AGRICULTURAL THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE BY W. H; R. CURTLER OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1909 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK TORONTO AND MELBOURNE PREFACE ' A HUSBANDMAN ', said Markham, ' is the master of the earth, turning barrenness into fruitfulness, whereby all commonwealths are maintained and upheld. His labour giveth liberty to all vocations, arts, and trades to follow their several functions with peace and in- dustrie. What can we say in this world is profitable where husbandry is wanting, it being the great nerve and sinew which holdeth together all the joints of a monarchy ? ' And he is confirmed by Young : ' Agri- culture is, beyond all doubt, the foundation of every other art, business, and profession, and it has there- fore been the ideal policy of every wise and prudent people to encourage it to the utmost.' Yet of this important industry, still the greatest in England, there is no history covering the whole period. It is to remedy this defect that this book is offered, with much diffidence, and with many thanks to Mr. C. R. L. Fletcher of Magdalen College, Oxford, for his valuable assistance in revising the proof sheets, and to the Rev. A. H. Johnson of All Souls for some very useful information. As the agriculture of the Middle Ages has often jbeen ably described, I have devoted the greater part > of this work to the agricultural history of the subse- >quent period, especially the seventeenth, eighteenth, ^and nineteenth centuries. W. H. R. CURTLER. oo May 22, 1909. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Communistic Farming. Growth of the Manor. Early Prices. The Organization and Agriculture of the Manor i CHAPTER II The Thirteenth Century. The Manor at its Zenith, with Seeds of Decay already visible. Walter of Henley . . . 24 CHAPTER III The Fourteenth Century. Decline of Agriculture. The Black Death. Statute of Labourers 38 CHAPTER IV How the Classes connected with the Land lived in the Middle Ages 48 CHAPTER V The Break-up of the Manor. Spread of Leases. The Peasants' Revolt. Further Attempts to regulate Wages. A Harvest Home. Beginning of the Corn Laws. Some Surrey Manors ........ 56 CHAPTER VI 1400-1540. The so-called 'Golden Age of the Labourer' in a Period of General Distress ...... 66 CHAPTER VII Enclosure 73 CHAPTER VIII Fitzherbert. The Regulation of Hours and Wages . . 83 CONTENTS v CHAPTER IX PAGE 1540-1600. Progress at last. Hop-growing. Progress of Enclosure. Harrison's Description .... 89 CHAPTER X 1540-1600. Live Stock. Flax. Saffron. The Potato. The Assessment of Wages ...... 104 CHAPTER XI 1600-1700. Clover and Turnips. Great Rise in Prices. More Enclosure. A Farming Calendar . . . 1 1 1 CHAPTER XII The Great Agricultural Writers of the Seventeenth Century. Fruit-growing. A Seventeenth-century Orchard . . 127 CHAPTER XIII The Evils of Common Fields. Hops. Implements. Manures. Gregory King. Corn Laws . . . .148 CHAPTER XIV 1 700-65. General Characteristics of the Eighteenth Century. Crops. Cattle. Dairying. Poultry. Tull and the New Husbandry. Bad Times. Fruit-growing . . . 162 CHAPTER XV 1700-65. Townshend. Sheep-rot. Cattle Plague. Fruit- growing 182 CHAPTER XVI 1 7 6 5-93- Arthur Young. Crops and their Cost. The Labourers' Wages and Diet. The Prosperity of Farmers. The Country Squire. Elkington. Bakewell. The Roads. Coke of Holkham . . . , .190 vi CONTENTS CHAPTER XVII PAGE 1793-1815. The Great French War. The Board of Agri- culture. High Prices, and Heavy Taxation . . .229 CHAPTER XVIII Enclosure. The Small Owner CHAPTER XIX 1816-37. Depression CHAPTER XX 1 837-75- Revival of Agriculture. The Royal Agricultural Society. Corn Law Repeal. A Temporary Set-back. The Halcyon Days 271 CHAPTER XXI 1875-1908. Agricultural Distress again. Foreign Com- petition. Agricultural Holdings Act. New Implements. Agricultural Commissions. The Situation in 1908 . 293 CHAPTER XXII Imports and Exports. Live Stock 323 CHAPTER XXIII Modern Farm Live Stock -335 APPENDICES I. Average Prices from 1259 to 1700 .... 347 II. Exports and Imports of Wheat and Flour from and into England, unimportant years omitted .... 348 III. Average Prices per Imperial Quarter of British Corn in England and Wales, in each year from 1771 to 1907 inclusive . 35 IV. Miscellaneous Information .... '. 353 LANDMARKS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 1086. Domesday inquest, most cultivated land in tillage. Annual value of land about "id. an acre. 1216-72. Henry III. Assize of Bread and Ale. 1272-1307. Edward I. General progress. Walter of Henley. 1307. Edward II. Decline. 1315. Great famine. 1337. Export of wool prohibited. 1348-9. Black Death. Heavy blow to manorial system. Many demesne lands let, and much land laid down to grass. 1351. Statute of Labourers. 1360. Export of corn forbidden. 1381. Villeins' revolt. 1393. Richard II allows export of corn under certain conditions. 1463. Import of wheat under 6s. 8d. prohibited. End of fifteenth century. Increase of enclosure. 1523. Fitzherbert's Surveying and Husbandry. 1540. General rise in prices and rents begins. 1549. Kelt's rebellion. The last attempt of the English peasant to obtain redress by force. 1586. Potatoes introduced. 1601. Poor Law Act of Elizabeth. 1645. Turnips and clover introduced as field crops. 1662. Statute of Parochial Settlement. 1664. Importation of cattle, sheep, and swine forbidden. 1688. Bounty of 5-y. per quarter on export of wheat, and high duty on import. !733- Tull publishes his Horse-hoeing Husbandry. 1739. Great sheep-rot. 1750. Exports of corn reached their maximum. 1760. Bakewell began experimenting. 1760 (about). Industrial and agrarian revolution, and great increase of enclosure. 1764. Elkington's new drainage system. 1773. Wheat allowed to be imported at a nominal duty of 6d. a quarter when over 48s. viii LANDMARKS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 1777. Bath and West of England Society established, the first in England. 1789. England definitely becomes a corn-importing country. 1793. Board of Agriculture established. 1795. Speenhamland Act. About same date swedes first grown. 1815. Duty on wheat reached its maximum. 1815-35. Agricultural distress. 1825. Export of wool allowed. 1835. Smith of Deanston, the father of modern drainage. 1838. Foundation of Royal Agricultural Society. 1846. Repeal of the Corn Laws. 1855-75. Great agricultural prosperity. 1875. English agriculture feels the full effect of unrestricted competition, with disastrous results. First Agricultural Holdings Act. 1879-80. Excessive rainfall, sheep-rot, and general distress. CHAPTER I COMMUNISTIC FARMING. GROWTH OF THE MANOR. EARLY PRICES. THE ORGANIZATION AND AGRICUL- TURE OF THE MANOR WHEN the early bands of English invaders came over to take Britain from its Celtic owners, it is almost certain that the soil was held by groups and not by individuals, and as this was the practice of the conquerors also they readily fell in with the system they found. 1 These English, unlike their descendants of to day, were a race of countrymen and farmers and detested the towns, preferring the lands of the Britons to the towns of the Romans. Co-operation in agriculture was necessary because to each household were allotted separate strips of land, nearly equal in size, in each field set apart for tillage, and a share in the meadow and waste land. The strips of arable were unfenced and ploughed by common teams, to which each family would contribute. Apparently, as the land was cleared and broken up it was dealt out acre by acre to each cultivator ; and supposing each group consisted of ten families, the typical holding of 120 acres was assigned to each family in acre strips, and these strips were not all contiguous but mixed up with those of other families. The reason for this mixture of strips is obvious to any one who knows how land even in the same field varies in quality ; it was to give each family its share of both good and bad land, for the householders were all equal and the principle on which the original distribution of the land depended was that of equalizing the shares of the different members of the community. 2 1 Vinogradoff, Growth of the Manor, p. 18; Medley, Constitutional History, p. 15. 2 Vinogradoff, Villeinage in England, p. 257. CURTLER JJ 2 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE In attributing ownership of lands to communities we must be careful not to confound communities with corporations. Maitland thinks the early land-owning communities blended the character of corporations and of co-owners, and co-owner- ship is ownership by individuals. 1 The vills or villages founded on their arrival in Britain by our English forefathers resembled those they left at home, and even there the strips into which the arable fields were divided were owned in severally by the householders of the village. There was co-operation in working the fields but no communistic division of the crops, and the individual's hold upon his strips developed rapidly into an inheritable and partible ownership. 'At the opening of Anglo-Saxon history absolute ownership of land in severally was established and becoming the rule.' 2 In the management of the meadow land communal features were much more clearly brought out ; the arable was not reallotted, 3 but the meadow was, annually ; while the woods and pastures, the right of using which belonged to the house- holders of the village, were owned by the village ( community '. There may have been at the time of the English conquest Roman ' villas ' with slaves and coloni cultivating the owners ' demesnes, which passed bodily to the new masters ; but the former theory seems true of the greater part of the country. At first ' extensive ' cultivation was practised ; that is, every year a fresh arable field was broken up and the one cultivated last year abandoned, for a time at all events ; but gradually ' intensive ' culture superseded this, probably not till after the English had conquered the land, and the same field was cultivated year after year. 4 After the various families or households had finished cutting the grass in their allotted portions of meadow, and the corn on their strips of tillage, 1 Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, pp. 341 et seq. 2 Stubbs, Constitutional History, 36. 3 Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. 282, says, ' As a rule it was not subject to redivision.' * Cunningham, Growth of English Industry ami Commerce, \. 42. COMMUNISTIC FARMING 3 both grass and stubble became common land and were thrown open for the whole community to turn their stock upon. The size of the strips of land in the arable fields varied, but was generally an acre, in most places a furlong (furrow long) or 220 yards in length, and 22 yards broad ; or in other words, 40 rods of 5^ yards in length and 4 in breadth. There was, however, little uniformity in measurement before the Norman Conquest, the rod by which the furlongs and acres were measured varying in length from 1 2 to 24 feet, so that one acre might be four times as large as another. 1 The acre was, roughly speaking, the amount that a team could plough in a day, and seems to have been from early times the unit of measuring the area of land. 2 Of necessity the real acre and the ideal acre were also different, for the reason that the former had to contend with the inequalities of the earth's surface and varied much when no scientific measurement was possible. As late as 1820 the acre was of many different sizes in England. In Bedfordshire it was 2 roods, in Dorset 134 perches instead of 1 60, in Lincolnshire 5 roods, in Staffordshire 2| acres. To- day the Cheshire acre is 10,240 square yards. As, however, an acre was and is a day's ploughing for a team, we may assume that the most usual acre was the same area then as now. There were also half-acre strips, but whatever the size the strips were divided one from another by narrow grass paths generally called ' balks ', and at the end of a group of these strips was the ' headland ' where the plough turned, the name being common to-day. Many of these common fields re- mained until well on in the nineteenth century; in 1815 half the county of Huntingdon was in this condition, and a few still exist. 3 Cultivating the same field year after year naturally exhausted the soil, so that the two-field system came in, under 1 Maitland, op. cit, p. 368. z Anonymous Treatise on Husbandry, Royal Historical Society, pp. xli. and 68. About 1230, Smyth, in his Lives of the Berkeley s, i. 113, says, ' At this time lay all lands in common fields, in one acre or ridge, one man's intermixt with another.' 8 See p. 22. B 2 4 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE which one was cultivated and the other left fallow ; and this was followed by the three-field system, by which two were cropped in any one year and one lay fallow, the last-named becoming general as it yielded better results, though the former continued, especially in the North. Under the three- field plan the husbandman early in the autumn would plough the field that had been lying fallow during summer, and sow wheat or rye; in the spring he broke up the stubble of the field on which the last wheat crop had been grown and sowed barley or oats ; in June he ploughed up the stubble of the last spring crop and fallowed the field. 1 As soon as the crops began to grow in the arable fields and the grass in the meadows to spring, they were carefully fenced to prevent trespass of man and beast ; and, as soon as the crops came off, the fields became common for all the village to turn their stock upon, the arable fields being usually common from Lammas (August i) to Candlemas (February 2) and the meadows from July 6, old Midsummer Day, to Candlemas 2 ; but as in this climate the season both of hay and corn harvest varies considerably, these dates cannot have been fixed. The stock, therefore, besides the common pasture, had after harvest the grazing of the common arable fields and of the meadows. The common pasture was early ' stinted ' or limited, the usual custom being that the villager could turn out as many stock as he could keep on his holding. The trouble of pulling up and taking down these fences every year must have been enormous, and we find legislation on this important matter at an early date. About 700 the laws of 1 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, i. 74. Maitland thinks the two-field system was as common as the three-field, both in early and mediaeval times. Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 366. 8 Nasse, Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages, p. 5. To-day harvest generally commences about August I, so that this, like the growth of grapes in mediaeval times, seems to show our climate has grown colder. COMMUNISTIC FARMING 5 Ine, King of Wessex, provided that if ' churls have a common meadow or other partible land to fence, and some have fenced their part and some have not, and cattle stray in and eat up their common corn or grass ; let those go who own the gap and compensate to the others who have fenced their part the damage which then may be done, and let them demand such justice on the cattle as may be right. But if there be a beast which breaks hedges and goes in every- where, and he who owns it will not or cannot restrain it, let him who finds it in his field take it and slay it, and let the owner take its skin and flesh and forfeit the rest.' England was not given over to one particular type of> settlement, although villages were more common than ham-\ lets in the greater part of the country. 