The management of sheep in the north of England was wretched. In Northumberland the profit was reckoned at 1s. a head, partly derived from cheese made from ewes' milk. The fleeces averaged 2 lb., and the wool was so bad as not to be worth more than 3d. or 4d. per lb.[455]

Pigs could be made to pay well, as the following account testifies:

Food and produce of a sow in one year (1763), which produced seven pigs in April and eleven in October:

DR. L s. d.

Grains 10 4 Cutting a litter 1 6 5 quarters peas 5 2 0 10 bushels barley 1 0 0 Expenses in selling[456] 11 6 10 bushels peas 1 6 3 ————— L8 11 7 ==========

CR. L s. d.

A pig 2 3 A fat hog 1 9 0 Another, 110 lb. wt. 1 12 9 Another, 116 lb. wt. 2 0 0 Heads 5 3 3 fat hogs 6 7 0 1 fat hog 2 0 0 10 young pigs 4 16 6 —————- L18 12 9 8 11 7 —————- Profit L10 1 2 ===========

We have seen that Young thought little of the 'new husbandry'; he does not even give Tull the credit of inventing the drill: 'Mr. Tull perhaps again invented it. He practised it upon an extent of ground far beyond that of any person preceding him: the spirit of drilling died with Mr. Tull and was not revived till within a few years.'[457] It was doubtful if 50 acres of corn were then annually drilled in England. Lately drilling had been revived and there were keen disputes as to the old and new methods of husbandry, the efficacy of the new being far from decided. The cause of the slow adoption of drill husbandry was the inferiority of the drills hitherto invented. They were complex in construction, expensive, and hard to procure. It seemed impossible to make a drill or drill plough as it was called, for such it then was—a combination of drill, plough, and harrow—capable of sowing at various depths and widths, and at the same time light enough for ordinary use. All the drills hitherto made were too light to stand the rough use of farm labourers: 'common ploughs and harrows the fellows tumble about in so violent a manner that if they were not strength itself they would drop to pieces. In drawing such instruments into the field the men generally mount the horses, and drag them after them; in passing gateways twenty to one they draw them against the gate post.' Some of 'these fellows' are still to be seen!

Another defect in drilling was that the drill plough filled up all the water furrows, which, at a time when drainage was often neglected, were deemed of especial importance, and they all had to be opened again.

Further, said the advocates of the old husbandry, it was a question whether all the horse-hoeings, hand-hoeings, and weedings of the new husbandry, though undoubtedly beneficial, really paid. It was very hard to get enough labourers for these operations. With more reason they objected to the principles of discarding manure and sowing a large number of white straw crops in succession, but admitted the new system was admirably adapted for beans, turnips, cabbages, and lucerne.

However, there were many followers of Tull. The Author of Dissertations on Rural Subjects[458] thought the drill plough an excellent invention, as it saved seed and facilitated hoeing; but he said Tull's drill was defective in that the distances between the rows could not be altered, a defect which the writer claims to have remedied. Young's desire for a stronger drill seems to have been soon answered, as the same writer says the barrel drill invented by Du-Hamel and improved by Craik was strong, cheap, and easily managed.

The tendency of the latter half of the century was decidedly in favour of larger farms; it was a bad thing for the small holders, but it was an economic tendency which could not be resisted. The larger farmers had more capital, were more able and ready to execute improvements; they drained their land, others often did not; having sufficient capital they were able both to buy and sell to the best advantage and not sacrifice their produce at a low price to meet the rent, as the small farmer so often did and does. They could pay better wages and so get better men, kept more stock and better, and more efficient implements. They also had a great advantage in being able by their good teams to haul home plenty of purchased manure, which the small farmer often could not do. The small tenants, who had no by-industry, then, as now, had to work and live harder than the ordinary labourer to pay their way.

Young calculated as early as 1768 that the average size of farms over the greater part of England was slightly under 300 acres.[459] In his Tour in France Young, speaking of the smallness of French farms as compared with English ones, and of the consequent great inferiority of French farming, says, 'Where is the little farmer to be found who will cover his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 to 150 tons per acre; who will drain his land at the expense of L2 to L3 an acre; who will, to improve the breed of his sheep, give 1,000 guineas for the use of a single ram for a single season; who will send across the kingdom to distant provinces for new implements and for men to use them? Deduct from agriculture all the practices that have made it flourishing in this island, and you have precisely the management of small farms.' In 1868 the Report of the Commission on the Agriculture of France[460] agreed with Young, noting the grave consequences of the excessive subdivision of land, loss of time, waste of labour, difficulties in rotation of crops, and of liberty of cultivation.

For stocking an arable farm of 70 acres Young considered the following expenditure necessary, the items of which give us interesting information as to prices about 1770:—

L s. d.

Rent, tithe, and town charges for first year 70 0 0 Household furniture 30 0 0 Wagon 25 0 0 Cart with ladders 12 0 0 Tumbril 10 0 0 Roller for broad lands (of wood) 2 0 0 " narrow " " 1 15 0 Cart harness for 4 horses 8 17 0 Plough " " 2 16 0 2 ploughs 3 0 0 A pair of harrows 1 15 0 Screen, bushel, fan, sieves, forks, rakes, &c. 8 0 0 Dairy furniture 3 0 0 20 sacks 2 10 0 4 horses 32 0 0 Wear and tear, and shoeing one year 13 0 0 Keep of 4 horses from Michaelmas to May Day, @ 2s. 6d. each a week 14 0 0 5 cows 20 0 0 20 sheep 5 10 0 One sow 15 0 One servant's board and wages for one year 15 0 0 A labourer's wages for one year 20 0 0 Seed for first year, 42 acres, @ 11s. 6d. 24 3 0 Harvest labour 1 10 0 —————— L326 11 0 ============

Or nearly L5 an acre.

About the same date the Complete English Farmer reckoned that the occupier of a farm of 500 acres (300 arable, 200 pasture), ought to have a capital of L1,500, and estimated that, after paying expenses and maintaining his family, he could put by L50 a year; 'but this capital was much beyond what farmers in general can attain to.'[461]

The controversy of horses versus oxen for working purposes was still raging, and Young favoured the use of oxen; for the food of horses cost more, so did their harness and their shoeing, they are much more liable to disease, and oxen when done with could be sold for beef. One stout lad, moreover, could attend to 8 or 10 oxen, for all he had to do was to put their fodder in the racks and clean the shed; no rubbing, no currying or dressing being necessary. No beasts fattened better than oxen that had been worked. A yoke of oxen would plough as much as a pair of horses and carry a deeper and truer furrow, while they were just as handy as horses in wagons, carts, rollers, &c. William Marshall, the other great agricultural writer of the end of the eighteenth century, agreed with Young, yet in spite of all these advantages horses were continually supplanting oxen.

Among the improvements in agriculture was the introduction of broad-wheeled wagons; narrow-wheeled ones were usual, and these on the turnpikes were only allowed to be drawn by 4 horses so that the load was small, but broad-wheeled wagons might use 8 horses. The cost of the latter was L50 against L25 for the former.[462]

Young's opinion of the labouring man, like Tull's, was not a high one. 'I never yet knew', he says, 'one instance of any poor man's working diligently while young and in health to escape coming to the parish when ill or old.' This is doubtless too sweeping. There must have been others like George Barwell, whom Marshall tells of in his Rural Economy of the Midlands, who had brought up a family of five or six sons and daughters on a wage of 5s. to 7s. a week, and after they were out in the world saved enough to support him in his old age. The majority, however, long before the crushing times of the French War, seem to have been thoroughly demoralized by indiscriminate parish relief, and habitually looked to the parish to maintain them in sickness and old age. Cullum[463] a few years later, remarks on the poor demanding assistance without the scruple and delicacy they used to have, and says 'the present age seems to aim at abolishing all subordination and dependence and reducing all ranks as near a level as possible.'! Idleness, drunkenness, and what was then often looked on with disgust and contempt, excessive tea-drinking, were rife. Tea then was very expensive, 8s. or 10s. a lb. being an ordinary price, so that the poor had to put up with a very much adulterated article, most pernicious to health. The immoderate use of this was stated to have worse effects than the immoderate use of spirits. The consumption of it was largely caused by the deficiency of the milk supply, owing to the decrease of small farms; the large farmers did not retail such small commodities as milk and butter, but sent them to the towns so that the poor often went without.[464]

In 1767 Young found wages differing according to the distance from London[465]:—

s. d.

20 miles from London they were per week 10 9 From 20 to 60 " " " 7 8 " 60 to 110 " " " 6 4 " 110 to 170 " " " 6 3

Giving an average of 7s. 9d. which, however, was often exceeded as there was much piece-work which enabled the men to earn more.

Young drew up a dietary for a labourer, his wife, and a family of three children, which he declared to be sufficient:—

L s. d.

Food, 6s. per week[466]; per year 15 12 0 Rent 1 10 0 Clothes 2 10 0 Soap and candles 1 5 0 Loss of time through illness, and medicine 1 0 0 Fuel 2 0 0 ————— L23 17 0 ==========

L s. d.

The man's wages were, @ 1s. 3d. a day, for the year 19 10 0 The woman's, @ 3-3/4d. a day, for the year 4 17 6 The boy of fifteen could earn 9 0 0 The boy of ten could earn 4 7 6 ————— L37 15 0 ==========

Which would give the family a surplus of L13 18s. 0d. a year.

