict. c. 23, 280.
+  14 and 15 Vict. c. 25, 301.
+  30 and 31 Vict. c. 130, 292.
+  38 and 39 Vict. c. 92, 299.
+  43 and 44 Vict. c. 47, 303.
+  46 and 47 Vict. c. 61, 300.
+  59 and 60 Vict. c. 16, 314n.
+  63 and 64 Vict. c. 50, 301.
+  1 Edw. VII. c. 13, 314n.
+  6 Edw. VII. c. 56, 301.
+  7 Edw. VII. c. 54, 316.
+
+Steam,
+  applied to threshing, 237;
+  cultivator, 304.
+
+Stilton cheese, 173-4.
+
+Stinting the common pasture, 4.
+
+Stock and land leases, 57.
+
+Stocking a farm, 170, 203.
+
+Stores, public grain, 133, 264.
+
+Stott, the, or affer, 35, 57, 65.
+
+Stourbridge Fair, 171, 172n.
+
+Stratfieldsaye, 272.
+
+Straw,
+  as winter food for cattle, 126, 217;
+  carrying off, 178, 219, 302;
+  price of, 179, 180, 330.
+
+Strawberries, 15, 329, 331.
+
+Stubble, grazing of, 4, 125.
+
+Suffolk, 8, 30, 40, 57, 63n., 78, 112, 128, 147, 166, 168, 170,
+    173, 174, 188, 207, 225, 238, 284, 306n., 309, 313;
+  Punch, 335;
+  sheep, 275, 344, 345.
+
+Supplies of com per head, 330 (_see_ Wheat, home supplies).
+
+Surrey, 64, 128, 143, 144, 168, 180, 283, 306n.
+
+Surveyor, the seventeeiith-century, 127.
+
+Sussex, 54, 78, 259, 263, 283, 306n.;
+  cattle, 274, 288, 336, 340, 343.
+
+Swanage, 262.
+
+Swedes, 227, 237, 276, 288, 331-2, 333.
+
+'Swing' riots, 266.
+
+
+T
+
+Taltarum's case, effect of, 122.
+
+Tamworth pigs, 346.
+
+Taunton,
+  manor of, 18;
+  good fanning near, 128.
+
+Taxes, 247, 263-4, 307, 310;
+  weight of, 183, 191, 229, 245, 246, 249, 250, 263, 320, 321.
+
+Tea,
+  drinking, 205, 207, 213, 291;
+  price of, 205.
+
+Teams, composition of, 16.
+
+Telford, 220, 222.
+
+Tenant farmers,
+  assist in agricultural progress, 162;
+  number of, 141, 156;
+  origin of, 46, 119.
+
+Tenant-right, 283.
+
+Teeswater cattle, 337.
+
+Tewkesbury, 255.
+
+Thatchers, 139, 354.
+
+Thomson of Banchory, 276.
+
+Thorney and Woburn estates, 321.
+
+Three-field system, 4, 99.
+
+Threshing,
+  cost of, 34, 44, 65, 163, 179, 180, 198-9, 246;
+  machine, 230, 236-7, 282;
+  time for, 17, 126.
+
+Tillage,
+  decrease of, 79, 80, 94;
+  encouragement of, 79, 108, 117-8;
+  reaction against, 118.
+  (_See_ Arable, _and_ Grass.)
+
+Timber (_see_ Oak timber), 227;
+  spoils crops, 282.
+
+Tiptree, 319.
+
+Tithe,
+  dispute, 102;
+  on turnips, 166;
+  rent charge, 270.
+
+Tithes, 116, 144, 151, 189, 195, 230, 332, 247, 248, 249, 250,
+  270, 305, 307.
+
+Tooke, 179, 266.
+
+_Tours_, Young's, 190, 192.
+
+Towns, movement of rural population towards, 64, 70, 108, 185, 192,
+  195, 209, 315, 316-7.
+
+Townshend, Lord, 163, 182-3, 192, 193.
+
+_Treatise on Husbandry_, 33, 54.
+
+Tull, Jethro, 152, 163, 174-7, 178, 180, 183, 193, 200-1, 204.
+
+Turkeys, 170.
+
+Turkish dominions, imports from, 323.
+
+Turnip cutters, 276.
+
+Turnip fly, remedies for, 166.
+
+Turnips, 93, 111, 112, 115, 141, 143, 157, 164, 166, 168, 178, 183,
+    251, 331-2, 333;
+  cost of growing, in 1770, 198;
+  injure wool, 329;
+  sheep first fattened on, 112;
+  spread of, in eighteenth century, 165, 166, 179, 191, 194, 200,
+    201, 225;
+  varieties of, in 1720, 165.
+
+Tusser, 63, 90, 91, 92, 101, 102, 105, 111, 124, 126.
+
+Two-field system, 3.
+
+'Twopenny', 216.
+
+
+U
+
+Underwood, value of, in seventeenth century, 137.
+
+Unions, Agricultural Labourers', 291-2.
+
+United States, _see_ America.
+
+Unreasonable disturbance, 302.
+
+Upwey, 318.
+
+
+V
+
+Vanghan, Rowland, 132-3.
+
+Vegetables, 15, 93, 106, 112n., 143, 236n.
+
+Ventnor, vineyard at, 145.
+
+Vermin, destruction of, 82, 100, 244.
+
+Vermuyden, Cornelius, 123.