1 The vill or village answers to the modern civil parish, and the term may be applied to both the true or 'nucleated' village of clustered houses and the village of scattered hamlets, each of a few houses, existing chiefly on the Celtic fringe. The population of some of the villages at the time of the Norman Conquest was numerous, 100 households or 500 people ; but the aver- age townships contained from 10 to 30 households. 2 There was also the single farm, such as that at Eardisley in Herefordshire, described in Domesday, lying in the middle of a forest, perhaps, as in other similar cases, a pioneer settlement of some one more adventurous than his fellows. 3 Such was the early village community in England, a com- munity of free landholders. But a change began early to come over it. 4 The king would grant to a church all the rights he had in the village, reserving only the trinoda necessitas, these rights including the feorm or farm, or provender rent which the king derived from the land of cattle, 1 Vinogradoff, English, Society in the Elmenth Century, p. 264. 2 Maitland, op. cit. p. 17. 3 Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. 265. * Maitland, op. cit, pp. 318 et seq. 6 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE sheep, swine, ale, honey, &c. which he collected by visiting his villages, thus literally eating his rents. The churchmen did not continue these visits, they remained in their monas- teries, and had the feorm brought them regularly ; they had an overseer in the village to see to this, and so they tightened their hold on the village. Then the smaller people, the peasants, make gifts to the Church. They give their land, but they also want to keep it, for it is their livelihood ; so they surrender the land and take it back as a lifelong loan. Probably on the death of the donor his heirs are suffered to hold the land. Then labour services are substituted for the old provender rents, and thus the Church acquires a demesne, and thus the foundations of the manorial system, still to be traced all over the country, were laid. Thegns, the pre- decessors of the Norman barons, become the recipients of grants from the churches and from kings, and householders ' commend ' themselves and their land to them also, so that they acquired demesnes. This ' commendation ' was furthered by the fact that during the long-drawn out conquest of Britain the old kindred groups of the English lost their corporate sense, and the central power being too weak to protect the ordinary householder, who could not stand alone, he had to seek the protection of an ecclesiastical corporation or of some thegn, first for himself and then for his land. The juris- dictional rights of the king also passed to the lord, whether church or thegn ; then came the danegeld, the tax for buying off the Danes that subsequently became a fixed land tax, which was collected from the lord, as the peasants were too poor for the State to deal with them ; the lord paid the geld for their land, consequently their land was his. In this way the free ceorl of Anglo-Saxon times gradually becomes the , ' villanus ' of Domesday. Landlordship was well established in the two centuries before the Conquest, and the land of England more or less ' carved into territorial lordships '. l 1 Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. 345. GROWTH OF THE MANOR 7 Therefore when the Normans brought their wonderful genius for organization to this country they found the material conditions of manorial life in full growth ; it was their task to develop its legal and economic side. 1 As the manorial system thus superimposed upon the village community was the basis of English rural economy for centuries, there need be no apology for describing it at some length. The term ' manor ', which came in with the Conquest, 2 has a technical meaning in Domesday, referring to the system of taxation, and did not always coincide with the vill or village* though it commonly did so, except in the eastern portion of England. The village was the agrarian unit, the manor the fiscal unit ; so that where the manor comprised more than one village, as was frequently the case, there would be more than one village organization for working the common fields. 3 The manor then was the ' constitutive cell ' of English medi- aeval^ society. 4 The structure is always the same ; under the t headship of the lord we find two layers of population, the vil-j leins and the freeholders ; and the territory is divided into demesne land and tributary land of two classes, viz. that of the! villeins and that of the freeholders. The cultivation of the de-j mesne (which usually means the land directly occupied anc cultivated by the lord, though legally it has a wider meaning and includes the villein tenements), depends to a certain extent on the work supplied by the tenants of the tributary land] Rents are collected, labour superintended, administrative busi- ness transacted by a set of manorial officers. We may divide the tillers of the soil at the time of Domes- day into five great classes, 5 in order of dignity and freedom : 1. Liberi homines, or freemen. 2. Socmen. 1 Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Centtiry, p. 339. 2 Maitland, Domesday Book, p. no. 8 Vinogradoff, op. cit. p. 395. 4 Vinogradoff, Villeinage in England, pp. 223 et seq. B Maitland, op. cit. p. 23. 8 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 3. Villeins. 4. Bordarii, cotarii, bun or coliberti. 5. Slaves. The two first of these classes were to be found in large num- bers in Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire. It is not easy to draw the line between them, but the chief distinction lay in the latter being more burdened with service and customary dues and more especially subject to the jurisdictional authority of the lord. 1 They were both free, but both rendered services to the lord for their land. Both the freemen and the slaves by 1086 were rapidly decreasing in number. The most numerous class 2 on the manors was the third, that of the villeins or non-free tenants, who held their land by payment of services to the lord. The position of the villein under the feudal system is most complicated. He both was and was not a freeman. He was absolutely at the disposal of the lord, who could sell him with his tenement, and he could not leave his land without his lord's permission. He laboured under many disabilities, such as the merchet or fine for marrying his daughter, and fines for selling horse or ox. On the other hand, he was free against every one but his lord, and even against the lord was protected from the for- feiture of his ' wainage ' or instruments of labour and from injury to life and limb. 3 His usual holding was a virgate of 30 acres of arable, though the virgate differed in size even in the same manors ; but in addition to this he would have his meadow land and his share in the common pasture and wood, altogether about 100 acres of land. For this he rendered the following services to the lord of the manor : i. Week work, or labour on the lord's demesne for two or 1 Vinogradoff, op. cit. p. 433. 2 In Domesday they number 108,500. Maitland, Domesday Book, p. 38. s Maitland, op. cit. p. 43. GROWTH OF THE MANOR 9 three days a week during most of the year, and four or five days in summer. It was not always the villein himself, however, who rendered these services, he might send his son or even a hired labourer ; and it was the holding and not the holder that was considered primarily responsible for the render- j ing of services. 1 a. Precarii or boon days: that is, work generally during harvest, at the lord's request, sometimes instead of week work, sometimes in addition. 3. Gafol or tribute : fixed payments in money or kind, and such services as ' fold soke ', which forced the tenants' sheep to lie on the lord's land for the sake of the manure ; and suit of mill, by which the tenant was bound to grind his corn in the lord's mill. With regard to the ' boon days ' in harvest, it should be remembered that harvest time in the Middle Ages was a most important event. Agriculture was the great industry, and when the corn was ripe the whole village turned out to gather it, the only exceptions being the housewives and sometimes the marriageable daughters. Even the larger towns suspended work that the townsmen might assist in the harvest, and our long vacation was probably intended originally to cover the whole work of gathering in the corn and hay. On the occasion of the ' boon-day ' work, the lord usually found food for the labourers which, the Inquisition of Ardley 2 tells us, might be of the following description: for two men, porridge of beans and peas and two loaves, one white, the other of ' mixtil ' bread ; that is, wheat, barley, and rye mixed together, with a piece of meat, and beer for their first meal. Then in the evening they had a small loaf of mixtil bread and two ' lescas ' of cheese. While harvest work was going on the better-off tenants, usually the free ones, were sometimes em- ployed to ride about, rod in hand, superintending the others. 1 Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. 300. 2 Domesday of S. Paul, p. Ixviii. io HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE The services of the villeins were often very comprehensive, and even included such tasks as preparing the lord's bath ; but on some manors their services were very light. 1 When the third of the above obligations, the gafol or tribute, was paid in kind it was most commonly made in corn ; and next came honey, one of the most important articles of the Middle Ages, as it was used for both lighting and sweetening purposes. Ale was also common, and poultry and eggs, and sometimes the material for implements. These obligations were imposed for the most part on free and unfree tenants alike, though those of the free were much lighter than those of the unfree ; the chief difference between the two, as far as tenure of the land went, lay in the fact that the former could exercise proprietary rights over his holding more or less freely, the latter had none. 2 It seems very curious to the modern mind that the villein, a man who farmed about 100 acres of land, should have been in such a servile condition. The amount of work due from each villein came to be fixed by the extent or survey of the manor, but the quality of it was not 3 ; that is, each one knew how many days he had to work, but not whether he was to plough, sow, or harrow, &c. It is surprising to find, that on the festival days of the Church, which were very numerous and observed as holy days, the lord lost by no work being done, and the same was the case in wet weather. One of the most important duties of the tenant was the ' averagium ', or duty of carrying for the lord, especially neces- sary when his manors were often a long way apart. He would often have to carry corn to the nearest town for sale, the products of one manor to another, also to haul manure on to 1 Maitland, Domesday Bool', p. 56. 2 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, \. 1 66. In some manors free tenants could sell their lands without the lord's licence, in others not. 8 Vinogradoff, Villeinage in England, p. 279. GROWTH OF THE MANOR n the demesne. If he owned neither horse nor ox, he would sometimes have to use his own back. 1 The holding of the villein did not admit of partition by sale' or descent, it remained undivided and entire. When the holder died all the land went to one of the sons if there were several, often to the youngest. The others sought work on the manor as craftsmen or labourers, or remained on the family plot. The holding therefore might contain more than one family, but to the lord remained one and undivided. 2 In the fourth class came the bordarii, the cotarii, and the coliberti or buri ; or, as we should say, the crofters, the cottagers, and the boors. The bordarii numbered 82,600 in Domesday, and were subject to the same kind of services as the villeins, but the amount of the service was considerably less. 3 Their usual holding was 5 acres, and they are very often found on the demesne of the manor, evidently in this case labourers on the demesne, settled in cottages and provided with a bit of land of their own. The name failed to take root in this country, and the bordarii seem to become villeins or cottiers. 4 The cotarii, cottiers or cottagers, were 6,800 in number, with small pieces of land sometimes reaching 5 acres. 5 Distinctly inferior to the villeins, bordarii, and cottars, but distinctly superior to the slaves, were the buri or coliberti who, with the bordars and cottars, would form a reserve of labour to supplement the ordinary working days at times when work was pressing, as in hay time and harvest. At the bottom of the social ladder in Domesday came the sjayes, some 25,000 in number, who in the main had no legal rights, a class which 1 Vinogradoff, Villeinage in England, p. 285. 2 Ibid. p. 246 ; and English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. 448. At the end of the eighteenth century, in default of sons, lands in some manors in Shropshire descended to the youngest daughter. Bishton, General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire, p. 178. 3 Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. 456. 4 Maitland, Domesday Book, p. 40. 5 Ibid. 12 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE had apparently already diminished and was diminishing in numbers, so that for the cultivation of the demesne the lord was coming to rely more on the labour of his tenants, and consequently the labour services of the villeins were being augmented. 1 The agricultural labourer as we understand him, a landless man working solely for wages in cash, was almost unknown. All the arrangements of the manor aimed at supplying labour for the cultivation of the lord's demesne, and he had three chief officers to superintend it : 1. The seneschal, who answers to our modern steward or land agent, and where there were several manors supervised all of them. He attended to the legal business and held the manor courts. It was his duty to be acquainted with every particular of the manor, its cultivation, extent, number of teams, condition of the stock, &c. He was also the legal adviser of his lord ; in fact, very much like his modern successor. 2. The bailiff for each manor, who collected rents, went to market to buy and sell, surveyed the timber, superintended the ploughing, mowing, reaping, &c., that were due as services from the tenants on the lord's demesne ; and according to Fleta he was to prevent their ' casting off before the work was done ', and to measure it when done. 2 And considering that those he superintended were not paid for their work, but rendering more or less unwelcome services, his task could not have been easy. 3. The praepositus or reeve, an office obligatory on every holder of a certain small quantity of land ; a sort of foreman nominated from among the villeins, and to a certain extent representing their interests. His duties were supplementary to those of the bailiff: he looked after all the live and dead stock of the manor, saw to the manuring of the land, kept a tally of the day's work, had charge of the granary, and delivered there- 1 Maitland, Domesday Book, p. 35. 2 Fleta, c. 73. GROWTH OF THE MANOR 13 from corn to be baked and malt to be brewed. 1 Besides these three officers, on a large estate there would be a messor who took charge of the harvest, and many lesser officers, such as those of the akermanni, or leaders of the unwieldy plough teams ; oxherds, shepherds, and swineherds to tend cattle, sheep, and pigs when they were turned on the common fields or wandered in the waste ; also wardens of the woods and fences, often paid by a share in the profits connected with their charge ; for instance, the swineherd of Glastonbury Abbey received a sucking-pig a year, the interior parts of the best pig, and the tails of all the others slaughtered. 