What the man's food should consist of is shown by a list of 'seven days' messes for a stout man':—

s. d.

1st day. 2 lb. of bread made of wheat, rye, and potatoes—'no bread exceeds it' 2 Cheese, 2 oz. @ 4d. a lb 1/2 Beer, 2 quarts 1 2nd day. Three messes of soup 2 3rd day. Rice pudding 2-1/2 4th day. 1/4 lb. of fat meat and potatoes baked together 2-3/4 Beer 1 5th day. Rice milk 2 6th day. Same as first day 3-1/2 7th day. Potatoes, fat meat, cheese, and beer 4 ————- 1 9-1/4 =========

As Young was a man of large practical experience we may assume that this, though it seems a very insufficient diet, was not unlike the food of some labourers at that date. However, the bread he recommends was not that eaten by a large number of them. Eden[467] states that in 1764 about half the people of England were estimated to be using wheaten bread, and at the end of the century, although prices had risen greatly, he says that in the Home Counties wheaten bread was universal among the peasant class. Young, indeed, acknowledges that many insisted on wheaten bread.[468] In Suffolk, according to Cullum,[469] pork and bacon were the labourer's delicacies, bread and cheese his ordinary diet.

The north of England was more thrifty than the south. At the end of the eighteenth century barley and oaten bread were much used there. Lancashire people fed largely on oat bread, leavened and unleavened; the 33rd Regiment, which went by the name of the 'Havercake lads', was usually recruited from the West Riding where oat bread was in common use, and was famous for having fine men in its ranks.[470] The labourers of the north were also noted for their skill in making soups in which barley was an important ingredient. In many of the southern counties tea was drunk at breakfast, dinner, and supper by the poor, often without milk or sugar; but alcoholic liquors were also consumed in great quantities, the southerner apparently always drinking a considerable amount, the northerner at rare intervals drinking deep. The drinking in cider counties seems always to have been worse as far as quantity goes than elsewhere, and the drink bills on farms were enormous. Marshall says that in Gloucestershire drinking a gallon 'bottle', generally a little wooden barrel, at a draught was no uncommon feat; and in the Vale of Evesham a labourer who wanted to be even with his master for short payment emptied a two-gallon bottle without taking it from his lips. Even this feat was excelled by 'four well-seasoned yeomen, who resolved to have a fresh hogshead tapped, and setting foot to foot emptied it at one sitting.'[471] Yet in the beer-drinking counties great quantities were consumed; a gallon a day per man all the year round being no uncommon allowance.[472]

The superior thrift of the north was shown in clothes as well as food, the midland and southern labourer at the end of the century buying all his clothes, the northerner making them almost all at home; there were many respectable families in the north who had never bought a pair of stockings, coat, or waistcoat in their lives, and a purchased coat was considered a mark of extravagance and pride.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Young's dietary is that green vegetables are absolutely ignored. The peasant was supposed to need them as little as in the Middle Ages.

However, Young admits that very few labourers lived as cheaply as this, and he found the actual ordinary budget for the same family to be:—

L s. d.

Food, per week, 7s. 6d.; per year 19 10 0 Beer " 1s. 6d. " 3 18 0 Soap and candles 1 5 0 Rent 1 10 0 Clothes 2 10 0 Fuel 2 0 0 Illness, &c. 1 0 0 Infant 2 12 0 ————— L34 5 0 ==========

This, with the same Income as before, left him with a surplus of L3 10s. 0d.; but as it was not likely his wife could work all the year round, or that both his eldest children should be boys, it appears that his expenses must often have exceeded his income. This being so, it is not surprising that he was often drunken and reckless, and ready to come on the parish for relief. To labour incessantly, often with wife and boys, to live very poorly, yet not even make both ends meet, was enough to kill all spirit in any one.

A great evil from which the labourer suffered was the restrictions thrown on him of settling in another parish. If he desired to take his labour to a better market he often found it closed to him. His marriage was discouraged,[473] because a single man did not want a cottage and a married one did. To ease the rates there was open war against cottages, and many were pulled down.[474] If a labourer in a parish to which he did not legally belong signified his intention of marrying, he immediately had notice to quit the parish and retire to his own, unless he could procure a certificate that neither he nor his would be chargeable. If he went to his own parish he came off very badly, for they didn't want him, and cottages being scarce he probably had to put up with sharing one with one or more families. Sensible men cried out for the total abolition of the poor laws, the worst effects of which were still to be felt.

Yet there was a considerable migration of labour at harvest time when additional hands were needed. Labourers came from neighbouring counties, artisans left their workshops in the towns, Scots came to the Northern counties, Welshmen to the western, and Irishmen appeared in many parts; and they were as a rule supplied by a contractor.[475]

London was regarded as a source of great evil to the country by attracting the young and energetic thither. It used, men said, to be no such easy matter to get there when a stage coach was four or five days creeping 100 miles and fares were high; but in 1770 a country fellow 100 miles from London jumped on a coach in the morning and for 8s. or 10s. got to town by night, 'and ten times the boasts are sounded in the ears of country fools by those who have seen London to induce them to quit their healthy clean fields for a region of dirt, stink, and noise.' A prejudice might well have been entertained against the metropolis at this time, for it literally devoured the people of England, the deaths exceeding the births by 8,000 a year. One of the causes that had hitherto kept people from London was the dread of the small-pox, but that was now said to be removed by inoculation. Among the troubles farmers had to contend with were the audacious depredations caused by poachers, generally labourers, who swarmed in many villages. They took the farmer's horses out of his fields after they had done a hard day's work and rode them all night to drive the game into their nets, blundering over the hedges, sometimes staking the horses, riding over standing corn, or anything that was cover for partridges, and when they had sold their ill-gotten game spent the money openly at the nearest alehouse. Then they would go back and work for the farmers they had robbed, drunk, asleep, or idle the whole day. The subscription packs of foxhounds were also a great nuisance, many of the followers being townsmen who bored through hedges and smashed the gates and stiles, conduct not unknown to-day. In spite of these drawbacks the long period of great abundance from 1715 to 1765 and the consequent cheapness of food with an increase of wages was attended with a great improvement in the condition and habits of the people. Adam Smith refers to 'the peculiarly happy circumstances of the country'; Hallam described the reign of George II as 'the most prosperous period that England has ever experienced'[476]; and it was Young's opinion about 1770 that England was in a most rich and flourishing situation, 'her agriculture is upon the whole good and spirited and every day improving, her industrious poor are well fed, clothed, and lodged at reasonable rates, the prices of all necessaries being moderate, our population increasing, the price of labour generally high.'[477] The great degree of luxury to which the country had arrived within a few years 'is not only astonishing but almost dreadful to think of. Time was when those articles of indulgence which now every mechanic aims at the possession of were enjoyed only by the baron or lord.'[478] Great towns became the winter residence of those who could not afford London, and the country was said to be everywhere deserted, an evil largely attributed to the improvement of posting and coaches. The true country gentleman was seldom to be found, the luxuries of the age had softened down the hardy roughness of former times and the 'country, like the capital, is one scene of dissipation.' The private gentleman of L300 or L400 a year must have his horses, dogs, carriages, pictures, and parties, and thus goes to ruin. The articles of living, says the same writer, were 100 per cent. dearer than some time back. This is a very different picture from that in which Young represents every one rushing into farming, but no doubt depicts one phase of national life.

An excellent observer[479] noticed in 1792 that the preceding forty or fifty years had witnessed the total destruction in England of the once common type of the small country squire. He was:—

'An independent gentleman of L300 per annum who commonly appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver buttons, a jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels never exceeded the distance of the county town, and that only at assize or session time, or to attend an election. Once a week he commonly dined at the next market town with the attorneys and justices. He went to church regularly, read the weekly journal, settled the parochial disputes, and afterwards adjourned to the neighbouring alehouse, where he generally got drunk for the good of his country. He was commonly followed by a couple of greyhounds and a pointer, and announced his arrival at a neighbour's house by smacking his whip and giving a view halloo. His drink was generally ale, except on Christmas Day, the Fifth of November, or some other gala day, when he would make a bowl of strong brandy. The mansion of one of these squires was of plaster striped with timber, not unaptly called callimanco work, or of red brick with large casemented bow windows; a porch with seats in it and over it a study: the eaves of the house well inhabited by swallows, and the court set round with hollyhocks; near the gate a horse-block for mounting. The hall was furnished with flitches of bacon, and the mantelpiece with guns and fishing-rods of different dimensions, accompanied by the broadsword, partisan, and dagger borne by his ancestor in the Civil Wars. Against the wall was posted King Charles's Golden Rules, Vincent Wing's Almanac and a portrait of the Duke of Marlborough; in his window lay Baker's Chronicle, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Glanvill On Apparitions, Quincey's Dispensatory, The Complete Justice, and a Book of Farriery. In a corner by the fireside stood a large wooden two-armed chair with a cushion, and within the chimney corner were a couple of seats. Here at Christmas he entertained his tenants, assembled round a glowing fire made of the roots of trees; and told and heard the traditionary tales of the village about ghosts and witches while a jorum of ale went round. These men and their houses are no more.'

