[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.