52 On the great estates these offices tended to become hereditary, and many families did treat them as hereditary property, and were a great nuisance in consequence to their lords. At Glastonbury we find the chief shepherd so important a person that he was party to an agreement concerning a considerable quantity of land. 3 There were also on some manors ' cadaveratores ', whose duty was to look into and report on the losses of cattle and sheep from murrain, a melancholy tale of the unhealthy con- ditions of agriculture. The supervision of the tenants was often incessant and minute. According to the Court Rolls of the Manor of Manydown in Hampshire, tenants were brought to book for all kinds of transgressions. The fines are so numerous that it almost appears that every person on the estate was amerced from time to time. In 1365 seven tenants were convicted of having pigs in their lord's crops, one let his horse run in the growing corn, two had cattle among the peas, four had cattle on the lord's pasture, three had made default in rent or service, four were convicted of assault, nine broke the assize of beer, 1 Domesday of S. Paul, xxxv. Fleta, ' an anonymous work drawn up in the thirteenth century to assist landowners in managing their estates,' says, the reeve ' shall rise early, and have the ploughs yoked, and then walk in the fields to see that all is right and note if the men be idle, or if they knock off work before the day's task is fully done.' 2 Vinogradoff, Villeinage in England, p. 321. 3 Ibid. p. 324. 14 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE two had failed to repair their houses or buildings. In all thirty-four were in trouble out of a population of some sixty families. The account is eloquent of the irritating restrictions of the manor, and of the inconveniences of common farming. 1 It is impossible to compare the receipts of the lord of the manor at this period with modern rents, or the position of the villein with the agricultural labourer ; it may be said that the lord received a labour rent for the villein's holding, or that the villein received his holding as wages for the services done for the lord, 2 and part of the return due to the lord was for the use of the oxen with which he had stocked the villein's holding. Though in 1066 there were many free villages, yet by the time of Domesday they were fast disappearing and there were manors everywhere, usually coinciding with the village j which we may picture to ourselves as self-sufficing estates, often isolated by stretches of dense woodland and moor from one another, and making each veritably a little world in itself. At the same time it is evident from the extent of arable land described in Domesday that many manors were not greatly isolated, and pasture ground was often common to two or more villages. 3 If we picture to ourselves the typical manor, we shall see a large part of the lord's demesne forming a compact area within which stood his house ; this being in addition to the lord's strips in the open fields intermixed with those of his tenants. The mansion house was usually a very simple affair, built of wood and consisting chiefly of a hall ; which even as late as the seventeenth century in some cases served as kitchen, dining room, parlour, and sleeping room 1 Manor of Many down, Hampshire Record Society, p. 17. Breaking the assize of beer meant selling it without a licence, or of bad quality. The village pound was the consequence of the perpetual straying of animals, and later on the vicar sometimes kept it. See ibid. p. 104. 2 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, i. 106. 3 Vinogradoff, Villeinage in England, p. 264. 15 for the men ; and one or two other rooms. 1 It is probable that in early times the thegns possessed in most cases only one manor apiece, 2 so that the manor house was then nearly always inhabited by the lord, but after the Conquest, when manors were bestowed by scores and even hundreds by William on his successful soldiers, many of them can only have acted as the temporary lodging of the lord when he came to collect his rent, or as the house of the bailiff. Ac- cording to the Gerefa, written about 1000 and there was very little alteration for a long time afterwards the mansion was adjacent to a court or yard which the quadrangular homestead surrounded with its barns, horse and cattle stalls, sheep pens and fowlhouse. Within this court were ovens, kilns, salt- house, and malt-house, and perhaps the hayricks and wood piles. Outside and surrounding the homestead were the enclosed arable and grass fields of the portion of the demesne which may be called the home farm, a kitchen garden, and probably a vineyard, then common in England. The garden of the manor house would not have a large variety of vegetables ; some onions, leeks, mustard, peas, perhaps cabbage ; and apples, pears, cherries, probably damsons, plums, 3 strawberries, peaches, quinces, and mulberries. Not far off was the village or town of the tenants, the houses all clustering close together, each house standing in a toft or yard with some buildings, and built of wood, turf, clay, or wattles, with only one room which the tenant shared with his live stock, as in parts of Ireland to-day. Indeed, in some parts of Yorkshire at the beginning of the nine- teenth century this primitive simplicity still prevailed, live stock were still kept in the house, the floors were of clay, and the 1 Andrews, Old English Manor, p. in. 2 Domesday of S. Paul, p. xxxvii. 3 Thorold Rogers, Agriculture and Prices, i. 17 ; Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 55; Neckham, De Natura Rerum, Rolls Series, ch. clxvi. Rogers says there were no plums, but Neckham mentions them. See also Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century, p. 64. Matthew Paris says the severe winter of 1257 destroyed cherries, plums, and figs. Chron. ., Rolls Series, v. 660. 16 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE family slept in boxes round the solitary room. Examples of farm-houses clustered together at some distance from their re- spective holdings still survive, though generally built of stone. Next the village, though not always, for they were sometimes at a distance by the banks of a stream, were the meadows, and right round stretched the three open arable fields, beyond which was the common pasture and wood, 1 and, encircling all, heath, forest, and swamp, often cutting off the manor from the rest of the world. The basis of the whole scheme of measurement in Domesday was the hide, usually of 120 acres, the amount of land that could be ploughed by a team of 8 oxen in a year ; a quarter of this was the virgate, an eighth the bovate, which would therefore supply one ox to the common team. These teams, however, varied ; on the manors of S. Paul's Cathedral in 1222 they were sometimes composed of horses and oxen, or of 6 horses only, sometimes 10 oxen. 2 The farming year began at Michaelmas when, in addition to the sowing of wheat and rye, the cattle were carefully stalled and fed only on hay and straw, for roots were in the distant future, and the corn was threshed with the flail and winnowed by hand. In the spring, after the ploughing of the second arable field, the vineyard, where there was one, was set out, and the open ditches, apparently the only drainage then known, cleansed. 1 Woods were used as much for pasture as for cutting timber and underwood. Not only did the pigs feed there on the mast of oak, beech, and chestnut, but goats and horned cattle grazed on the grassy portions. 2 The illustrations of contemporary MSS. usually show teams in the plough of 2 or 4 oxen, and 4 was probably the team generally used, according to Vinogradoff, op. tit. p. 253. It must, of course, have varied according to the soil. Birch, in his Domesday, p. 219, says he has never found a team of 8 in contemporary illustrations. To-day oxen can be still seen ploughing in teams of two only. However, about a hundred years ago, when oxen were in common use, we find teams of 8, as in Shrop- shire, for a single-furrow plough, ' so as to work them easily.' Six hours a day was the usual day's work, and when more was required one team was worked in the morning, another in the afternoon. Victoria County History : Shropshire, Agriculture, Walter of Henley says the team stopped work at three. GROWTH OF THE MANOR 17 In May it was time to set up the temporary fences round the meadows and arable fields, and to begin fallowing the third field. A valuable document, describing the duties of a reeve, gives many interesting details of eleventh-century farming * : ' In May, June, and July one may harrow, carry out manure, set up sheep hurdles, shear sheep, do repairs, hedge, cut wood, weed, and make folds. In harvest one may reap ; in August, September, and in October one may mow, set woad with a dibble, gather home many crops, thatch them and cover them over, cleanse the folds, prepare cattle sheds and shelters ere too severe a winter come to the farm, and also diligently prepare the soil. In winter one should plough and in severe frosts cleave timber, make an orchard, and do many affairs indoors, thresh, cleave wood, put the cattle in stalls and the swine in pigstyes, and provide a hen roost. In spring one should plough and graft, sow beans, set a vineyard, make ditches, hew wood for a wild deer fence ; and soon after that, if the weather permit, set madder, sow flax seed and woad seed, plant a garden and do many things which I cannot fully enumerate that a good steward ought to provide.' The methods of cultivation were simple. The pjoygfr, if we may judge by contemporary illustrations, had in the eleventh century a large wheel and very short handles. 2 In the twelfth century Neckham describes its parts : a beam, handles, tongue, mouldboard, coulter, and share. 3 Breaking up the clods was done by the mattock or beetle, and harrow- ing was done by hand with what looks like a large rake ; the scythes of the haymakers and the sickles of the reapers were very like those that still linger on in some districts to-day. Here is a list of tools and implements for the home- stead : an axe, adze, bill, awl, plane, saw, spokeshave, tie hook, auger, mattock, lever, share, coulter, goad-iron, scythe, 1 Cunningham, Growth of English Ind^tstry and Commerce, \, 570. 2 See the excellent reproductions of the Calendar of the Cott. MSS. in Green's Short History of the English People, illustrated edition, i. 155. 8 De Natura Reruin, Rolls Series, p. 280. i8 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE sickle, weed-hook, spade, shovel, woad dibble, barrow, besom, beetle, rake, fork, ladder, horse comb, shears, fire tongs, weighing scales, and a long list of spinning implements necessary when farmers made their own clothes. The author wisely remarks that one ought to have coverings for wains, plough gear, harrowing tackle, &c. ; and adds another list of instruments and utensils : a caldron, kettle, ladle, pan, crock, firedog, dishes, bowls with handles, tubs, buckets, a churn, cheese vat, baskets, crates, bushels, sieves, seed basket, wire sieve, hair sieve, winnowing fans, troughs, ashwood pails, hives, honey bins, beer barrels, bathing tub, dishes, cups, strainers, candlesticks, salt cellar, spoon case, pepper horn, footstools, chairs, basins, lamp, lantern, leathern bottles, comb, iron bin, fodder rack, meal ark or box, oil flask, oven rake, dung shovel ; altogether a veiy complete list, the compiler of which ends by saying that the reeve ought to neglect nothing that should prove useful, not even a mousetrap, nor even, what is less, a peg for a hasp. Manors in 1086 were of all sizes, from one virgate to enor- mous organizations like Taunton or Leominster, containing villages by the score and hundreds of dependent holdings. 1 The ordinary size, however, of the Domesday manor was from four to ten hides of 120 acres each, or say from 500 to 1,200 acres, 2 and the Manor of Segenehou in Bedfordshire may be regarded as typical. Held by Walter brother of Seiher it had as much land as ten ploughs could work, four plough lands belonging to the demesne and six to the villeins, of whom there were twenty- four, with four bordarii and three serfs ; thus the villeins had 30 acres each, the normal holding. The manorial system was in fact a combination of large farming by the lords, and small farming by the tenants. Nor must we 1 Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. 307. 2 Ibid. p. 312. Perhaps one of the most interesting features of the smaller manors is that they were constantly being swallowed up by the larger. EARLY PRICES 19 compare it to an ordinary estate ; for it was a dominion within which the lord had authority over subjects of various ranks ; he was not only a proprietor but a prince with courts of his own, the arbiter of his tenants' rights as well as owner of the land. One of the most striking features of the Domesday survey is theTarge quantity of arable land and the small quantity of meadow, which usually was the only land whence they obtained their hay, for the common pasture cannot often have beer mown. 1 Indeed, it is difficult to understand how they fed their stock in hard winters. According to the returns, in many counties more acres were ploughed in 1086 than to-day; in some twice as much. In Somerset in 1086 there were 577,000 acres of arable in 1907, 178,967. In Gloucestershire, in 1086, 589,000 acres ; in 1907, 338,456.^ These are extreme instances; but the preponderance of arable is startling, even if we allow for the recent conversion of arable to pasture on account of the low price of corn. Between the eleventh century and the sixteenth, the laying down of land to grass must have proceeded on a j gigantic scale, for Harrison tells us that in his day England was mainly a grazing country. No wonder Harrison's contem- poraries complained of the decay of tillage. Mediaeval prices and statistics are, it is well known, to be taken with great caution; but we may assume that the normal annual value of land under cultivation in 1086 was about id. an acre. 3 Land indeed, apart from the stock upon it, was worth very little : in the tenth and eleventh centuries it appears that the hide, normally of i 30 acres, was only worth 5 to buy, apparently with the stock upon it. In the time of Athelstan a horse was worth i2o<, an ox $od., a cow 2Od?., a 1 As some of the common pasture was held in severally, this may perhaps have been mown in scarce years. Walter of Henley mentions mowing the waste, see below, p. 34. 2 Maitland, Domesday Book, 436 ; Board of Agriculture Returns, 1907. 3 Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century,^. 310 ; Birch, Domesday, p. 183. C 2 20 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE sheep 5*/., a hog 8d., a slave 1 so that a slave was worth 8 oxen l ; and these prices do not seem to have advanced by the Domesday period. According to the Pipe Roll of 1156, wheat was is. 6d. a quarter ; but prices then depended entirely on seasons, and we do not know whether that was good or bad. However, many years later, in 1243, it was only 2s. a quarter at Hawsted. 2 In dear years, nearly always the result of wet seasons, it went up enormously ; in 1024 the English Chronicle tells us the acre seed of wheat, that is about 2 bushels, sold for 6s., 3 bushels of barley for 6s., and 4 bushels of oats for 4^. 