The farmer, in some parts at all events, was becoming a more civilized individual; the late race had lived in the midst of their enlightened neighbours like beings of another order[480]; in their personal labour they were indefatigable, in their fare hard, in their dress homely, in their manners rude. The French and American War of 1775-83 was a very prosperous time, and the farmer's mode of living greatly improved. Farmhouses in England, it was noticed, were in general well furnished with every convenient accommodation. Into many of them a 'barometer had of late years been introduced'. The teapot and the mug of ale jointly possessed the breakfast table, and meat and pudding smoked on the board every noon. Formerly one might see at church what was the cut of a coat half a century ago, now dress was spruce and modern.[481] As a proof of the spirit of improvement among farmers, Marshall instances the custom in the Midlands of placing their sons as pupils on other farms to widen their experience. 'Their entertainments are as expensive as they are elegant, for it is no uncommon thing for one of these new-created farmers to spend L10 or L12, at one entertainment, and to have the most expensive wines; to set off the entertainment in the greatest splendour an elegant sideboard of plate is provided in the newest fashion.'[482] As to dress, no one could tell the farmer's daughter from the duke's. Marshall noticed that in Warwickshire the harness of the farmer's teams was often ridiculously ornamented, and the horses were overfed and underworked to save their looks. Before enclosure the farmer entertained his friends with bacon fed by himself, washed down with ale brewed from his own malt, in a brown jug, or a glass if he was extravagant. He wore a coat of woollen stuff, the growth of his own flock, spun by his wife and daughters, his stockings came from the same quarter, so did the clothes of his family.

Some of these farmers were doing their share in helping the progress of agriculture. In 1764 Joseph Elkington, of Princethorpe in Warwickshire, was the first to practise the under drainage of sloping land that was drowned by the bursting of springs. He drained some fields at Princethorpe which were very wet, and dug a trench 4 or 5 feet deep for this purpose; but finding this did not reach the principal body of subjacent water, he drove an iron bar 4 feet below the bottom of his trench and on withdrawing it the water gushed out. He was thus led to combine the system of cutting drains, aided when necessary by auger holes. His main principles were three: (1) Finding the main spring, or cause of the mischief. (2) Taking the level of that spring and ascertaining its subterranean bearings, for if the drain is cut a yard below the line of the spring the water issuing from it cannot be reached, but on ascertaining the line by levelling the spring can be cut effectually. (3) Using the auger to tap the spring when the drain was not deep enough for the purpose.[483] It was owing to the Board of Agriculture at the end of the century that he obtained the vote of L1,000 from Parliament, and a skilful surveyor was appointed to observe his methods and give them to the public, for he was too ignorant himself to give an intelligible account of his system. After the publication of the report his system was followed generally until Smith of Deanston in 1835 gave the method now in use to his country.

Robert Bakewell, who did more to improve live stock than any other man, was born at Dishley, Leicestershire, in 1735, and succeeding to the management of his father's farm in 1760 began to make experiments in breeding.[484] He scorned the old idea that the blood must be constantly varied by the mixture of different breeds, and his new system differed from the old in two chief points: (1) small versus large bone, and consequently a greater proportion of flesh and a greater tendency to fatten; (2) permissible in-breeding versus perpetual crossing with strange breeds. He took immense pains in selecting the best animals to breed from, and had at Dishley a museum of skeletons and pickled specimens for the comparison of one generation with another, and he conducted careful post-mortem examinations on his stock. His great production was the new Leicester breed of sheep,[485] which in half a century spread over every part of the United Kingdom, as well as to Europe and America, and gave England 2 lb. of meat where she had one before. Sheep at this time were divided into two main classes: (1) short-woolled or field sheep, fed in the open fields; (2) long-woolled or pasture sheep, fed in enclosures. That they were not at a very high state of perfection may be gathered from this description of the chief variety of the latter, the 'Warwickshire' breed: 'his frame large and loose, his bones heavy, his legs long and thick, his chine as well as his rump as sharp as a hatchet, his skin rattling on his ribs like a skeleton covered with parchments.' The origin of the new Leicester sheep is uncertain, but apparently the old Lincoln breed was the basis of it, though this, like other large breeds of English sheep, was itself an introduction of the last half century. The new sheep was described as having a clean head, straight broad flat back, barrel-like body, fine small eyes, thin feet, mutton fat, fine-grained and of good flavour, wool 8 lb. to the fleece, and wethers at two years old weighed from 20 to 30 lb. a quarter.

By 1770 his rams were hired for 25 guineas a season, and soon after he made L3,000 a year by their hire, one named 'Two-pounder' bringing him 1,200 guineas in one year.

One of his theories was that the poorer the land the more it demanded well-made sheep, which is no doubt true to a certain extent; but it has been proved conclusively since that the quality of the breed gradually drops to the level of the land unless artificially assisted. At his death he left two distinct breeds of sheep, for he improved on his own new Leicester, so that the improved became the 'New Leicester' and the former the 'Old Leicester.' However, at the time and, afterwards, his sheep were generally called 'New Leicesters', and sometimes the 'Dishley breed'. There was much prejudice among farmers against the new breed; in the Midlands most of the farmers would have nothing to do with them, and 'their grounds were stocked with creatures that would disgrace the meanest lands in the kingdom.' Yet in April, 1786, yearling wethers of the new breed were sold for 28s. while those of the old were 16s.

The cattle which he set to work to improve were the famous old longhorn breed, the prevailing breed of the Midlands, which had already been considerably improved by Webster of Canley in Warwickshire, and others, especially in Lancashire and the north. The kind of cattle esteemed hitherto had been 'the large, long-bodied, big-boned, coarse, flat-sided kind, and often lyery or black-fleshed.'[486] He founded his herd upon two heifers of Webster's and a bull from Westmoreland, and from these bred all his cattle. The celebrated bull 'Twopenny' was a son of the Westmoreland bull and one of these heifers, who came to be celebrated in agricultural history as 'Old Comely', for she was slaughtered at the age of twenty-six. He bred his cattle so that they produced an enormous amount of fat, as hitherto there had been a difficulty in producing animals to fatten readily; but this he pushed to too great an extreme, so that there has been a reaction. The following is a description of a six-year-old bull, got by 'Twopenny' out of a Canley cow: 'His head, chest, and neck remarkably fine and clean; his chest extraordinarily deep; his brisket bearing down to his knees; his chine thin, loin narrow at the chine, but remarkably wide at the hips. Quarters long, round bones snug, but thighs rather full and remarkably let down. The carcase throughout, chine excepted, large, roomy, deep, and well spread.'[487] The new longhorn, however good for the grazier, was not a good milker. Bakewell was a great believer in straw as a food, and strongly objected to having it trodden into manure; his beasts were largely fed on it, in such small quantities that they greedily ate what was before them and wasted little. His activity was not confined to the breeding of cattle and sheep, for he also produced a breed of black horses, thick and short in the body, with very short legs and very powerful, two ploughing 4 acres a day, a statement which seems much exaggerated; and was famous for his skill in irrigating meadows, by which he could cut grass four times a year. He was a firm believer in the wisdom of treating stock gently and kindly, and his sheep were kept as clean as racehorses. A visitor to Dishley saw a bull of huge proportions, with enormous horns, led about by a boy of seven. He travelled much, and admired the farms of Norfolk most in England, and those of Holland and Flanders abroad, founding his own system on these. It was his opinion that the Devon breed of cattle were incapable of improvement by a cross of any other breed, and that from the West Highland heifer the best breed of cattle might be produced.

He died in 1795, and apparently did not keep what he made, owing largely to his boundless hospitality, which had entertained Russian princes, German royal dukes, English peers, and travellers from all countries. His breed of cattle has completely disappeared, unless traces survive in the lately resuscitated longhorn breed, but his principles are still acted upon, viz. the correlation of form, and the practice of consanguineous breeding under certain conditions.

Bakewell's earliest pupil was George Culley, who devoted himself to improving the breed of cattle, and became one of the most famous agriculturists at the end of the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth centuries. Another farmer to whom English agriculture owes much was John Ellman of Glynde, born in 1753, who by careful selection firmly established the reputation of the Southdown sheep which had previously been hardly recognized. He was one of the founders of the Smithfield Cattle Show in 1793, which helped materially to improve the live stock of the country.

The relations between landlord and tenant, judging from the accounts of contemporary writers, were generally good. Leases were less frequent than agreements voidable by six months' notice on either side, and when there was a tenancy-at-will the tenant who entered as a young man was often expected to hand on the holding to his posterity, and therefore executed improvements at his own cost, so complete was the trust between landlord and tenant. Tenants then did much that they would refuse to do to-day, as the following lease, common in the Midlands in 1786, shows[488]:

Tenant agrees to take, &c., and to pay the stipulated rent within forty days, without any deduction for taxes, and double rent so long as he continues to hold after notice given.

To repair buildings, accidents by fire excepted.

To repair gates and fences.

When required, to cut and plash the hedges, and make the ditches 3 feet by 2 feet, or pay or cause to be paid to the landlord 1s. per rood for such as shall not be done after three months' notice has been given in writing.

Not to break up certain lands specified in the schedule, 'under L20 an acre.'

Not to plough more than a specified number of acres of the rest of the land in any one year, under the same penalty.

To forfeit the same sum for every acre that shall be ploughed for any longer time than three crops successively, without making a clean summer fallow thereof after the third crop.

And the like sum for every acre over and above a specified number (clover excepted) that shall be mown in any one year.