+
+Vetches, 125, 155, 331.
+
+Village, the, of the eighteenth century, 164.
+
+Village smith, the, 35.
+
+Villeins, 6, 7, 8, 18, 24, 29, 42, 45;
+  disappearance of, 46, 59, 60, 105.
+
+Vills or villages, 2, 5, 7, 15, 98, 119.
+
+Vineyards, 15, 16, 111, 144-5.
+
+Virgate, 8.
+
+Virginia,
+  potatoes from, 106;
+  wool from, 328.
+
+
+W
+
+Wages:
+  Twelfth century, 27.
+  Thirteenth century, 27, 28, 34, 348, 355.
+  Fourteenth century, 27, 28, 41, 43, 59, 61, 62, 348, 355.
+  Fifteenth century, 67, 71, 348, 355.
+  Sixteenth century, 67, 87, 348, 355.
+  Seventeenth century, 119, 138, 139, 348, 355.
+  Eighteenth century, 163, 164, 184, 203, 205-6, 210, 237,
+    238, 240, 285, 348, 354-5.
+  Nineteenth century, 241, 242, 249, 267, 268, 283-4, 285, 290-2, 297,
+    309, 311, 312, 313, 315, 355, 356.
+
+Wages,
+  on a farm in 1805, 247;
+  regulated by statute, 43, 61, 71, 87;
+    by Justices, 107, 109, 110.
+
+Waggons, 153, 204.
+
+Wainage, 8.
+
+Wales, cattle of, 167, 336, 338, 343.
+
+Wallachia and Moldavia, imports from, 323.
+
+Walsingham states demands of villeins, 60.
+
+Wars, effect of, 38, 68, 71, 193, 205, 212, 229, 237, 260, 286, 287, 341.
+
+Warwickshire, 40, 77, 78, 94, 110, 172, 173, 213, 215, 216, 272, 282,
+  290, 306n., 309, 343.
+
+Waste land, 231;
+  committee on, 255n., 256;
+  good crops from the, 119;
+  Young and, 191.
+
+Water carriage, cheapness of, 21, 173.
+
+Weaning lambs, time for, 125.
+
+Weaving, 70, 76, 110, 257.
+
+Webster of Canley, 216.
+
+Weeding hook and tongs, 84, 152.
+
+Weeds, 125, 180, 201.
+
+Week work, 8.
+
+Welsh mountain sheep, 344, 346.
+
+Wensleydale sheep, 343, 345.
+
+Westcar of Creslow, 339.
+
+Westcote, 128.
+
+Westmoreland, 216, 295, 346.
+
+Weston, Sir R., introduces clover, 111, 127, 141.
+
+Weyhill Fair, 172.
+
+Wheat,
+  acreage tinder, in 1907, 331-2;
+  consumption of, per head, 279;
+  cost of growing, 177, 180, 198, 199, 246, 307;
+  crops, 33, 67, 77, 91, 129, 142, 155, 165, 179, 180, 197-9, 227,
+     246, 282, 285, 286, 332;
+  cultivation of, 4, 16, 32, 36, 113, 125, 135, 177-9, 180, 184, 353;
+  different kinds of, 146, 107;
+  home supplies of, 277, 279, 313, 330;
+  price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+White, Gilbert, 223.
+
+Wilton, hops near, 171.
+
+Wiltshire, 143, 174, 253, 268, 283, 286, 309, 312, 313;
+  sheep, 345.
+
+Winchelsea, Lord, 255, 257, 268.
+
+Winchester, 147, 150.
+
+Wine, 144-5.
+
+Wire binder, 304.
+
+Wirral, 66.
+
+Wisbech, 318.
+
+Woad, 17, 152.
+
+Women, work of, on the farm, 62, 85, 206, 316.
+
+Wood, W. A., 304.
+
+Woods, 2, 16, 59, 74, 78, 115, 125, 136, 155.
+
+Woodstock, 53.
+
+Wool, 37, 38-41, 69, 75, 80, 94, 104, 114, 118, 119, 142, 161,
+    163, 171-3, 184, 223, 285, 329, 354, 355;
+  export of, _see_ Exports;
+  import of, _see_ Imports;
+  price of, _see_ Prices.
+
+Wool,
+  custom of picking refuse, 100;
+  storing, 125.
+
+Worcestershire, 74, 128, 136, 143, 171, 306.
+
+Work, hours of, 87, 147, 291.
+
+Worlidge, John, 127, 131, 132, 142-8, 150-4, 165.
+
+Worsley, Sir R., 145.
+
+
+Y
+
+Yeoman, the, 50, 71, 123, 128, 140, 156, 207, 258-61, 310, 320;
+  house of, 103.
+
+Yeomen purchase lands of gentry, 122.
+
+Yorkshire, 15, 78, 110, 138-9, 167, 168, 207, 225, 253, 283, 295, 306n.,
+  309, 337, 343, 346.
+
+Young, Arthur, 160, 162, 163, 172, 180, 182, 188, 190-3, 194, 197, 200-6,
+    210, 211, 222, 224, 230, 232, 236, 240, 253, 255, 257, 260, 284,
+    285, 288n., 298, 314, 317, 335, 336, 337, 343, 353, 355;
+  opposed to drilling, 178;
+  pet aversions of, 191;
+  statements of, as to growth of clover, 112.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of English Agriculture
+by W. H. R.  Curtler
+
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