3 In 1190 Holinshed says that, owing to a great 'dearth, the quarter of wheat was i8s. %d. The average price, however, in the twelfth century was probably about 4s. a quarter. In 1194 Roger of Hoveden 4 says an ox, a cow, and a plough horse were the same price, 45. ; a sheep with fine wool iod., with coarse wool 6d. ; a sow izd., a boar I2 ^ at sheep, is. 6d. to is. ; and in the early part of Edward Ill's reign, wheat, $s. $d. to los. ; oxen, 14*. to 24^. Other prices about the same. Smyth, Lives of the Berkeley 's, i. 1 60. * If it is true, as generally stated, that the mediaeval ox was one-third the size of his modern successor, it is apparent that he was a very dear animal. Cattle at this date suffered from the ravages of wolves. D 1 36 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE average price was 19^. \d. A good saddle-horse fetched as much as 5. Sheep were from is. id. to is. $d. each. In Hampshire in 1248 shoeing ten farm horses for the plough for a year cost 5r. ; making a gate cost lid. As Walter of Henley said, it cost a penny a week to shoe a horse on all four feet ; these horses must have been very roughly shod. 1 It is evident, from what Walter of Henley says, that horses were not always shod on all four feet, and their shoes were generally very light. The roads were mere tracks without any metalling, so that there was little necessity for heavy shoes ; and as Professor Thorold Rogers suggests, it is quite possible that the hoofs of our horses have become weaker by reason of the continual paring and protection which modern shoeing involves 2 . They weighed usually less than half a pound, and cost about 43. a hundred. The most striking fact about agricultural prices at this date is the low price of land compared with that of its products. The annual rent of land was from ^d. to 6d? an acre, and it was worth about ten years' purchase. Consequently, a quarter of wheat was often worth more than an acre of land, a good ox three times as much, a good cart-horse four times, while a good war-horse was worth the fee-simple of a small farm. A greater breadth of wheat was sown than of any other crop ; but it seems that none was ever stored except in the castles and monasteries, for in spite of successive abundant harvests a bad season would send the price up at once. Barley was, as now, chiefly used for making beer, which was also made from oats and wheat, of course without hops, which were not used till the fifteenth century ; and sometimes it was made of oats, barley, and wheat, a concoction worth \d. a gallon in 1 Crondall, Records, Hampshire Record Society, i. 64. 1 History of Agriculture and Prices, i. 528. 3 Seebohm, Transactions of Royal Historical Society, New Series, xvii. 288, says that rent in the fourteenth century was commonly $d. ; the usual average is stated at 6d. an acre. WALTER OF HENLEY 37 I283. 1 Cider was also drunk, and was sold at Exminster in Devonshire in 1286 at \d. a gallon, and apples fetched id. a bushel. Thorold Rogers 2 says that wheat was the chief food of the English labourer from the earliest times until perhaps the seventeenth century, when the enormous prices were prohibitive ; but this statement must be taken with reserve, as must that of Mr. Prothero 3 that rye was the bread-stuff of the peasantry. Where the labourer's food is mentioned as part of his wages, wheat, barley, and rye all occur, wheat and rye being often mixed together as ' mixtil '; and it is most probable that in one district wheat, in another one of the other cereals, formed his chief bread-stuff, according to the crop best adapted to the soil of the locality. Walter of Henley mentions wheat as if it was the chief crop, for he selects it as best illustrating the cost of corn-growing 4 ; and from the enormous number of entries enumerated by Thorold Rogers in his mediaeval statistics it was apparently more grown than other cereals. The chief meat of the lower classes then, as to-day, was bacon from the innumerable herds of swine who roamed in the woods and wastes, but in bad years, when food was scarce, the poor ate nuts, acorns, fern roots, bark, and vetches. 5 As the cattle of the Middle Ages were like the mountain cattle of to-day, so were the sheep like many of the sheep to be seen in the Welsh mountains; yet, unlike the cattle, an attempt seems to have been made, judging by the high price of rams, to improve the breed ; but they were probably poor animals worth from is. to is. 6d. each, with a small fleece weighing about a pound and a half, worth $d. a Ib. or a little more. 1 Domesday of S.Paul, Camden Society, p. li. 2 History of Agricultitre and Prices, i. 26. 8 Pioneers of Agriculture, p. 13. 4 Ed. Lamond, Royal Historical Society, p. 19. 5 Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century, p. 93. CHAPTER III THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. DECLINE OF AGRI- CULTURE. THE BLACK DEATH. STATUTE OF LABOURERS AFTER the death of Edward I in 1307 the progress of i English agriculture came to a standstill, and little advance \ was made till after the battle of Bosworth in 1485. The weak government of Edward II, the long French War commenced by Edward III and lasting over a hundred years, and the Wars of the Roses, all combined to impoverish the country. England, too, was repeatedly afflicted during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by pestilences, sometimes caused by famines, some- times coming with no apparent cause ; all probably aggravated, if not caused, by the insanitary habits of the people. The mention of plagues, indeed, at this time is so frequent that we may call them chronic. At this period corn and wool were the two main products i of the farmer; corn to feed his household and labourers, and/ wool to put money in his pocket, a somewhat rare thing. English wool, which came to be called 'the flower andi strength and revenue and blood of England ', was famous in \ very early times, and was exported long before the Conquest. In Edgar's reign the price was fixed by law, to prevent it getting into the hands of the foreigner too cheaply ; a wey, or weigh, was to be sold for izod. 1 Patriotic Englishmen asserted it was the best in the world, and Henry II, Edward III, and Edward IV are said to have improved the Spanish breed by presents of English sheep. Spanish wool, however, was con-j sidered the best from the earliest times until the Peninsular 1 Cunningham, Growth of English Indiistry and Commerce, 5. 130. A weigh in the Middle Ages was 182 Ibs., or half a sack. THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 39 War, when the Saxon and Silesian wools deposed it from its pride of place. Smith, in his Memoirs of Woo!, 1 is of the opinion that England ' borrowed some parts of its breed from thence, as it certainly did the whole from one place or another.' Spanish wool, too, was imported into England at an early date, the manufacture of it being carried on at Andover in I262. 2 Yet until the fourteenth century it was not produced in sufficient quantities to compete seriously with English wool in the markets of the Continent ; and it appears to have been the long wools, such as those of the modern Leicester and Lincoln, from which England chiefly derived its fame as a wool-producing country. Our early exports went to Flanders, where weaving had been introduced a century before the Conquest, and, in spitej of the growth of the weaving industry in England, to that country the bulk of it continued to go, all through the Middle Ages, though in the thirteenth century a determined effort was made to divert a larger share of English wool to Italy. 3 During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the export of wool was frequently forbidden, 4 sometimes for political objects, but also to gain the manufacture of cloth for England by keeping our wool from the foreigner; but these measures did not stop the export, they only hampered it and encouraged much smuggling. It commanded what seems to us an astonishing price, for ^d. a Ib. in the thir- teenth and fourteenth centuries is probably equal to nearly 4.5-. in our money. Its value, and the ease with which it could be packed and carried, made it an object of great importance to the farmer. In 1337 5 we have a schedule of the price 1 Second edition, i. 50 n. See also Burnley, History of Wool, p. 17. 2 Gross, Gild Merchant, ii. 4. It is from the Spanish merino, crossed with Leicesters and Southdowns, that the vast Australian flocks of to-day are descended. 8 Cunningham, op, tit. i. 628. 4 Ashley, Early History of English Woollen Industry, p. 34. 8 Calendar of Close Rolls, 1337-9, pp. 148-9. 40 of wool in the various counties of England, for in that year 30,000 sacks of the best wool was ordered to be bought in various districts by merchants for Edward III, to provide the sinews of war against France. The price for the best wool was to be fixed by the king, his council, and the merchants ; the 'gross' wool being bought by agreement between buyer and seller. Of the former the highest price fixed was for the wool of Hereford, then and for long afterwards famous for its excellent quality, 12 marks the sack of 364 Ib. ; and the lowest for that of the northern counties, 5 marks the sack. Somewhat more than a century afterwards we have another similar list of wool prices, when in 1454 the Commons petitioned the king that 'as the wools growing within this realm have hitherto been the great commodity, enriching, and welfare of this land, and how of late the price is greatly decayed so that the Commons were not able to pay their rents to their lords ', the king would fix certain prices under which wools should not be bought. The highest price fixed was for the wool of ' Hereford, in Leominster ', .13 a sack ; the lowest for that of Suffolk, 2, 12s. 1 ', the average being about 4 IO.T. The manorial accounts of the Knights' Hospitallers, who then held land all over England, afford valuable information as to agriculture in 1338.2 From these we gather that the rent of arable land varied from id. to 2s. an acre ; but the latter sum was very exceptional, and there are only two instances of it given, in Lincolnshire and Kent. Most of the tillage rented for less than i s. an acre, more than half being at 6d. or under, and the average about 6d. On the other hand, meadow land is seldom of less value than 2s. an acre, and in Warwick- shire, Oxfordshire, and Norfolk rose to $s. This is one of the numerous proofs of the great value of meadow land at a time 1 Rolls of Parliament, v. 275. 2 The Hospitallers in England, Camden Society. THE BLACK DEATH 41 when hay was almost the sole winter food of stock ; in some places it was eight or ten times as valuable as the arable. 1 The pasture on the Hospitallers' estates was divided into several and common pasture, the former often reaching is. an acre and sometimes 2s., the latter rarely exceeding ^d. The most usual way, however, of stating the value of pasture was by reckoning the annual cost of feeding stock per head, cows being valued at 2J., oxen at is., a horse at a little less than an ox, a sheep at id. The reign of Edward III was a great era for wool-growers, and the Hospitallers at Hampton in Middlesex had a flock of 3,000 sheep whose annual produce was six sacks of wool of 364 Ib. each, worth 4. a sack, which would make the fleeces weigh a little more than i Ib. each. The profit of cows on one of their manors was reckoned at zs. per head, on another at $s. ; and the profit of 100 sheep at 2OJ. 2 The wages paid to the labourers for day work were id. a day, and we must remember that when he was paid by the day his wages were rightly higher than when regularly employed, for day labour was irregular and casual. The tenants about the same date obtained the following prices for some of their stock 3 : J- d. A good ox, alive, fatted on corn 140 ,, not on corn . "*..-,'- .,.. 16 o A fatted cow . . 12 o A two-year-old hog ' ". " ". ' ~ 34 A sheep and its fleece . . . ."-.- * : i 8 A fatted sheep, shorn 12 goose 03 Hens, each 4 02 20 eggs oi In the middle of the fourteenth century occurred the famous Black Death, the worst infliction that has ever visited England. 1 Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century, p. 147. 1 Hospitallers in England, p. xxvi. 3 Ibid. pp. 1, li. 4 Poultry-keeping was wellnigh universal, judging by the number of rents paid in fowls and eggs. 42 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE Its story is too well known for repetition, and it suffices to say that it was like the bubonic plague in the East of to-day : it raged in 1348-9, and killed from one- third to one-half of the people. 1 It is said to have effected more important economic i results than any other event in English history. It is probable' that the prices of labour were rising before this terrible calamity; the dreadful famine of I3I5-6, 2 followed by pesti- lence, when wheat went up to 26s. a quarter, and according to the contemporary chroniclers, in some cases much higher, de- stroyed a large number of the population, and other plagues had done their share to make labour scarce, but after the Black Death the advance was strongly marked. It also accelerated the break-up of the manorial system. A large number of the free labourers were swept away, and their labour lost to the lord of the manor ; the services of the villeins were largely diminished from the same cause ; many of the tenants, both free and unfree, were dead, and the land thrown on the lord's hands. Flocks and herds were wandering about over the country because there was no one to tend them. In short, most manors were in a state of anarchy, and their lords on the verge of ruin. It is not to be wondered at, there- fore, that they immediately adopted strong measures to save themselves and their property and, no doubt they thought, the whole country. Englishmen had by this time learnt to turn to Parliament to remedy their ills, but as the plague was still raging a proclamation was issued of which the preamble states 1 1348 seems also to have been an excessively rainy year. The wet season was very disastrous to live stock ; according to the accounts of the manors of Christ Church, Canterbury, about this time (Historical MS S. Commission, $th Report ', 444) there died of the murrain on their estates 257 oxen, 511 cows, 4,585 sheep. Murrain was the name given to all diseases of stock in the Middle Ages, and is of constant occurrence in old records. 2 The cause of this as usual was incessant rain during the greater part of the summer ; the chroniclers of the time say that not only were the crops very short but those that did grow were diseased and yielded no nourish- ment. The ' murrain ' was so deadly to oxen and sheep that, according to Walsingham, dogs and ravens eating them dropped down dead. STATUTE OF LABOURERS 43 that wages had already gone up greatly. ' Many, seeing the necessity of masters and great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they get excessive wages ', and it is, therefore, hard to till the land. Every one under the age of 60, it was ( ordered, free or villein, who can work, and has no other means of livelihood, is not to refuse to work for any one who offers' the accustomed wages ; no labourer is to receive more wages than he did before the plague, and none are to givd more wages under severe penalties. But besides regulating wages, the proclamation also insists on reasonable prices for food and the necessaries of life : it was a fair attempt not only to protect the landlords but the labourers also, by keeping both wages and prices at their former rate, so that its object was not tyrannous as has been stated. 