At the time of laying down arable lands to grass he shall manure them with 8 quarters of lime per acre, and sow the same with 12 lb. of clover seeds, and one bushel of rye-grass per acre.

Shall spend on the premises all hay, straw, and manure, or leave them at the end of the term.

Tenant on quitting to be allowed for hay left on the premises, for clover and rye-grass sown in the last year, and for all fallows made within that time.'[489]

A striking picture of the conditions prevailing in many parts of England at this period is given by Mr. Loch in his account of the estates of the Marquis of Stafford.[490] When this nobleman inherited his property in Staffordshire and Shropshire, much of the land, as in other parts of England, was held on leases for three lives, a system said to have been ruinous in its effects. Although the farms were held at one-third of their value, nothing could be worse than the course of cultivation pursued, no improvements were carried out, and all that could be hoped for was that the land would not be entirely run out when the lease expired. The closes were extremely small and of the most irregular shape; the straggling fences occupied a large portion of the land; the crookedness of the ditches, by keeping the water stagnant, added to, rather than relieved, the wetness of the soil. Farms were much scattered, and to enable the occupiers to get at their land, lanes wound backwards and forwards from field to field, covering a large quantity of ground.

It is to the great credit of the Marquis of Stafford that this miserable state of things was swept away. Lands were laid together, the size of the fields enlarged, hedges and ditches straightened, the drainage conducted according to a uniform plan, new and substantial buildings erected, indeed the whole countryside transformed.

Another evil custom on the estate had been to permit huts of miserable construction to be erected to the number of several hundreds by the poorest, and in many instances the most profligate, of the population. They were not regularly entered in the rental account, but had a nominal payment fixed upon them which was paid annually at the court leet. These cottages were built on the sides of the roads and on the lord's waste, which was gradually absorbed by the encroachment, which the occupiers of these huts made from time to time by enclosing the land that lay next them. These wretched holdings gradually fell into the hands of a body of middlemen, who underlet them at an extravagant rent to the occupiers; and these men began to consider that they had an interest independent of the landlord, and had at times actually mortgaged, sold, and devised it. This abuse was also put an end to, the cottagers being made immediate tenants of the landlord, to their great gain, but to this day small aggregations of houses in Shropshire called 'Heaths' mark the encroachments of these squatters on the roadside wastes. This class, indeed, has been well known in England since the Middle Ages. Norden speaks of them in 1602, and so do many subsequent writers. Numbers of small holdings exist to-day obtained in this manner, and the custom must to some extent have counteracted the effect of enclosure.[491]

The roads of England up to the end of the eighteenth century were generally in a disgraceful condition. Some improvement was effected in the latter half of the century, but it was not until the days of Telford and Macadam that they assumed the appearance with which we are familiar; and long after that, though the main roads were excellent, the by-roads were often atrocious, as readers of such books as Handley Cross, written in the middle of the nineteenth century, will remember.

Defoe in his tour in 1724 found the road between S. Albans and Nottingham 'perfectly frightful,' and the great number of horses killed by the 'labour of these heavy ways a great charge to the country'. He notes, however, an improvement from turnpikes. Many of the roads were much worn by the continual passing of droves of heavy cattle on their way to London. Sheep could not travel in the winter to London as the roads were too heavy, so that the price of mutton at that season in town was high. Breeders were often compelled to sell them cheap before they got to London, because the roads became impassable for their flocks when the bad weather set in.[492]

In 1734 Lord Cathcart wrote in his diary: 'All went well until I arrived within 3 miles of Doncaster, when suddenly my horse fell with a crash and with me under him. I fancied myself crushed to death. I slept at Doncaster and had a bad night. I was so bad all day, that I could get no further than Wetherby. Next day I was all right again. I had another terrible fall between North Allerton and Darlington, but was not a bit the worse.'[493]

It was owing to this defective condition of the roads that the prices of corn still differed greatly in various localities; there would be a glut in one place and a deficiency in another, with no means of equalizing matters. To the same cause must be attributed in great measure the slow progress made in the improvement of agriculture. New discoveries travelled very slowly; the expense of procuring manure beyond that produced on the farm was prohibitive; and the uncertain returns which arose from such confined markets caused the farmer to lack both spirit and ability to exert himself in the cultivation of his land.[494] Therefore farming was limited to procuring the subsistence of particular farms rather than feeding the public. The opposition to better roads was due in great measure to the landowners, who feared that if the markets in their neighbourhood were rendered accessible to distant farmers their estates would suffer. But they were not alone in their opposition; in the reign of Queen Anne the people of Northampton were against any improvement in the navigation of the Nene, because they feared that corn from Huntingdon and Cambridge would come up the river and spoil their market.[495] Horner was very enthusiastic over the improvement recently effected: 'our very carriages travel with almost winged expedition between every town of consequence in the kingdom and the metropolis' and inland navigation was soon likely to be established in every part, in consequence of which the demand for the produce of the land increased and the land itself became more valuable and rents rose. 'There never was a more astonishing revolution accomplished in the internal system of any country'; and the carriage of grain was effected with half the former number of horses.

It is clear, however, that he was easily satisfied, and this opinion must be compared with the statements of Young and Marshall, who were continually travelling all over England some time after it was written, and found the roads, in many parts, in a very bad state.

Even near London they were often terrible. 'Of all the cursed roads that ever disgraced this kingdom in the very ages of barbarism, none ever equalled that from Billericay to the King's Head at Tilbury.[496] It is for near 12 miles so narrow that a mouse cannot pass by any carriage. I saw a fellow creep under his wagon to assist me to lift, if possible, my chaise over a hedge. The ruts are of an incredible depth, and everywhere chalk wagons were stuck fast till 20 or 30 horses tacked to each drew them out one by one' Others said that turnpike roads were the enemies of cheapness; as soon as they opened up secluded spots, low prices vanished and all tended to one level. Owing to the work of Telford and Macadam, the high roads by the first quarter of the nineteenth century attained a high pitch of excellence; and were thronged with traffic, coaches, postchaises, private carriages, equestrians, carts and wagons: so animated a sight that our forefathers built small houses called 'gazebos' on the sides of the road, where they met to take tea and watch the ever varying stream. It should not be forgotten, too, that the inns, where numbers of horses put up, were splendid markets for the farmers' oats, hay, and straw.

The seasons in the latter part of the eighteenth century were distinguished for being frequently bad. In 1774 Gilbert White wrote, 'Such a run of wet seasons as we have had the last ten or eleven years would have produced a famine a century or two ago.' Owing to the dearness of bread in 1767 riots broke out in many places, many lives were lost, and the gaols were filled with prisoners.[497] 1779 was, however, a year of great fertility and prices were low all round: wheat 33s. 8d., barley 26s., oats 13s. 6d., wool 12s. a tod of 28 lb.: and there were many complaints of ruined farmers and distressed landlords. Though England was now becoming an importing country, the amount of corn imported was insufficient to have any appreciable effect on prices, which were mainly influenced by the seasons, as the following instance of the fluctuations caused by a single bad season (1782) testifies[498]:

Prices after harvest of 1781. Prices after harvest of 1782.

L s. d. L s. d.

Wheat, per bushel 5 0 Wheat, per bushel 10 6 Barley " 2 9 Barley " 7 2 Dutch oats for seed 1 8 Dutch oats for seed 3 6 Clover seed, per cwt. 1 11 6 Clover seed, per cwt. 5 10 0

The summer of 1783 was amazing and portentous and full of horrible phenomena, according to White, with a peculiar haze or smoky fog prevailing for many weeks. 'The sun at noon looked as blank as a clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferruginous light on the ground and floors of rooms.' This was succeeded by a very severe winter, the thermometer on December 10 being 1 deg. below zero; the worst since 1739-40.

In 1788 occurred a severe drought in the summer, 5,000 horned cattle perishing for lack of water.[499] In 1791 there was a remarkable change of temperature in the middle of June, the thermometer in a few days falling from 75 deg. to 25 deg., and the hills of Kent and Surrey were covered with snow.

We have now to deal with one of those landowners whose great example is one of the glories of English agriculture. Coke of Holkham began his great agricultural work about 1776 on an estate where, as old Lady Townshend said, 'all you will see will be one blade of grass and two rabbits fighting for that;' in fact it was little better than a rabbit warren. It has been said that all the wheat consumed in the county of Norfolk was at this time imported from abroad; but this is in direct contradiction to Young's assertion, already noted, that there were in 1767 great quantities of wheat besides other crops in the county. Coke's estate indeed seems to have been considerably behind many parts of the shire when he began his farming career.[500] When Coke came into his estate, in five leases which were about to expire the farms were held at 3s. 6d. an acre; and in the previous leases they had been 1s. 6d. an acre. We may judge of the quality of this land by comparing it with the average rent of 10s. which Young says prevailed at this time. With a view to remedy this state of things he studied the agriculture of other counties, and his observations thereon reveal a very poor kind of farming in many places: in Cheshire the rich pasture was wasted and the poor impoverished by sheer ignorance, in Yorkshire luxuriant grass was understocked, in Shropshire there were hardly any sheep; in his own part of Norfolk the usual rotation was three white straw crops and then broadcast turnips.[501] This Coke changed to two white crops and two years pasture, and he dug up and brought to the surface the rich marl which lay under the flint and sand, so that clover and grasses began to grow. So successful was he in this that in 1796 he cut nearly 400 tons of sainfoin from 104 acres of land previously valued at 12s. an acre. He increased his flock of sheep from 800 worthless animals with backs as narrow as rabbits, the description of the Norfolk sheep of the day, to 2,500 good Southdowns. Encouraged by the Duke of Bedford, another great agriculturist, he started a herd of North Devons, and, fattening two Devons against one Shorthorn, found the former weighed 140 stone, the latter 110, and the Shorthorn had eaten more food than the two Devons. However, a single experiment of this kind is not very conclusive.

The ploughs of Norfolk were, as in many other counties, absurdly over-horsed, from three to five being used when only two were necessary; so Coke set the example of using two whenever possible, and won a bet with Sir John Sebright by ploughing an acre of stiff land in Hertfordshire in a day with a pair of horses. He transformed the bleak bare countryside by planting 50 acres of trees every year until he had 3,000 acres well covered, and in 1832 had probably the unique experience of embarking in a ship which was built of oak grown from the acorns he had himself planted.[502] Between 1776 and 1842 (the date of his death) he is said to have spent L536,992 on improving his estate, without reckoning the large sums spent on his house and demesne, the home farm, and his marsh farm of 459 acres. This expenditure paid in the long run, but when he entered upon it, it must have seemed very doubtful if this would be the case. A good understanding between landlord and tenant was the basis of his policy, and to further this he let his farms on long leases, at moderate rents, with few restrictions. When farmers improved their holdings on his estate the rent was not raised on them, so that the estate benefited greatly, and good tenants were often rewarded by having excellent houses built for them; so good, indeed, that his political opponents the Tories, whom he, as a staunch Whig detested, made it one of their complaints against him that he built palaces for farmhouses. At first he met with that stolid opposition to progress which seems the particular characteristic of the farmer. For sixteen years no one followed him in the use of the drill, though it was no new thing; and when it was adopted he reckoned its use spread at the rate of a mile a year. Yet eventually he had his reward; his estate came to command the pick of English tenant farmers, who never left it except through old age, and would never live under any other landlord. Even the Radical Cobbett, to whom, as to most of his party, landlords were, and are, the objects of inveterate hatred, said that every one who knew him spoke of him with affection. Coke was the first to distinguish between the adaptability of the different kinds of grass seeds to different soils, and thereby made the hitherto barren lands of his estate better pasture land than that of many rich counties. Carelessness about the quality of grasses sown was universal for a long time. The farmer took his seeds from his own foul hayrick, or sent to his neighbour for a supply of rubbish; even Bakewell derived his stock from his hayloft. It was not until the Society for the Encouragement of Arts offered prizes for clean hay seeds that some improvement was noticeable. In Norfolk, as in other parts of England, there was at this time a strong prejudice against potatoes; the villagers of Holkham refused to have anything to do with them, but Coke's invincible persistency overcame this unreasoning dislike and soon they refused to do without them.

Coke was a great advocate for sowing wheat early and very thick in the rows, and for cutting it when ear and stem were green and the grain soft, declaring that by so doing he got 2s. a quarter more for it; he also believed in the early cutting of oats and peas. It was his custom to drill 4 bushels of wheat per acre, which he said prevented tillering and mildew. He was the first to grow swedes on a large scale.[503] The famous Holkham Sheep-shearings, known locally as 'Coke's Clippings', which began in 1778 and lasted till 1821, arose from his practice of gathering farmers together for consultation on matters agricultural, and developed into world-famous meetings attended by all nationalities and all ranks, men journeying from America especially to attend them, and Lafayette expressed it as one of his great regrets that he had never attended one. At these gatherings all were equal, the suggestion of the smallest tenant farmer was listened to with respect, and the same courtesy and hospitality were shown to all whether prince or farmer. At the last meeting in 1821 no less than 7,000 people were present. His skill, energy, and perseverance worked a revolution in the crops; his own wheat crops were from 10 to 12 coombs an acre, his barley sometimes nearly 20. The annual income of timber and underwood was L2,700, and from 1776 to 1816 he increased the rent roll of his estate from L2,200 to L20,000, which, even after allowing for the great advance in prices during that period, is a wonderful rise. It is a very significant fact that there was not an alehouse on the estate, and in connexion with this, and with the fact that his improvements made a constant demand for labour, we are not surprised to learn that the workhouse was pulled down as useless, for it was always empty, and this at a time when the working-classes of England were pauperized to an alarming degree. The year 1818 was one of terrible distress all over England in country and town, yet at his sheep-shearing of that year Coke was enabled to say he had trebled the population of his estate and not a single person was out of employment, though everywhere else farmers were turning off hands and cutting down wages. Principally through his agency, between 1804 and 1821, no less than 153 enclosures took place in Norfolk, while between 1790 and 1810, 2,000,000 acres of waste land in England were brought under cultivation largely by his efforts. He is said, indeed, to have transformed agriculture throughout England, and, but for that, the country would not have been able to grow enough food for its support during the war with Napoleon, and must have succumbed.

FOOTNOTES:

[440] Northern Tour, i. 9. For an interesting account of Young, see R.A.S.E. Journal (3rd Series), iv. 1.

[441] In 1726 Bradley had urged the use of liquorice, madder, woad, and caraway as improvers of the land in the Preface to the Country Gentleman.

[442] Rural Economy (1771), pp. 173-5. Trusler, who wrote in 1780, mentions 'the general rage for farming throughout the kingdom.'—Practical Husbandry, p. I.

[443] In 1780 Sir Thomas Bernard, travelling through Northumberland, saw 'luxuriant plantations, neat hedges, rich crops of corn, comfortable farmhouses' in a county whereof the greater part was barren moor dearly rented at 1s. 6d. an acre thirty years before, and he said the county had increased in annual value fourfold, (Contemporary MS., unpublished.)

[444] Rural Economy, p. 26.

[445] Farmer's Letters (3rd ed.), p. 89.

[446] Slater, English Peasantry and Enclosure, p. 95.

[447] Ibid. p. 101.

[448] Young, Northern Tour, iv. 340, about 1770 estimates the cultivated land of England to be half pasture and half arable, and, in the absence of reliable statistics, his opinion on this point is certainly the best available. The conversion of a large portion of the richer land from arable to grass in the eighteenth century was compensated for, according to Young, by the conversion, on enclosure, of poor sandy soils and heaths or moors into corn land. Hasbach, op. cit. pp. 370-1.

[449] Young, Northern Tour, i. 222.

[450] Rural Economy, p. 252.

[451] Ibid. p. 271.

[452] Cf. above, p. 180.

[453] Farmer's Letters (3rd ed), p. 372.

[454] Northern Tour, iv. 167.

[455] Ibid. iv. 186.

[456] This large item is explained by the fact that a bailiff was employed to sell, and no bailiff could find customers 'without feeling the same drought as stage coachmen when they see a sign'.—Young, Farmer's Letters, p. 403.

[457] Rural Economy, p. 314.

[458] 1775, pp. x-xiii.

[459] Northern Tour, iv. 192-202.

[460] See Parliamentary Reports Commission (1881), xvi. 260.

[461] Dissertations on Rural Subjects, p. 278.

[462] Farmer's Letters, p. 433.

[463] History of Hawsted, p. 169.

[464] Hasbach, op. cit. p. 127; Kent, Hints to Gentlemen, p. 152.

[465] Southern Tour, p. 324. He says nothing of the manufacturing towns, which had not yet began to influence the wages of farm labourers near them as they soon afterwards did.

[466] Some prices at this time were: bread per lb., 2d.; butter, 5-1/2d. to 8d.; cheese, 3-1/2d. to 4d.; beef, 3d. to 5d.; mutton, 3-1/2d. to 5d.

[467] State of the Poor, i. 562.

[468] According to Walter Harte, though the yeoman in the middle of the seventeenth century ate bread of rye and barley (maslin), in 1766 even the poor cottagers looked upon it with horror and demanded best wheaten bread. Yet in 1766 the quartern loaf in London was 1s. 6d.—Tooke, History of Prices, i. 68.

[469] History of Hawsted, p. 184.

[470] Eden, State of the Poor, i. 513.

[471] Rural Economy of Gloucestershire, i. 53.

[472] Eden, op. cit. i. 547.

[473] Farmer's Letters, i. 300

[474] The pulling down of cottages began to be complained of in the seventeenth century; they harboured the poor, who were a charge upon the parish, and repairs were saved.—Transactions Royal Historical Society (New Series), xix. 120.

[475] Hasbach, op. cit. 82; Clarke, General View of Herefordshire, p. 29; Marshall, Review of Northern Department, p. 375.

[476] Tooke, History of Prices, i. 50; Hallam, Constitutional History, iii. 302.

[477] Northern Tour, iv. 420. The increase in population in the first half of the eighteenth century was slow; after the Peace of Paris in 1763, when the commerce and manufactures of the country were extended in an unprecedented degree, it was rapid.

[478] The Way to be Rich and Respectable, London, 1780.

[479] Grose, Olio, pp. 41-4; Lecky, History of England in Eighteenth Century, vi. 169 et. seq.

[480] Cullum, History of Hawsted, p. 219.

[481] Cullum, History of Hawsted, p. 225.