1 It was at once dis- regarded, a fate which met many of the proclamations and statutes of the Middle Ages, which often seem to have been regarded as mere pious aspirations. Accordingly, the Statute of 1351, 25 Edw. Ill, Stat. 2, c. i, states that the servants had paid no regard to the ordinance regulating wages, ' but to their ease and singular covetise do withdraw themselves unless they have livery and wages to the double or treble of that they were wont to take '. Accordingly, it was again laid down that they were to take liveries and wages as before the Black Death, and ' where wheat was wont to be given they shall take for the bushel icd. (6s. 8d. a quarter), 2 or wheat at the will of the giver. And that they be hired to serve by the whole year or by other usual terms, and 1 See Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 335. Also in an age when the idea of Competitive price had not yet been evolved, and when regulation by authority was the custom, it was natural and right that the Government in such a crisis should try to check the demands of both labourers and producers, which went far beyond what employers or con- sumers could pay. Putnam, Enforcement of the Statute of Labourers, 220. 2 The average price of wheat in 1351 was los. i\d., which went down to 7s. 2d. next year, and 4^. 2,\d, the year after; but judging by the ineffective- ness of the statute to reduce wages, it probably had little effect in causing this fall. 44 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE not by the day, and that none pay in the time of sarcling (weeding) or hay-making but a penny a day, and a mower of meadows for the acre 5^., or by the day 5^., and reapers of corn in the first week of August 2*/., and the second 3^., without meat or drink.' And none were to take for the threshing of a quarter of wheat or rye more than id., and for the quarter of beans, peas, and oats more than id. These prices are certainly difficult to understand. Hay-making has usually been paid for at a rate above the ordinary, because of the longer hours ; and here we find the price fixed at half the usual wages, while mowing is five times as much, and double the price paid for reaping, though they were normally about the same price. 1 It is interesting to learn from the statute that there was a considerable migration of labourers at this date for the harvest, from Stafford, Lancaster, Derby, Craven, the Marches of Wales and Scotland, and other places. Such was the first attempt made to control the labourers' wages by the legislature, and like other legislation of the kind it failed in its object, though the attempt was honestly made ; and if the rate of wages fixed was somewhat low, its inequity was far surpassed by the exorbitance of the labourers' de- mands. 2 It was an endeavour to set aside economic laws, and its futility was rendered more certain by the depreciation of the coinage in 1351, which led to an advance in prices, and compelled the labourers to persevere in their demands for higher wages. 3 Both wages and prices, except those of grain, continued to 1 See Appendix I. 2 Putnam, op. cit. 221. The statute for the first ten years, however, kept wages from ascending as high as might have been the case. 5 MPherson, Annals of Commerce^ i. 543, says that as the plague diminished the number of employers as well as labourers, the demand for labour could not have been much greater than before, and would have had little effect on the rate of wages if Edward III had not debased the coinage. But if the owners did decrease the lands would only accumulate in fewer hands, and would still require cultivation. DECLINE OF AGRICULTURE 45 increase, and labour services were now largely commuted for money payments, 1 with the result that the manorial system began to break up rapidly Owing to the dearth of labourers for hire, and the loss of many of the services of their villeins, the lords found it very hard to farm their demesne lands. It should be remembered, too, that an additional hardship from which they suffered at this time was that the quit rents paid to them in lieu of services by tenants who had already become free were, owing to the rise in prices, very much depreciated. Their chiefj remedy was to let their demesne lands. The condition of the Manor of Forncett in Norfolk well illustrates the changes that were now going on. There, in the period 1272-1307, there were many free tenants as well as villeins, and the holdings of the latter were small, usually only 5 acres. It is also to be noticed that in no year were all the labour services actually performed, some were always sold for money. Yet in the period named there was not much progress in the general commutation of services for money payments, and the same was the case in the manors, whose records between 1325 and 1350 Mr. Page examined for his End of Villeinage in England? The reaping and binding of the entire grain crop of the demesne at Forncett was done by the tenants exclusively, without the aid of any hired labour. 3 However, in the period 1307-1376 the manor underwent a great change. The economic position of the villeins, the ad- ministration of the demesne, and the whole organization of the manor were revolutionized. Much of the tenants' land had reverted to the lord, partly by the deaths in the great pestilence, partly because tenants had left the manor ; they had run away and left their burdensome holdings in order to get high wages as free labourers. This of course led to a diminution of labour rents, so the landlord let most of the demesne for a term of 1 Page, End of Villeinage, pp. 59 et seq. 2 Ibid. p. 44. 3 Transactions, Royal Historical Society, New Series, xiv. 123. 46 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE years, 1 a process which went on all over England ; and thus we have the origin of the modern tenant farmer. A fact of much importance in connexion with the Peasants' Revolt, soon to take place, was that the average money rent of land per acre in Forncett in 1378 was iod., while the labour rents for land, where they were still paid by villeins who had not commuted or run away, were, owing to the rise in the value of labour, worth two I or three times this. We cannot wonder that the poor villeins were profoundly discontented. On this manor, as on others, some of the villeins, in spite of the many disadvantages under which they lay, man- aged to accumulate some little wealth. In 1378 and in 1410 one bond tenant had two messuages and 78 acres of land ; in 1441 another died seized of 5 messuages and 52 acres ; some had a number of servants in their households, but the majority were very poor. There are several instances of bondmen fleeing from the manor ; and the officers of the manor failed to catch them. This was common in other manors, and the ' with- drawal ' of villeins played a considerable part in the disappear- ance of serfdom and the break-up of the system. 2 The follow- ing table shows the gradual disappearance of villeins in the Manor of Forncett : In 1400 the servile families who had land numbered . . 16 1500 8 1525 5 155 3 1575 There is no event of greater importance in the agrarian history of England, or which has led to more important conse- quences, than the dissolution of this community in the culti- vation of the land, which had been in use so long, and the 1 This had been done before, but was now much more frequent. Hasbach, op. cit. p. 17. 2 ' After the Black Death the flight of villeins was extremely common.' Page, op. cit. p. 40. DECLINE OF AGRICULTURE 47 establishment of the complete independence and separation of one property from another. 1 As soon as the manorial system began to give way, and men to have a free hand, the substi- tution of large for small holdings set in with fresh vigour, for we have already seen that it had begun. It was one of the chief causes of the stagnation of agriculture in the Middle Ages that it lay under the heavy hand of feudalism, by which individualism was checked and hindered. Every one had his allotted position on the land, and it was hard to get out of it, though some exceptional men did so ; as a rule there was no chance of striking out a new line for oneself. The villein was bound to the lord, and no lord would willingly surrender his services. There could be little improvement in farming when the custom of the manor and the collective ownership of the teams bound all to the same system of farming. 2 In fact, agriculture under feudalism suffered from many of the evils of socialism. But, though hard hit, the old system was to endure for many generations, and the modern triumvirate of landlord, tenant, and labourer was not completely established in England until the era of the first Reform Bill. 1 Nasse, Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages, p. I. 8 Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 137. CHAPTER IV HOW THE CLASSES CONNECTED WITH THE LAND LIVED IN THE MIDDLE AGES THE castles of the great landowners have been so often described that there is no need to do this again. The popular idea of a baron of the Middle Ages is of a man who when he was not fighting was jousting or hunting. Such were, no doubt, his chief recreations; so fond was he of hunting, indeed, that his own broad lands were not enough, and he was a frequent trespasser on those of others ; the records of the time are full of cases which show that poaching was quite a fashionable amusement among the upper classes. But among the barons were many men who, like their successors to-day, did their duty as landlords. Of one of the Lords of Berkeley in the fourteenth century, it was said he was ' some- tyme in husbandry at home, sometyme at sport in the field, sometyme in the campe, sometyme in the Court and Council of State, with that promptness and celerity that his body might have bene believed to be ubiquitary '. Many of them were farmers on a very large scale, though they might not have so much time to devote to it as those excellent landlords the monks. Thomas, Lord Berkeley, who held the Berkeley estates from 1336 to 1361, farmed the demesnes of a quantity of manors, as was the custom, and kept thereon great flocks of sheep, ranging from 300 to 1,500 on each manor. 1 The stock of the Bishop of Winchester, by an inquisition taken at his death in 1367, amounted to 127 draught horses, 1,556 head of black cattle, and 12,104 sheep and lambs. Almost every 1 Smyth, Lives of the Berkeley's, i. 302. No doubt the riches of the Berkcleys were considerably greater than those of many of the barons. LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 49 manor had one or two pigeon houses, and the number of pigeons reared is astonishing ; from one manor Lord Berkeley obtained 2,151 pigeons in a single year. No one but the lord was allowed to keep them, and they were one of the chief grievances of the villeins, who saw their seed devoured by these pests without redress. Their dung, too, was one of the most valued manures. Lord Berkeley, like other landlords, went often in progress from one of his manors and farmhouses to another, making his stay at each of them for one or two nights, overseeing and directing the husbandry. The castle of the great noble consumed an enormous amount of food in the course of the year ; from two manors on the Berkeley estate came to the ' standinghouse ' of the lord in twelve months, 17,000 eggs, 1,008 pigeons, 91 capons, 192 hens, 288 ducks, 388 chickens, 194 pigs, 45 calves, 315 quarters of wheat, 304 quarters of oats ; and from several other manors came the like or greater store, besides goats, sheep, oxen, butter, cheese, nuts, honey, &C. 1 Even the lavish hospitality of the lords, and the great number of their retainers, must have had some difficulty in disposing of these huge supplies. The examining of their bailiffs accounts must have taken a considerable portion of the landlord's time, for those of each manor were kept most minutely, and set forth, among other items, ' in what sort he husbanded ' the demesne farms, ' what sorts of cattle he kept in them, and what kinds of graine he yearly sowed according to the quality and condition of the ground, and how those kinds of graine each second or third yeare were exchanged or brought from one manor to another as the vale corne into an upland soyle, and contrarily.' And we are told incidentally he ' set with hand, not sowed his beanes '. He was also accustomed to move his live stock from one manor to another, as they needed it. 1 Lives of the Berkeley s, i. 166. There is no reason to doubt Smyth, as he wrote with the original accounts before him. 50 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE The accounts also stated what days' works were due from each tenant according to the season of the year, and at the end of each year there was a careful valuation of live and dead stock. 1 The difference between the smaller gentry and the more important yeomen 2 who farmed their own land must have been very slight. No doubt both of them were very rough and ignorant men, who knew a great deal about the cultiva- tion of their land and very little about anything else. We may be sure that the ordinary house of both was generally of wood, as there is no stone in many parts of England, and bricks were not reintroduced till the fourteenth century and spread slowly. Even in Elizabeth's reign, Harrison 3 tells us that ' the ancient houses of our gentry are yet for the most part of strong timber ', and he even thinks that houses made of oak were luxurious, for in times past men had been con- tented with houses of willow, plum, and elm, but now nothing but oak was good enough ; and he quaintly says that the men who lived in the willow houses were as tough as oak, and those who lived in the oak as soft as willow. There are very few mansions left of the time before Edward III, for being of timber they naturally decayed. In a lease, dated 1152, of a manor house belonging to S. Paul's Cathedral, 4 is a description of a manor house which contained a hall 35 feet long, 30 feet broad, and 22 feet high ; that is, ii feet to the tie beam and n feet from that to the ridge board ; showing that the roof was open and that there were no upper rooms. There was a chamber between the hall and the thalamus or inner room which was 12 feet long, 1 Lives of the Berkeley s, i. 156. 2 The yeoman is said to have made his appearance in the fifteenth century, but the small freeholders of the manor before that date were to all intents and purposes yeomen. No doubt, as trade grew in the four- teenth and fifteenth centuries successful tradesmen bought small freeholds in the country and swelled the numbers of yeomen. 3 Harrison, Description of Britain, F. J. Furnivall edn., p. 337. 4 Domesday of S. Paul, Camden Society, p. 129. LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 51 17 feet broad, and 17 feet high, the roof being open as in the hall; and the thalamus was 22 feet long, 16 feet broad, and 1 8 feet high. About the same date the Manor house of Thorp was larger, and contained a hall, a chamber, tresantia (apparently part of the hall or chamber separated by a screen to form an antechamber), two private rooms, a kitchen, brew-house, malt- house, dairy, ox shed, and three small hen-houses. The ordinary manor house of the Middle Ages contained three rooms at least, of mean aspect, the floor even of the hall, which was the principal eating and sleeping room, being of dirt ; and when there was an upper room or solar added, which began to be done at the end of the twelfth century, 1 access to it was often obtained by an outside staircase. If the manor house belonged to the owner of many manors, it was sometimes inhabited by his bailiff. The barns on the demesnes were often as important build- ings as the manor houses ; one at Wickham, belonging to the canons of S. Paul's 2 in the twelfth century, was 55 feet long, 13 feet high from the floor to the principal beam, and io| feet more to the ridge board ; the breadth between the pillars was 19! feet, and on each side it had a wing or aisle 6^ feet wide and 6\ feet high. The amount of corn in the barn was often scored on the door-posts. 