[482] Thoughts on Enclosure, by a Country Farmer (1786), p. 21.

[483] Johnstone, Account of Elkington's Draining (1797), pp. 8-9.

[484] R.A.S.E. Journal (1894), p. 11, from which this account of Bakewell is mainly taken.

[485] According to some, Joseph Allom originated the breed, and Bakewell vastly improved it. We may safely give the chief credit to so careful and gifted a breeder as Bakewell.

[486] Culley on Live Stock (1807), p. 56.

[487] Marshall, Rural Economy of the Midland Counties, i. 273.

[488] Victoria County History: Warwickshire, Agriculture.

[489] In Lancashire at this date it was not uncommon, when a tenant wished for his farm or a particular field to be improved by draining, marling, liming, or laying down to grass, to hand it over to the landlord for the process; who, when completed, returned it to the tenant with an advanced rent of 10 per cent. upon the improvements.—Marshall, Review of Reports to Board of Agriculture (under Lancashire).

[490] 1820, p. 173 et seq.

[491] See Hasbach, op. cit. pp. 77 sq.; Annals of Agriculture, xxxvi. 497; Scrutton, Commons and Common Fields, p. 139.

[492] Defoe, Tour, ii. 178 et seq.

[493] R.A.S.E. Journal (3rd Ser.), ii. 9.

[494] Horner, Inquiry into the Means of Preserving the Public Roads (1767), pp. 4 et seq.

[495] Victoria County History: Northants., ii. 250.

[496] Young, Southern Tour (ed. 2), p. 88.

[497] Tooke, History of Prices, i. 68. It is difficult to understand the price of the quartern loaf, 1s. 6d. in 1766, as wheat was only 43s. 1d. a quarter. Prices of wheat in these years were:

s. d.

1767 47 4 1768 53 9 1769 40 7 1770 43 6 1771 47 2 1772 50 8 1773 51 0 1774 52 8 1775 48 4 1776 38 2 1777 45 6 1778 42 0 1779 33 8

These returns differ from those of the Board of Agriculture; see Appendix III.

[498] Annals of Agriculture, iii. 366.

[499] Baker, Seasons and Prices, pp. 224 et seq.

[500] A. Stirling, Coke of Holkham, i. 249.

[501] But in other parts of it the cultivation of turnips was well understood, for the Complete Farmer, s.v. Turnips (ed. 3), says that about 1750 Norfolk farmers boasted that turnips had doubled the value of their holdings, and Norfolk men were famous for understanding hoeing and thinning, which were little practised elsewhere. Further, Young, Southern Tour, p. 273, says: 'the extensive use of turnips is known but little of except in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. I found no farmers but in these counties that understood anything of fatting cattle with them; feeding lean sheep being the only use they put them to.'

[502] A. Stirling, op. cit. i. 264.

[503] R.A.S.E. Journal (1895), p. 12.



CHAPTER XVII

1793-1815

THE GREAT FRENCH WAR.—THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.—HIGH PRICES, AND HEAVY TAXATION.

This period, that of the great war with France, was one generally of high prices and prosperity for landowners and farmers. It was a prosperity, however, that was largely fictitious, and when the high prices of the war time were over, it was succeeded by many disastrous years. The prosperity, too, was also largely neutralized by a crushing weight of taxation and rates, while the labourer, although his wages were increased, found prices grow at a much greater rate, and it was, as Thorold Rogers has said, the most miserable period in his history.

Its commencement was marked by the foundation of the Board of Agriculture. On May 15, 1793, Sir John Sinclair[504] moved in the House of Commons, 'that His Majesty would take into his consideration the advantages which might be derived from the establishment of such a board, for though in some particular districts improved methods of cultivating the soil were practised, yet in the greatest part of these kingdoms the principles of agriculture are not sufficiently understood, nor are the implements of husbandry or the stock of the farmer brought to that perfection of which they are capable. His Majesty's faithful Commons were persuaded that if it were founded a spirit of improvement might be encouraged, which would result in important national benefits.

The motion was carried by 101 to 26. By its charter the board consisted of a president, 16 ex-officio and 30 ordinary members, with honorary and corresponding members. It was not a Government department in the modern sense of the term, but a society for the encouragement of agriculture, as the Royal Society is for the encouragement of science. It was, indeed, supported by parliamentary grants, receiving a sum of L3,000 a year, but the Government had only a limited control over its affairs through the ex-officio members, among whom were the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Lord Chancellor, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Speaker.

The first president was Sir John Sinclair, and the first secretary Arthur Young, with a salary of L400 a year, which he thought insufficient.[505] The first task of the new board was that of preparing statistical accounts of English agriculture, and it was intended to take in hand the commutation of tithes, which would have been a great boon to farmers, with whom the prevailing system of collecting tithes was very unpopular; but the Primate's opposition stopped this. The board appointed lecturers, procured a reward for Elkington for his draining system, encouraged Macadam in his plans for improving roads, and Meikle the inventor of the thrashing machine, and obtained the removal of taxes on draining tiles, and other taxes injurious to agriculture. It also recommended the allotment system, and Sinclair desired 3 acres and a cow for every industrious cottager. During the abnormally high prices of provisions from 1794-6, the quartern loaf in London in 1795 being 1s. 6d., though next year it dropped to 7-3/4d.,[506] the board made experiments in making bread with substitutes for wheat, which resulted in a public exhibition of eighty different sorts of bread. Its efforts were generally followed by increased zeal among agriculturists; but Sinclair, an able but impetuous man,[507] appears to have taken things too much into his own hands and pushed them too speedily.

Financial difficulties came, chiefly owing to the cost of the surveys, which had been hurried on with undue haste and often with great carelessness, the surveyors sometimes being men who knew nothing of the subject.

Sinclair was deposed from the presidency in 1798, and succeeded by Lord Somerville. He again was succeeded by Lord Carrington, under whose presidency the board offered premiums (the first of L200), owing to the high price of wheat and consequent distress, for essays on the best means of converting certain portions of grass land into tillage without exhausting the soil, and of returning the same to grass, after a certain period, in an improved state, or at least without injury. The general report, based on the information derived from these essays, states that no high price of corn or temporary distress would justify the ploughing up of old meadows or rich pastures, and that on certain soils well adapted to grass age improves the quality of the pasture to a degree which no system of management on lands broken up and laid down can equal. In spite of this, the cupidity of landowners and farmers, when wheat was a guinea a bushel or at prices near it, led to the ploughing up of much splendid grass land, which was never laid down again until, perhaps in recent years, owing to the low price of grain; so that some of the land at all events has, owing to bad times, returned to the state best suited to it.

The board looked upon the enclosure and cultivation of waste lands, which in England they estimated at 6,000,000 acres,[508] as a panacea for the prevailing distress, and after much opposition they managed to pass through both Houses in 1801 a Bill cheapening and facilitating the process of parliamentary enclosure. This Act, 41 Geo. III, c. 109, 'extracted a number of clauses from various private Acts and enacted that they should hold good in all cases where the special Act did not expressly provide to the contrary.' Another benefit rendered to agriculture was the establishment in 1803 of lectures on agricultural chemistry, the first lecturer engaged being Mr., afterwards Sir Humphry, Davy, who may be regarded as the father of agricultural chemistry.

In 1806 Sinclair was re-elected president, and his second term was mainly devoted to completing the agricultural surveys of the different counties, which, before his retirement in 1813, he had with one or two exceptions the satisfaction of seeing finished. Though over-impetuous, he rendered valuable service to agriculture, not only by his own energy but by stirring up energy in others; as William Wilberforce the philanthrophist said, 'I have myself seen collected in that small room several of the noblemen and gentlemen of the greatest properties in the British Isles, all of them catching and cultivating an agricultural spirit, and going forth to spend in the employment of labourers, and I hope in the improvement of land, immense sums which might otherwise have been lavished on hounds and horses, or squandered on theatricals.'

Among the numerous subjects into which the board inquired was the divining rod for finding water, which was tested in Hyde Park in 1801, and successfully stood the test. In 1805, Davy the chemist reported on a substance in South America called 'guana', which he had analysed and found to contain one-third of ammoniacal salt with other salts and carbon, but its use was not to come for another generation. From the time of Sinclair's retirement in 1813 the board declined. Arthur Young, its secretary, had become blind and his capacity therefore impaired. One year its lack of energy was shown by the return of L2,000 of the Government grant to the Treasury because it had nothing to spend it on. The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was against it, the clergy feared the commutation of tithe which the board advocated, the legal profession was against the Enclosure Act, the landed interest thought the surveys were intended for purposes of taxation; and the grant being withdrawn, an effort to maintain the board by voluntary subscription failed, so that it dissolved in 1822, after doing much valuable work for English agriculture.

Before its extinction it had held in 1821, at Aldridge's Repository, the first national agricultural show. L685 was given in prizes, and the entries included 10 bulls, 9 cows and heifers, several fat steers and cows, 7 pens of Leicester and Cotswold rams and ewes; 12 pens of Down, and 9 or 10 pens of Merino rams and ewes.[509] Most of the cattle shown were Shorthorn, or Durham, as they were then called, with some Herefords, Devons, Longhorns, and Alderneys. There were also exhibits of grass, turnip-seed, roots, and implements.

This first national show had been preceded by many local ones.[510] The end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries saw the establishment all over England of farmers' clubs, cattle shows, and ploughing matches.