3 In the manor houses chimneys rarely existed, the fire being made in the middle of the hall. Even in the early seventeenth century in Cheshire there were no chimneys in the farmhouses, and there the oxen were kept under the same roof as the farmer and his family. 4 When chimneys did come in they were not much thought of. 'Now we have chimneys our tenderlings complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses (colds) ; ' for the smoke not only hardened the timbers, but was said by Harrison to be an excellent medicine for man. Instead of glass there was much lattice, and that 1 Turner, Domestic Architecture, i. 59. 2 Domesday of S. Paul, p. 123. 3 Historical MSS. Commission Report, v. 444. 4 Ormerod, History of Cheshire, i. 129. E 2 52 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE made either of wicker or fine rifts of oak in checkerwise, and horn was also used. Beds, of course, were a luxury, the owner of the manor, his guestSj and retainers flung themselves down on the hall floor after supper and all slept together, though sometimes rough mattresses were brought in. Furniture was rude and scanty. In 1150 the farm imple- ments and household furniture on the Manor of ' Waleton ' was valued and consisted of 4 carts, 3 baskets, a basket used in winnowing corn, a pair of millstones, 10 tubs, 4 barrels, 2 boilers of lead with stoves, a wooden bowls, 3 three-legged tables, 20 dishes or platters, 2 tablecloths worth 6d., 6 metal bowls, half a load of the invaluable salt, 2 axes, a table with trestles (the usual form of table), and 5 beehives made of rushes. 1 These articles were handed down from one genera- tion to another, and in a lease made 150 years afterwards of the same manor most of them reappear. The greater part of the furniture, until the fifteenth century, was most likely made by migratory workmen, who travelled from village to village ; for except the rudest pieces it was beyond the village carpenter, and shops there were none. It is not to be expected that when the master lived in this manner the lot of the labourer was a very good one. His home was miserably poor, generally of ' wattle and dab ', sometimes wholly of mud and clay ; many with only one room for all purposes. A bill is still in existence for a house, if it can be called one, built in 1306 for two labourers by Queen's College, Oxford, which cost 2os. in all, and was a mere hovel without floor, ceiling, or chimney. 2 Their wretched houses appear to have been built on the bare earth, and unfloored. Perhaps as time went on a rude upper storey was added, the floor of which was made of rough poles or hurdles and was reached by a ladder. The furniture was miserably poor : a few pots and pans, cups and dishes, and some tools would exhaust 1 Doomsday of S. Paul, p. xcvii. 2 Denton, 'England in the Fifteenth Century. LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 53 the list. 1 The goods and chattels of a landless labourer in 1431 consisted of a dish, an adze, a brass pot, 2 plates, 2 augers, an axe, a three-legged stool, and a barrel. 2 English- men of all classes were hopelessly dirty in their habits ; even till the sixteenth century they were noted above other countries for the profuseness of their diet and their unclean ways. Erasmus spoke of the floor of his house as inconceiv- ably filthy. To save fuel, the labourer's family in the cold season all lay huddled in a heap on the floor, ' pleasantly and hot ', as Barclay the poet tells us ; and if he ever had a bed it was a bundle of fern or straw thrown down, with his cloak as a coverlet, though thus he was just as well off as his social superiors, for with them the loose cloak of the day was a common covering for the night. He was constantly exposed to disease, for sanitary precautions were ignored ; at the entrance of his hovel was a huge heap of decaying refuse, poisoning air and water. Even in the sixteenth century a foreigner noticed that ' the peasants dwell in small huts and pile up their refuse out of doors in heaps so high that you cannot see their houses '. 3 Diseased animals were constantly eaten, vegetables were few, and in the winter there was no fresh meat for any one, except game and rabbits and, for the well-to-do, fish, but we may doubt if the peasant got any but salt fish. The consequence was that leprosy and kindred ailments were common ; and we do not wonder that plagues were frequent and slew the people like flies. The peasants' food consisted largely of corn. In the bailiff's accounts of the Manor of Woodstock in 1242, six servants at Handborough received 41^ bushels of corn each, 2 ox herds at Combe 1 Eden, State of the Poor, i. 21. 2 See Cullum, History of Hawsted. 8 Harrison, Description of Britain, Appendix ii, Ixxxi. In some manors, however, there were careful regulations for the public health. According to the Durham Halnwte Rolls, published by the Surtees Society, village officials watched over the water supply, prevented the fouling of streams; bye-laws were enacted as to the regulation of the common place for clothes washing, and the times for emptying and cleansing ponds and mill-dams. 54 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE received the same, and 4 servants at Bladon had 36 bushels each. In 1274 at Bosham, and in 1288 at Stoughton in Sussex, the allowance was the same. 1 The writer of the anonymous Treatise on Husbandry says that in his time, the thirteenth century, the average annual allowance of corn to a labourer was 36 bushels. 2 Fish, too, seem to have formed a large portion of his diet ; all classes ate enormous quantities of fish, before the Reformation, in Lent and on fast days, and the labourer was constantly given salt herrings as part of his pay. In 1359, at Hawsted, the villeins when working were allowed 2 herrings a day, some milk, a loaf, and some drink. 3 Eden 4 says his food consisted of a few fish, principally herrings, a loaf of bread, and some beer ; but we must certainly add pork, which was his stand-by then as now. 5 In the fourteenth century, at all events, there were three kinds of bread in use white bread, ration bread, and black bread ; and it was no doubt the latter that the peasant ate. 6 Clothing was dear and cloth coarse, the most valuable personal property consisting of clothing and metal vessels. Shirts were the subject of charitable gifts. 7 By 37 Edw. Ill, c. 14, labourers were not to wear any manner of cloth but ' blanket and russet wool of \idl and girdles of linen. If they wore anything more extravagant it was forfeited to the king. To the labourer of modern times the life of his forefathers would have seemed unutterably dull. No books, no news- papers, no change of scene by cheap excursions, no village school, no politics. The very cultivation of the soil by the old three-course system was monotonous. But there were bright spots in his existence : the village church not only afforded him the consolations of religion but also entertainments and 1 Ballard, Domesday ', Antiquary Series, p. 209. 2 Walter of Henley, Royal Historical Society, p. 75. s Cullum, Hawsted, 1784 ed., p. 182. 4 State of the Poor, i. 1 5. 5 Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, \. 32. 9 See Knights Hospitallers in England, Camden Society, Introduction. 7 Thorold Rogers, op. cit. i. 66. LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 55 society. Religion in the Middle Ages was a part of the people's daily life, and its influence permeated even their amusements. Miracles and mystery plays, played in the churches and churchyards, were a common feature in village life ; as were the church ales or parish meetings held four or five times a year, where cakes and beer were purchased from the churchwarden and consumed for the good of the parish. Indeed, there can be no doubt that there was much more sociability than to-day, in the country at least. Labour was lightened by the co-operation of the common fields ; common shepherds and herdsmen watched the sheep and cattle of the different tenants, ' a common mill ground the corn, a common oven baked the bread, a common smith worked at a common forge.' His existence, moreover, was enlivened by a considerable number of sports. A statute at the end of the fourteenth century (12 Ric. II, c. 6) says he was fond of playing at tennis (!), football, quoits, dice, casting the stone, and other games, which this statute forbad him, and enacted that he should use his bow and arrows on Sundays and holidays instead of such idle sport. This is a foretaste of the modern sentiment that seeks to wean him from watching football matches and take to miniature rifle clubs. He was also, like some of his successors, fond of poaching, though he appears to have been rash enough to indulge in it by day. 13 Ric. II, c. 13, says he was prone on holidays, when good Christian people be in church hearing divine service, to go hunting with greyhounds and other dogs, in the parks and warrens of the lord and of others, and sometimes these hunts were turned into conferences and conspiracies, ' for to rise and disobey their allegiance', such as preceded the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 ; and accordingly no one who did not own lands worth 4os. a year was to keep a dog to hunt, or ferrets, or other ' engines ' : the first game law on the English statute book. CHAPTER V THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR. SPREAD OF LEASES. THE PEASANTS' REVOLT. FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO REGULATE WAGES. A HARVEST HOME. BEGINNING OF THE CORN LAWS. SOME SURREY MANORS WE have seen that the landlords' profits were seriously diminished by the Black Death, and they cast about them for new ways of increasing their incomes. Arable land had been until now largely in excess of pasture, the cultivation of corn was the chief object of agriculture, bread forming a much larger proportion of men's diet than now. This began to change. Much of the land was laid down to grass, and there was a, steady increase in sheep farming ; thus commenced that revo- lution in farming which in the sixteenth century led Harrison to say that England was mainly a stock-raising country. The lords also let a considerable amount of their demesne land on leases for years. ' Then began the times to alter,' says Smyth of the Lord Berkeley of the end of the fourteenth century, 'and hee with them, and he began to tack other men's cattle on his pasture by the week, month, and quarter, and to sell his meadow grounds by the acre. And in the time of Henry IV still more and more was let, and in succeed- ing times. As for the days' works of the copyhold tenants, they also were turned into money.' 1 Such leases had been used long before this, but this is the date of their great increase. In the thirteenth century a lease of 2 acres of 1 Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, ii. 5. There is no doubt the lease system was growing in the thirteenth century. About 1240 the writ Qttare ejecit infra terminum protected the person of a tenant for a term of years, who formerly had been regarded as having no more than a personal right enforceable by an action of covenant. VinogradofF, Villeinage in England, p. 330 ; but leases for lives and not for years seem the rule at that date. SPREAD OF LEASES 57 arable land in Nowton, Suffolk, let the land at 6d. an acre per annum for a term of six years. 1 It contains no clauses about cultivation ; the landlord warrants the said 2 acres to the tenant, and the tenant agrees to give them up at the end of the term freely and peaceably. The deed was indented, sealed, and witnessed by several persons. The impoverished landlords also let much of their land on stock and land leases. The custom of stocking the tenants' land was a very ancient one : the lord had always found the oxen for the plough teams of the villeins. In the leases of the manors of S. Paul's in the twelfth century the tenant for life received stock both live and dead, which when he entered was carefully enumerated in the lease, and at the end of the tenancy he had to leave behind the same quantity. 2 It was a common practice also, before the Black Death, for the lord to let out cows and sheep at so much per head per annum. 3 The stock and land lease therefore was no novelty. In 1410 there is a lease of the demesne lands at Hawsted by which the landlord kept the manor house and its appurtenances in his own hands, the tenant apparently having the farm buildings, which he was to keep in repair. He was to receive at the beginning of the term 20 cows and one bull, worth gs. each ; 4 stotts, worth los. each; and 4 oxen, worth 135-. 4< each ; which, or their value in money, were to be delivered up at the end of the term. The tenant was also to leave at the end of the lease as many acres well ploughed, sown, and manured as he found at the beginning. Otherwise the landlord was not to interfere with the cultivation. If the rent or any part thereof was in arrear for a fortnight after the two fixed days for payment, the landlord might distrain ; and if for a month, he might re-enter : and both parties bound themselves to forfeit the then huge sum of .100 upon the violation of any clause 1 Cullum, Hawsted, p. 175. 2 See Domesday of S. Paul, Introduction. 3 Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, i. 25. 58 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE of the lease. 1 There is a lease 2 of a subsequent date (the twentieth year of Henry VIII), but one which well illustrates the custom now so prevalent, granted by the Prior of the Monastery of Lathe in Somerset to William Pole of Combe, Edith his wife, and Thomas his son, for their lives. With the land went 360 wethers. For the land they paid 16 quarters of best wheat, 'purelye thressyd and wynowed,' 22 quarters of best barley, and were to carry 4 loads of wood and fatten one ox for the prior yearly ; the ox to be fattened in stall with the best hay, the only way then known of fattening oxen. For the flock of wethers they paid 6 yearly. The tenants were bound to keep hedges, ditches, and gates in repair. Also they were bound by a ' writing obligatory ' in the sum of 100 to deliver up the wether flock whole and sound, 'not rotten, banyd, 3 nor otherwise diseased.' The consequence of the spread of leases was that the portion of the demesne lands which the lords farmed themselves dwindled greatly, or it was turned from arable into grass. Stock and land leases survived in some parts till the begin- ning of the eighteenth century, when it was still the custom for the landlord to stock the land and receive half the crop for rent. 4 According to the Domesday of S.Paul, in the thirteenth century, a survey of eighteen manors containing 24,000 acres showed three-eighths of the land in demesne, the rest in the hands of the tenants. In 1359 the lord of the principal manor at Hawsted held in his own hand 572 acres of arable land, worth 4d. to 6d. an acre rent, and 50 acres of meadow, worth 2J. an acre. 5 He had also pasture for 24 cows, which was 1 Cullum, Hawsted, p. 195. 2 Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 586. 3 Banyd, afflicted with sheep rot. 4 Eden, State of the Poor, i. 55. 