The period now before us is marked by the great work of the Collings, who next to Bakewell did most to improve the cattle of the United Kingdom. Charles Colling was born in 1751, and the scene of his famous labours was Ketton near Darlington. He had learnt from Bakewell the all-importance of quality in cattle, and determined to improve the local Shorthorn breed near his own home, which had been described in 1744 as 'the most profitable beasts for the dairyman, butcher, and grazier, with their wide bags, short horns, and large bodies.' He was to make these 'profitable beasts' the best all-round cattle in the world, and to succeed where George Culley had failed. The first bull of merit he possessed was 'Hubback',[511] described as a little yellow, red, and white five-year-old, which was mated with cows afterwards to be famous, named Duchess, Daisy, Cherry, and Lady Maynard. At first Colling was against in-breeding, and not until 1793 did he adopt it, more by accident than intention, but the experiment being successful he became an enthusiast. The experiment was the putting of Phoenix to Lord Bolingbroke, who was both her half-brother and her nephew, and the result was the famous Favourite. A young farmer who saw Favourite and his sister at Darlington in 1799, was so struck by them that he paid Colling the first 100 guineas ever given for a Shorthorn cow.[512]

One of Hubback's daughters had in 1795, by Favourite, a roan calf which grew to be the celebrated Durham Ox, which at five and a half years weighed 3,024 lb., and was sold for L140. It was sold again for L250, the second purchaser refusing L2,000 for it, and taking it round England on show made a profitable business out of it, in one day in London making L97. A still more famous animal was the bull Comet, born 1804, which at the great sale in 1810 fetched 1,000 guineas. This bull was the crowning triumph of Colling's career and the result of very close breeding, being described as the best bull ever seen, with a fine masculine head, broad and deep chest, shoulders well laid back, loins good, hind-quarters long, straight and well packed, thighs thick, with nice straight hocks and hind legs. Perhaps Colling thought he had pursued in-and-in breeding too far, at all events in 1810 he dispersed his famous herd. The sale was held at a most propitious time, for the Durham Ox had advertised the name of Colling far and wide, and owing to the war prices were very high. Comet fetched 1,000 guineas, and the other forty-seven lots averaged L151 8s. 5d., an unheard-of sale, yet all the auctioneer got was 5 guineas, much of the work of the sale falling on the owner, and the former sold the stock with a sand-glass.

After the sale at Ketton, Brampton, the farm of Charles's brother Robert, became the centre of interest to the Shorthorn world. Robert obtained excellent prices for his stock, five daughters of his famous bull George fetching 200 guineas each. Probably he, like his brother, pursued in-and-in breeding too far, and in 1818 there was another great sale; but war-prices had gone and agriculture was depressed, so that the cattle fetched less than at Ketton, but still averaged L128 14s. 9d. for 61 lots, and 22 rams averaged L39 6s. 4d. Robert died in 1820, his brother in 1836.

It cannot be said that the Collings were the founders of a new breed of cattle; they were the collectors and preservers of an ancient breed that might otherwise have disappeared.[513] The object of good breeders was now to get their cattle fat at an early age, and they so far succeeded as to sell three-year-old steers for L20 apiece, generally fed thus: in the first winter, hay and turnips; the following summer, coarse pasture; the second winter, straw in the foldyard and a few turnips; next summer, tolerable good pasture; and the third winter, as many turnips as they could eat.[514]

Cattle at this time were classified thus: Shorthorns, Devons, Sussex, Herefords (the two latter said by Culley to be varieties of the Devon), Longhorned, Galloway or Polled, Suffolk Duns, Kyloes, and Alderneys.

Sheep thus: the Dishley Breed (New Leicesters), Lincolns, Teeswaters, Devonshire Notts, Exmoor, Dorsetshire, Herefordshire, Southdown, Norfolk, Heath, Herdwick, Cheviot, Dunfaced, Shetland, Irish.[515]

With the increased demand for corn and meat from the towns the necessity of new and better implements became apparent, and many patents were taken out: by Praed, for drill ploughs, in 1781; by Horn, for sowing machines, in 1784; by Heaton, for harrows, in 1787; for sowing machines, by Sandilands, 1788; for reaping machines, by Boyce, 1799; winnowing machines, by Cooch, 1800; haymakers, by Salmon, 1816; and for scarifiers, chaff-cutters, turnip-slicers, and food-crushers.[516] But the great innovation was the threshing machine of Meikle. Like most inventions, it had forerunners. The first threshing machine is mentioned in the Select Transactions of the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland, published in 1743 by Maxwell. It was invented by Michael Menzies, and by it one man could do the work of six. One machine was worked by a great water-wheel and triddles, another by a little wheel of 3 feet diameter, moved by a small quantity of water. The first attempts to substitute horse or other power for manual in threshing were directed to the revolution of jointed flails, which should strike the floor on which the corn was spread, but this proved unsatisfactory, so that rubbing the grain out of the straw by revolving cylinders was tried,[517] Young, in his northern tour, met a Mr. Clarke at Belford in Northumberland, who was famous for mechanics,[518] among his inventions being a threshing machine worked by one horse, which does not seem to have effected much. Eventually Mr. A. Meikle, of Houston Mill near Haddington, in 1798 erected a machine the principles of which, much modified, are those of to-day; and in 1803 Mr. Aitchison, of Drumore in East Lothian, first applied steam to threshing. It was some time, however, before this beneficent invention was generally used, and when the machines were used they were usually driven by horse—or water-power until about 1850. In 1883 Messrs. Howard, of Bedford, adapted a sheaf-binding apparatus to the threshing machine. With new implements came new crops; the Swede turnip was grown on some farms in Notts just before 1800, but it is not known who introduced it.[519] The mangel wurzel was introduced about 1780-5 by Parkyns, and prickly comfrey in 1811.

The year 1795 was one of great scarcity owing to the wet and stormy summer, and in August wheat went up to 108s. a quarter.[520] As usual many other causes but the right one were put forth, and the old accusations of monopoly, forestalling, and regrating were heard again. The war with France, with more reason, was considered to have helped in raising prices, but the chief cause was the bad season. The members of both Houses of Parliament bound themselves to reduce the consumption of bread in their homes by one-third, and recommended others to a similar reduction. It was a period of terrible distress for the agricultural labourer. His wages were about 9s. a week, and it was impossible for him to live on them, so that what is known as 'the allowance system' came in. At Speenhamland in Berkshire, in this year, the magistrates agreed that it was not expedient to help the labourer by regulating his wages according to the statute of Elizabeth, but recommended the farmers to increase their pay in proportion to the present price of provisions, and they also granted relief to all poor and industrious men according to the price of bread. They were merely giving effect to Gilbert's Act of 1782, which legalized the supplementing of the wages of able-bodied men from the rates, and the decision was nicknamed the 'Speenhamland Act' because it was so generally followed. However well meant, the effect was most demoralizing and the English labourer, already too prone to look to the State for help, was induced to depend less on his own exertions. The real remedy would have been a substantial increase of his scanty wages. As it was, landowner and farmer were often paying the labourer in rates money that would far better have come to him in wages, and the rates in some districts became so burdensome that land was thrown out of cultivation. In the same year as the Speenhamland Act the statute 36 Geo. III, c. 23, forbade the removal of persons from any parish until they were in actual need of support; but although the law was thus relaxed, the fixed principle which caused the refusal of all permanent relief to labourers who had no settlement in the parish acted as a very efficient check on migration, though, as we have seen, it did not entirely check it. In 1796 the question of regulating the labourers' wages by Parliament was raised; but Pitt, remembering such schemes had always failed, was hostile, and the matter dropped.[521] In the same year Eden made his inquiries concerning the rate of wages and the cost of living. In Bedford, he found the agricultural labourer was getting 1s. 2d. a day and beer, with extras in harvest[522]; but bacon was 10d. a lb. and wheat 12s. a bushel. However, parish allowances were liberal, a man, his wife, and four children sometimes receiving 11s. a week from that source.

In Cumberland the labourer was being paid 10d. to 1s. a day with food, or 1s. 6d. to 1s. 8d. without; in Hertfordshire, 1s. 6d. a day; in Suffolk, 1s. 4d. a day and beer.

Nearly everywhere his expenditure was much in excess of his earnings, the yearly budgets of fifty-three families in twelve different counties showed generally large annual deficiencies, amounting in one case to L21 18s. 4d. In one case in Lindsey, where the deficiency was small, the family lived on bread alone. The factory system, too, had already deprived the labourer of many of his by-industries, and thus helped the pauperism for which landlord and farmer had to pay in rates.

About 1788 Sir William Young proposed to send the unemployed labourers round to the parishioners to get work, their wages being paid by their employers and by the parish. This method of obtaining work was known as the 'roundsman system'.[523]

Landlords, however, and farmers were profiting greatly by the high prices, which fortunately received a check by the abundant harvest of 1796, which, with large imports,[524] caused the price of wheat to fall to 57s. 3d., and in 1798 to 47s. 10d. It is difficult to conceive what instability, speculation, and disaster such fluctuations must have led to. In 1797 the Bank Restriction Act was passed, suspending cash payments, and thereby causing a huge growth in credit transactions, a great factor in the inflated prosperity of this period. In January, 1799, wool was 2s. a lb., and prices at Smithfield:

s. d. s. d.

Beef, per stone of 8 lb. 3 0 to 3 4 Mutton " " 3 0 " 4 2 Pork " " 2 8 " 3 8

The summer of that year was uninterruptedly wet; some corn in the north was uncut in November, so that wheat went up to 94s. 2d., and in June, 1800, was 134s. 5d., the scarcity being aggravated by the Russian Government laying an embargo on British shipping.[525] Yet Pitt denied that the high prices were due to the war.[526] They were due, indeed, to several causes:

1. Frequent years of scarcity.

2. Increase of consumption, owing to the great growth of the manufacturing population, England during the war having almost a monopoly of the trade of Europe.

3. Napoleon's obstructions to importation.

4. The unprecedented fall of foreign exchanges.

5. The rise in the price of labour, scanty as it was.

6. Suspension of cash payments, which produced a medium of circulation of an unlimited nature, and led to speculation.[527]

In March, 1801, wheat was 156s.; beef at Smithfield, 5s. to 6s. 6d. a stone; and mutton, 6s. 6d. to 8s. A rise in wages was allowed on all sides to be imperative, but the labourer even now got on an average little more than 9s. a week,[528] a very inadequate pittance, though generally supplemented by the parish. Arthur Young[529] tells of a person living near Bury in 1801, who, before the era of high prices, earned 5s. a week, and with that could purchase:

A bushel of wheat. " malt. 1 lb. of butter. 1 lb. of cheese. A pennyworth of tobacco.

But in 1801 the same articles cost him:

s. d.

A bushel of wheat 16 0 " malt 9 0 1 lb. of butter 1 0 1 lb. of cheese 4 Tobacco 1 ———— L1 6 5 ========

His wages were now 9s., and his allowance from the rates 6s., so that there was a deficiency of 11s. 5d.

The increase in the cost of living in the last thirty years is further illustrated by the following table:

1773. 1793. 1799. 1800. L s. d. L s. d. L s. d. L s. d.

Coomb of malt 12 0 1 3 0 1 3 0 2 0 0 Chaldron of coals 1 11 6 2 0 6 2 6 0 2 11 0 Coomb of oats 5 0 13 0 16 0 1 1 0 Load of hay 2 2 0 4 10 0 5 5 0 7 0 0 Meat, per lb. 4 5 7 9 Butter, " 6 11 11 1 4 Loaf sugar, per lb. 8 1 0 1 3 1 4 Poor rates, in the L 1 0 2 6 3 0 5 0

It was again proposed by Mr. Whitbread in the House of Commons that wages should be regulated by the price of provisions, and a minimum wage fixed; but there was enough sense in the House to reject this return to obsolete methods.

After March, 1801, prices commenced to fall, owing to a favourable season and the reopening of the Baltic ports, which allowed imports to come in more freely, for most of our foreign corn at this time came from Germany and Denmark. At the end of the year wheat averaged 75s. 6d., and with fair seasons it came down in the beginning of 1804 to 49s. 6d. Beef at Smithfield was from 4s. to 5s. 4d. a stone, mutton from 4s. to 4s. 6d.[530] This great drop in prices was accompanied by an increase in wages, the labourer from 1804 to 1810 getting on an average 12s. a week[531]; the cost of implements rose, so did the rate of interest, and the cry of agricultural distress in 1804 was heard everywhere. More protection was demanded by those interested in the land, and accordingly a duty of 24s. 3d. was imposed when the price was 63s. or under; a bounty was paid on export when it was 40s. or under; and wheat might be exported without bounty up to 54s.

However, 1804 was a very deficient harvest, owing to blight and mildew, and by the end of the year wheat was 86s. 2d. The harvests till 1808 were not as bad as that of 1804, but not good enough to lower the prices. Also, owing to the Berlin and Milan Decrees of Napoleon and the Non-intercourse Act of the United States of America, imports were restricted so that at the end of 1808 wheat was 92s. In this year the exports of wheat exceeded the imports, but it was due to the requirements of our army in Spain; and 1789 was the last year when exports were greater under normal circumstances.[532] 1809 was a bad harvest, so was 1810; in the former rot being very prevalent among sheep; and by August, 1810, hay was L11 a load and wheat 116s., only large imports (1,567,126 quarters) preventing a famine. Down wool was 2s. 1d. per lb., beef and mutton 8-1/2d., cheese 8d.[533]

In 1811 the whole of July and part of August were wet and cold; and in August, 1812, wheat averaged 155s., the finest Dantzic selling at Mark Lane for 180s., and oats reached 84s. As our imports of corn then chiefly came from the north-west of Europe, which has a climate very similar to our own, crops there were often deficient from bad seasons in the same years as our own, and the price consequently high. On the other hand, it is a proof that produce will find the best market regardless of hindrances, that much of our corn at this time came from France. Corn in 1813 was seized on with such avidity that there was no need to show samples. As high prices had now prevailed for some time and were still rising, landlords and farmers jumped to the conclusion that they would be permanent; so that this is the period when rents experienced their greatest increase, in some cases having increased fivefold since 1790, and speculations in land were most general. Land sold for forty years' purchase, many men of spirit and adventure very different from farmers 'were tempted to risk their property in agricultural speculations',[534] and large sums were sunk in lands and improvements in the spirit of mercantile enterprise. The land was considered as a kind of manufacturing establishment, and 'such powers of capital and labour were applied as forced almost sterility itself to become fertile.' Even good pastures were ploughed up to grow wheat at a guinea a bushel, and much worthless land was sown with corn. Manure was procured from the most remote quarters, and we are told a new science rose up, agricultural chemistry, which, 'with much frivolity and many refinements remote from common sense, was not without great operation on the productive powers of land.'

Land jobbing and speculation became general, and credit came to the aid of capital. The larger farmers, as we have seen, were before the war inclined to an extravagance that amazed their older contemporaries; now we are told, some insisted on being called esquire, and some kept liveried servants.[535]

It is somewhat curious to learn that one of the drawbacks from which farmers suffered at this time was the ravages of pigeons, which seem to have been as numerous as in the Middle Ages, when the lord's dovecote was the scourge of the villein's crops. In 1813 there was said to be 20,000 pigeon houses in England and Wales, each on an average containing 100 pairs of old pigeons.[536]

Another pest was the large number of 'vermin', whose destruction had long before been considered important enough to demand the attention of the legislature.[537] Some parishes devoted large portions of their funds to this object; in 1786 East Budleigh in Devonshire, out of a total receipt of L20 1s. 8-1/2d., voted L5 10s. for vermin killing. That now sacred animal the fox was then treated with scant respect, farmers and landlords paying for his destruction as 'vermin'[538]; the parish accounts of Ashburton in Devonshire, for instance, from 1761-1820 include payments for killing 18 foxes and 4 vixens, with no less than 153 badgers.

But the edifice of artificial prosperity was already tottering. After 1812 prices fell steadily,[539] the abundant harvest of 1813 and the opening of the continental ports accelerated this, and by December, 1813, wheat was 73s. 3d. Yet agriculture had made solid progress. The Committee of the House of Commons which inquired into the state of the corn trade in 1813 stated that through the extension of, and improvements in, agriculture the agricultural produce of the kingdom had increased one-fourth in the preceding ten years.[540] The high prices had attracted a large amount of capital to the land, so that there was very rapid and extensive progress, the methods of tillage were improved, large tracts of inferior pasture converted into arable, much, however, of which was soon to revert to weeds; there were many enclosures, and many fens, commons, and wastes reclaimed. But there was a reverse side to this picture of prosperity, even in the case of landlord and farmer. The burden of taxation was crushing; a contemporary writer, a farmer of twenty-five years standing,[541] wrote that, with the land tax remaining the same, there was a high property tax, house and window taxes were doubled, poor rates in some places trebled, highway, church, and constable rates doubled and trebled, and there were oppressive taxes on malt and horses, both nags and farm animals. A man renting a farm at L70 and keeping two farm-horses, a nag, and a dog, would pay taxes for them of L5 0s. 6d., a fourteenth of his rent.[542] Indeed, poor rates of 16s. and 20s. in the L were known,[543] and they were occasionally more than the whole rent received by the landlord forty years before. A Devonshire landowner complained that seven-sixteenths out of the annual value of every estate in the county was taken from owners and occupiers in direct taxes.[544] And the Committee on Agricultural Depression of 1822 asserted that during the war taxes and rates were quadrupled.[545] Blacksmiths, whitesmiths, collar makers, ropers, carpenters, and many other tradesmen with whom the farmer dealt, raised their prices threefold; and it was openly asserted that the high prices of grain and stock were not proportionate to the increase of other prices. Much of the grass land broken up in the earlier years of the war was before the close in a miserable condition, for it was cropped year after year without manure, and was worn out. On the whole it may be doubted if the bulk of the farmers of England made large profits during the war; many no doubt profited by the extraordinary fluctuations in prices, and it was those men who 'kept liveried servants'; but there must have been many who lost heavily by the same means, and the rise of rent, taxes, rates, labour, and tradesmen's prices largely discounted the prices of corn and stock. The landowners at this period have generally been described as flourishing at the expense of the community, but their increased rents were greatly neutralized by the weight of taxation and the general rise in prices. A contemporary writer says that owing to the heavy taxes, even in the war time, he 'often had not a shilling at the end of the year.'[546]