5 Cullum, Hawsted, p. 182. Another instance of the difference in value between arable and tillage. At the inquisition of the Manor of Great Tey in Essex, 1326, the jury found that 500 acres of arable land was worth 6a. an acre rent, 20 acres of meadow 3^. an acre, and 10 acres of pasture is. an acre. Archaeologia, xii. 30. THE PEASANTS' REVOLT 59 considered worth 36 s. a year, and for 12 horses and 12 oxen worth 48^. a year, with 40 acres of wood, estimated at is. an acre. In 1387, however, the arable land had decreased to 320 acres, but the stock had increased, and now numbered 4 cart horses, 6 stotts or smaller horses, 10 oxen, i bull, 26 cows, 6 heifers, 6 calves, 92 wethers, 20 hoggerells or two- year-old sheep, i gander, 4 geese, 30 capons, 26 hens, and only one cock. The dairy of 26" cows was let out, according to the custom of the time, for .8 a year ; and we are told that the oxen were fed on oats, and shod in the winter only. But if the position of the lords was severely affected by the great pestilence that of the villeins was also. The villein him- self was becoming a copyholder; in the thirteenth century the nature of his holding had been written on the court roll, before long he was given a copy of the roll, and by the fifteenth century he was a copyholder. 1 There was, too, a new spirit abroad in this century of disorganization and reform, which stirred even the villeins with a desire for better conditions of life. These men, thus rising to a more as- sured position and animated by new hopes, saw all round them hired labourers obtaining, in spite of the Statute of Labourers, double the amount of wages they had formerly received, while they were bound down to the same services as before. The advance in prices was further increased by the king's issuing in 1351 an entirely new coinage, of the same fineness but of less weight than the old ; so that the demands of the labourers after the Black Death were largely justified by the depreciation in the currency. 2 There had also arisen at this time, owing to the increase in the wealth of the country, a new class of landlords who did not care for the old system 3 ; and it is probably these men who are meant by the statute i Ric. II, c. 6, which complains that the villeins daily with- drew their services to their lords at the instigation of various 1 Medley, Constitutional History, p. 52. 3 Cunningham, op. cit. i. 328, and 335-6. 3 Domesday of S, Paul, p. Ivii. 6o HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE counsellors and abettors, who made it appear by ' colour of certain exemplifications made out of the Book of Domesday ' that they were discharged from their services, and moreover gathered themselves in great routs and agreed to aid each other in resisting their lords, so that justices were appointed to check this evil. But there were other ' counsellors and abettors' of the Peasants' Reyolt than the new landlords. One of its most interesting features to modern readers is its thorough organization. Travelling agents and agitators like John Ball were all over the country, money was subscribed and collected, and everything was ripe for the great rising of 1381, which was brought to a head by the bad grading of the poll tax of King Richard. It has been said that the chief grievance of the villeins was that the lords of manors were attempting to reimpose commuted services, but judging by the petition to the King when he met them at Mile-end there can be no doubt that the chief grievance was the continuance of existing services. ' We will ', said they, ' that ye make us free for ever, and that we be called no more bond, or so reputed.' Also, as Walsingham says, 1 they were careful to destroy the rolls and ancient records whereby their services were fixed, and to put to death persons learned in the law. As every one knows, the revolt was a failure ; and whether it ultimately helped much to extinguish serfdom is doubtful. It probably, like the pestilence, accelerated a movement which had been for some time in progress and was inevitable. There is ample evidence to prove that there was a very general continuance of predial services after the revolt, though they went on rapidly decreasing. One of the chief methods adopted by the villeins to gain their freedom was desertion, and so common did this become that apparently the mere threat of desertion enabled the villein to obtain almost any 1 Hist. Angl., Rolls Series, i. 455. The other political and social causes of the revolt do not concern us here. The attempt to minimize its agrarian importance is strange in the light of the words and acts above mentioned. ATTEMPTS TO REGULATE WAGES 61 concession from his lord, who was afraid lest his land should be utterly deserted. The result was that by the middle of the fifteenth century the abolition of labour services was approach- ing completion. 1 It lingered on, and Fitzherbert lamented in Elizabeth's reign the continuance of villeinage as a disgrace to England ; but it had then nearly disappeared, and was unheard of after the reign of James I. 2 Seven years after the Peasants' Revolt another attempt was made to regulate agricultural wages by the statute 13 Ric. II, c. 4, which stated that 'the hires of the said servants and labourers have not been put on certainty before this time ', though we have seen that the Act of 1351 tried to settle wages. In the preamble it is said that the statute was enacted because labourers 'have refused for a long season to work without outrageous and excessive hire ', and owing to the scarcity of labourers ' husbands ' could not pay their rents, a sentence which shows the general use of money rents. The wages were as follows, apparently with food : s. d. A bailiff annually, and clothing once a year . . 13 4 A master hind, without clothing . . . '.''- . . 10 o A carter, ,, ;---V / ifl . v . 10 o A shepherd, ,, v" . . . . 10 o An ox or cow herd ,, .,-.>.. . 68 Swine herd or female labourer, without clothing . 60 A plough driver, without clothing .... 7 o The farm servants' food would be worth considerably more than the actual cash he received ; a quarter of wheat, barley, and rye mixed every nine weeks was no unusual allowance, which at 4$. ^d. would be worth about 25^. a year. He would also have his harvest allowance, though the statute above forbids any perquisites, worth about y., and sometimes it was accompanied by the gift of a pig, some beer, or some 1 Page, ofi. cit. p. 77. 2 Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 402, 534 ; Transactions of the Royal Historical Society ', New Series, xvii. 235. Fitzherbert probably referred more to villein status, which continued longer than villein tenure. 62 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE herrings. 1 His wife also, at a time when women did the same work as the men, could earn id. a day, and his boy perhaps \d. If his wages were wholly paid in money, we may say that in the last half of the fourteenth century the ordinary labourer earned $d. a day, so that as corn and pork, his chief food, had not risen at all, he was much better off than in the preceding 100 years. Cullum, in his invaluable History of Hawsted, gives us a picture of harvesting on the demesne lands in 1389 which shows an extraordinarily busy scene. There were 200 acres of all kinds of corn to be gathered in, and over 300 people took part ; though apparently such a crowd was only collected for the two principal days of the harvest, and it must be remembered that the towns were emptied into the country at this important season. The number of people for one day comprised a carter, ploughman, head reaper, cook, baker, brewer, shepherd, daya (dairymaid); 22 1 hired reapers; 44 pitchers, stackers, and reapers (not hired, evidently villeins paying their rents by work) ; 22 other reapers, hired for goodwill (de amore] ; and 20 customary tenants. This small army of men consumed 22 bushels of wheat, 8 pennyworth of beer, and 41 bushels of malt, worth iSs. g\d. ; meat to the value of 9^. n^d. ; fish and herrings, $s. id. ; cheese, butter, milk, and eggs, 8j. $\d. ; oatmeal, $d. ; salt, $d. ; pepper and saffron, iod., the latter apparently introduced into England in the time of Edward III, and much used for cooking and medicine, but it gradually went out of fashion, and by the end of the eighteenth century was only cultivated in one or two counties, notably Essex where Saffron Walden recalls its use ; candles, 6d. ; and 5 pairs of gloves iod. 2 The presentation of gloves was a common custom in Eng- land ; and these would be presented as a sign of good hus- 1 Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, i. 278, 288. 2 Harrison, Description of Britain, p. 233, says the produce of an acre of saffron was usually worth ,20. BEGINNING OF THE CORN LAWS 63 bandry, as in the case of the rural bridegroom in the account of Queen Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth who wore gloves to show he was a good farmer. Tusser bids the farmer give gloves to his reapers. The custom was still observed at Haw- sted in 1784, and in Eden's time, 1797, the bursars of New College, Oxford, presented each of their tenants with two pairs, which the recipients displayed on the following Sunday at church by conspicuously hanging their hands over the pew to show their neighbours they had paid their rent. In this account of the Hawsted harvest the large number of hired men and the few customary tenants is noteworthy as a sign of the times, for before the Black Death the harvest work on the demesne was the special work of the latter. In the fourteenth century the long series of corn laws was commenced which was to agitate Englishmen for centuries, and after an apparently final settlement in 1846 to reappear in our day. 1 It was the policy of Edward III to make food plentiful and cheap for the whole nation, without special regard to the agricultural interest : and by 34 Edw. Ill, c. 20, the export of corn to any foreign part except Calais and Gascony, then British possessions, or to certain places which the king might permit, was forbidden. Richard II, however, reversed this policy in answer to the complaints of agricul- turists whose rents were falling, 2 and endeavoured to encourage the farmer and especially the corn-grower; for he saw the land- lords turning their attention to sheep instead of corn, owing to the high price of labour. Accordingly, to give the corn- growers a wider market, he allowed his subjects by the statute 17 Ric. II, c. 7, to carry corn, on paying the duties due, to 1 Exportation of corn is mentioned in 1181, when a fine was paid to the king for licence to ship corn from Norfolk and Suffolk to Norway. M c Pherson, Annals of Commerce, i. 345. As early as the reign of Henry 1 1 , Henry of Huntingdon says, German silver came to buy our most precious wool, our milk (no doubt converted into butter and cheese), and our innumerable cattle. Rolls Series, p. 5. In 1400, the Chronicle of London says the country was saved from dearth by the importation of rye from Prussia. 2 Hasbach, op. cit. p. 32. 64 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE what parts they pleased, except to his enemies, subject how- ever to an order of the Council ; and owing to the interference of the Council the law probably became a dead letter, at all events we find it confirmed and amended by 4 Hen. VI, c. 5. The prohibition of export must have been a serious blow to those counties near the sea, for it was much easier to send corn by ship to foreign parts than over the bad roads of Eng- land to some distant market. 1 Indeed, judging by the great and frequent discrepancy of prices in different places at the same date, the dispatch of corn from one inland locality to another was not very frequent. Richard also attempted to stop the movement, which had even then set in, of the country- men to the growing towns, forbidding by 12 Ric. II, c. 5, those who had served in agriculture until 12 years of age to be appren- ticed in the towns, but to ' abide in husbandry '. One of the most unjust customs of the Middle Ages was that which bade the tenants of manors, except those who held the jus faldae, fold their sheep on the land of the lord, thus losing both the manure and the valuable treading. 2 How- ever, sometimes, as in Surrey, the sheepfold was in a fixed place and the manure from it was from time to time taken out and spread on the land. 3 In the same district horses had been hitherto used for farm work, as it was considered worthy of note that oxen were beginning to be added to the horse teams. The milk of two good cows in twenty-four weeks was considered able to make a wey of cheese, and in addition half a gallon of butter a week ; and the milk of 20 ewes was equal to that of 3 cows. On the Manor of Flaunchford, near Reigate, the demesne land amounted to 56 acres of arable and two meadows, but 1 Lord Berkeley, about 1360, had a ship of his own for exporting wool and corn and bringing back foreign wine and wares. Smyth, Lives of the Berkeley s, i. 365. 2 Nasse, Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages, p. 66. 3 Customs in some Surrey manors in the time of Richard II, Archaeo- logia, xviii. 281. SOME SURREY MANORS 65 there must have been the usual pasture in addition to keep the following head of stock : 13 cows, who in the winter were fed from the racks in the yard ; 4 calves, bought at is. each ; 1 2 oxen for ploughing, whose food was oats and hay a very large number for 56 acres of arable, and they were probably used on another manor ; I stott, used for harrowing ; a goat, and a sow. J- d. In 1382 the total receipts of this manor were . . 8 i 9^ The total expenses ...... . 7 5 Profit i I 4 Among the receipts were : For the lord's plough, let to farmers (perhaps this accounts for the large team of oxen kept) . 6 8 14 bushels of apples . . .... 12 5 loads of charcoal . . . . . 16 8 A cow ...... ... 10 o Among the payments : For keeping plough in repair, and the wages of a blacksmith, one year by agreement . 68 Making a new plough from the lord's timber . 6 Mowing 2 acres of meadow . '. . " . . I o Making and carrying hay of ditto, with help of lord's servants . ... ,/..... 4 Threshing wheat, peas, and tares, per quarter . 4 oats, per quarter . . . . V 1>: \\ Winnowing 3 quarters of corn . . .' ' , . ; I Cutting and binding wheat and oats, per acre . 6 On the Manor of Dorking the harvest lasted five weeks as a rule ; the fore feet only of oxen used for ploughing, and of heifers used for harrowing, were shod. For washing and shearing sheep nod. a hundred was the price ; ploughing for winter corn cost 6d. an acre, and harrowing \d. 30^ acres of barley produced 41^ quarters; 28 acres of oats produced 38^ quarters ; 13 cows were let for the season at 5-y. each. In the same reign, at Merstham, the demesne lands of i66| acres were let on lease with all the live and dead stock, which was valued at 22 9^. 3^., and the rent was 36 or about 4.5. \d. an acre, an enormous price even including the stock. CHAPTER VI 1400-1540 THE SO-CALLED 'GOLDEN AGE OF THE LABOURER' IN A PERIOD OF GENERAL DISTRESS IN this period the average prices of grain remained almost unchanged until the last three decades, when they began slowly and steadily to creep up, this advance being helped to some extent by defective harvests. In 1527, according to Holinshed it rained from April 12 to June 3 every day or night ; in May thirty hours without ceasing ; and the floods did much damage to the com. In 1528 incessant deluges of rain prevented the corn being sown in the spring, and grain had to be imported from Germany. The price of wheat was a trifle higher than in the period 1259-1400 ; barley, oats, and beans lower ; rye higher. 1 Oxen and cows were dearer, horses about the same, sheep a little higher, pigs the same, poultry and eggs dearer, wool the same, cheese and butter dearer. The price of wheat was sometimes subject to astonishing fluctuations : in 1439 it varied from 8s. to 2,6s. &/.; in 1440 from 4s. id. to 25^. The rent of land continued the same, arable averaging 6d. an acre, 2 though this was partly due to the fact that rents, although now generally paid in money, were still fixed and customary ; for the purchase value of land had now risen to twenty years instead of twelve. 3 The art of farming hardly made any progress, and the produce of the land was con- 1 See table at end of volume. The shrinkage of prices which occurred r in the fifteenth century was due to the scarcity of precious metals. 2 Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, iv. 128. The rent of arable land on Lord Derby's estate in Wirral in 1522 was a little under 6d. a statute acre; of meadow, about is. 6d. Cheshire Sheaf (Ser. 3), iv. 23. 3 Thorold Rogers, op. cit. iv. 3. GOLDEN AGE OF THE LABOURER 67 sequently about the same or a little better than in the preceding period. 1 At the end of the fourteenth century the ordinary wheat crop at Hawsted was in favourable years about a quarter to the acre, but it was often not more than 6 bushels ; and this was on demesne land, usually better tilled than non-demesne land. 2 As for the labourer, it is well known that Thorold Rogers calls the fifteenth century his golden age, and seeing that his days' wages, if he 'found himself, were now <\d. and prices were hardly any higher all round than when he earned half the money in the thirteenth century, there is much to support his view. As to whether he was better off than the modern labourer it is some- what difficult to determine ; as far as wages went he certainly was, for his ^d. a day was equal to about 4^. now ; it is true that on the innumerable holidays of the Church he sometimes did not work, 3 but no doubt he then busied himself on his bit of common. But so many factors enter into the question of the general material comfort of the labourer in different ages that it is almost impossible to come to a satisfactory conclusion. Denton paints a very gloomy picture of him at this time ; * so does Mr. Jessop, who says, the agricultural labourers of the fifteenth century were, compared with those of to-day, ' more wretched in their poverty, incomparably less prosperous in their prosperity ; worse clad, worse fed, worse housed, worse taught, worse governed ; they were sufferers from loathsome diseases, of which their descendants know nothing ; the very beasts of the field were dwarfed and stunted ; the disregard of 1 Thorold Rogers, op. cit, iv. 39. 2 Cullum, Hawsted, p. 187. The amount of seed for the various crops was, wheat 2 bushels per acre, barley 4, oats 2\. 3 By 4 Hen. IV, c. 14, labourers were to receive no hire for holy days, or on the eves of feasts for more than half a day ; but the statute was largely disregarded. 4 See England in the Fifteenth Century, p. 105 : 'The undrained neglected soil, the shallow stagnant waters which lay on the surface of the ground, the unhealthy homes of all classes, insufficient and unwhole- some food, the abundance of stale fish eaten, and the scanty supply of vegetables predisposed rural and town population to disease.' F 2, 68 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE human life was so callous that we can hardly conceive it ; there was everything to harden, nothing to soften ; everywhere oppression, greed, and fierceness.' l The truth seems to be that the fifteenth century was a period of general distress ; the pro- gress of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was checked by the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War, and it is no wonder that the fifteenth, aggravated by the Wars of the Roses, was a period of ruin and decay in town and country. Many parishes were exempted from the payment of taxes, because ' there are no sheep or lambs at present ', or because the lands were untilled, or murrain had destroyed the stock, or the lands were waste. 2 Pestilence was as frequent as in the preceding century ; in 1477 the plague swept off in four months three times as many people as had perished during the Wars of the Roses, and as the bulk of the working classes were agricultural labourers it is no wonder that wages went up. We have a con- vincing proof of the devastation wrought by the wars and plagues of the time in the words of a statute of I42I, 3 which says that at the making of an Act of 1340 there were sufficient of proper men in each county to execute every office, ' but that owing to pestilence and wars there are not now a sufficiency of responsible persons to act as sheriffs, coroners, and escheators.' It is a fact not sufficiently admitted that the depopulation of/ the countryside at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries was largely due to war and pestilence, rather than enclosure. The roads, too, bad as they were, grew worse with the decrease in the villein class, who had repaired them under the supervision of the manorial courts ; while the impoverish- ment of the monasteries, very marked some time before their dissolution, prevented them from giving their accustomed care and attention to them. The records of the time are full of riots, which show that the labourer was not contented with his lot in 1 Nineteenth Century, February, 1884. 2 Denton, op. cit. 21 Sussex Archaeological Collections, \. 63. 3 9 Hen. V, c. 5. A PERIOD OF GENERAL DISTRESS 69 spite of his high wages ; though we must not attach too much importance to disorder in the Middle Ages, for it prevailed to an almost incredible extent among all classes, the gentry laying wait for those against whom they had a grudge with large gangs of ruffian retainers, who fell with savage cowardice on their victims. On the bright side of the picture must be put the development of the cloth trade, which helped those who kept sheep, though until 1540 there was apparently no increase in the price of wool. 1 A large quantity of the wool now grown in England was manu- factured into cloth at home instead of being exported, with the, result that the customs in wool at Calais had decreased from 68,000 in the time of Edward III to 12,000 in 1448.2 It was fortunate for the fifteenth century that the seasons as a rule were very good, the years 1431-7 and 1439-45 being very abundant, and 1454-5 particularly so ; wheat in that year aver- aging 3^. 10^., the lowest price of the century ; barley, 2s. g\d. ; oats, is. 8%d. ; peas, 2,s. $\d? In 1463 it was nearly as cheap, and remained at a low figure till the end of the century. There were some exceptions to the bountiful crops : in 1438 it rained long and heavily in the summer, and the sun rarely showed itself, so that the scarcity was universal, and the Lord Mayor of London sent to Prussia and brought to London certain ships laden with rye, which eased and did much good to the people, for corn was so scarce in some places that the poor made bread of fern roots. Corn also came that year from Denmark. 4 Important alterations were made in the corn laws. The statute 15 Hen. VI, c. 2 says that by former laws no one could export grain without the king's licence, so that farmers, * and other men which use manurement of their land,' 5 were obliged 1 Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, i. 366, iv. 328. 2 Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 434. 3 Thorold Rogers, op. cit. iv. 284. * M c Pherson, Annals of Commerce, i. 655. ' Manuring' is here used in the sense of managing or farming. 5 I 70 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE to sell their corn at low prices to the detriment of the whole kingdom : a typical example of the political economy of the time, which considered the prosperity of agriculture indispen- sable to the welfare of the country, even if the consumer suffered. Accordingly, it was enacted that wheat could be exported without a licence when it was under 6s. %d. a quarter, except to the king's enemies. On imports of corn there had been no restriction until 1463, when 3 Edw. IV, c. 2 forbade the import of corn when under 6s. 8d : a statute due partly to the fear that the increase of pasture was a danger to tillage land and the national food supply, and partly to the fact that the landed interest had become by now fully awake to the importance of protecting themselves by promoting the gains oC the farmer. 1 It may be doubted, however, if much wheat was imported except in emergencies at this time, for many countries forbade export. These two statutes were practically unaltered till 1 57 1, 2 and by that of 1463 was initiated the policy which heloTtfie field for nearly 400 years. Thorold Rogers denounces the landlords for legislating with the object of keeping up rents, but, as Mr. Cunningham has pointed out, this ignores the fact that the land was the great fund of national wealth from which taxation was paid ; if rents therefore rose it was a gain to the whole country, since the fund from which the revenue was drawn was increased. 3 In spite of the high wages of agricultural labourers, thei movement towards the towns noticed by Richard II continued. The statute 7 Hen. IV, c. 1 7, asserts that there is a great scarcity of labourers in husbandry and that gentlemen are much impoverished by the rate of wages ; the cause of the scarcity lying in the fact that many people were becoming weavers, 4 and 1 Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 448. 2 M c Culloch, Commercial Dictionary (l 852), p. 412. In 1449 Parliament had decided that all foreign merchants importing corn should spend the money so obtained on English goods to prevent it leaving the country. M Pherson, Annals of Commerce, i. 655. 3 Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, \. 191. 4 Much of the weaving, however, was done in rural districts. A PERIOD OF GENERAL DISTRESS 71 it therefore re-enacted \i Ric. II, c. 5, which ordained that no one who had been a servant in husbandry until 12 years old should be bound apprentice, and further enacted that no person with less than 2os. a year in land should be able to apprentice his son. Like many other statutes of the time this seems to have been inoperative, for we find 23 Hen. VI, c. 12 (1444), enacting that if a servant in husbandry purposed leaving his master he was to give him warning, and was obliged either to engage with a new one or continue with the old. It also regulated the wages anew, those fixed showing a substan- tial increase since the statute of 1388. By the year : A bailiff was to have i 3-r. 4^., and 5-r. worth of clothes. A chief hind, carter, or shepherd, ,1, and 4-r. worth of clothes. A common servant in husbandry, \$s. t and 3-y. A,d. worth of clothes. A woman servant, ios., and 45. worth of clothes. All with meat and drink. By the day, in harvest, wages were to be : A mower, with meat and drink, 4^. ; without, &/. A reaper or carter, with meat and drink, 3^. ; without, $d. A woman or labourer, with meat and drink, id. ; without, 4//. In the next reign the labourer's dress was again regulated for him, and he was forbidden to wear any cloth exceeding 2s. a yard in price, nor any ' close hosen ', apparently tight long stockings, nor any hosen at all which cost more than \$d. l Yeomen and those below them were forbidden to wear any bolsters or stuff of wool, cotton wadding, or other stuff in their doublets, but only lining ; and somewhat gratuitously it was ordered that no one under the degree of a gentleman should wear pikes to his shoes. In 1455 England's Thirty Years' War, the War of the Roses, began, and agriculture received another set back. The view that the war was a mere faction fight between nobles and their retainers, while the rest of the country went about their 1 See 3 Edw. IV, c. 5 ; Rot. Par/, v. 105 ; 22 Edw. IV, c. i. 72 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE business, is somewhat exaggerated. No doubt, the mass of Englishmen, as in the civil war of the seventeenth century, preferred to ' sit still ', as Clarendon said, but the business of many must have been very much upset. The various armies were compelled to obtain their supplies from the country, and with the lawless habits of the times plundered friend and foe alike, as Cavalier and Roundhead did afterwards ; and many a farmer must have seen all his stock driven off and his grain seized to feed the combatants. For instance, it was said before the battle called Easter Day Field that all the tenants of Abbot's Ripton in Huntingdonshire were copy- holders of the Abbot of Ramsey, and the northern army lay there so long that they impoverished the country and the tenants had to give up their copyholds through poverty. 1 The loss of life, too, must have told heavily on a country already suffering from frequent pestilence. It is calculated that about one-tenth of the whole population of the country were killed in battle or died of wounds and disease during the war ; and as these must have been nearly all men in the prime of life, it is difficult to understand how the effect on the labour market was not more marked. The enclosing of land for pasture farms, which we shall next have to consider, was pro- bably in many cases an absolute necessity, for the number of men left to till the soil must have been seriously diminished. 1 Cunningham, op. cit. i. 456. CHAPTER VII ENCLOSURE WE have now reached a time when the enclosure question was becoming of paramount importance, 1 and began to cause constant anxiety to legislators, while the writers of the day are full of it. Enclosure was of four kinds : 1. Enclosing the common arable fields for grazing, generally in large tracts. 2. Enclosing the same by dividing them into smaller fields, generally of arable. 3. Enclosing the common pasture, for grazing or tillage. 4. Enclosing the common meadows or mowing grounds. It is the first mainly, and to a less degree the third of these, which were so frequent a source of complaint in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; for the first, besides displacing the small holder, threw out of employment a large number of'j people who had hitherto gained their livelihood by the various work connected with tillage, and the third deprived a large number of their common rights. The first Enclosure Act was the Statute of Merton, passed in 1235, 20 Henry III, c. 4, which permitted lords of manors to add to their demesnes such parts of the waste pasture and woods as were beyond the needs of the tenants. There is evidence, however, that enclosure, probably of waste land, was going on before this statute, as the charter of John, by which all Devonshire except Dartmoor and Exmoor was deforested, expressly forbids the making of hedges, a proof of enclosure, in those two forests. 2 We may be sure that the 1 Much the same tendencies were at work in other countries, especially in Germany. * Slater, English Peasantry and Enclosure, 248. 74 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE needs of the tenants were by an arbitrary lord estimated at a very low figure. At the same time many proceeded in due legal form. Thomas, Lord Berkeley, about the period of the Act reduced great quantities of ground into en- closures by procuring many releases of common land from freeholders. 1 His successor, Lord Maurice, was not so observant of legality. He had a wood wherein many of his tenants and freeholders had right of pasture. He wished to make this into a park, and treated with them for that purpose ; but things not going smoothly, he made the wood into a park without their leave, and then treated with his tenants, most of whom perforce fell in with his highhanded plan ; those who did not 'fell after upon his sonne with suits, to their small comfort and less gaines.' 2 Sometimes the rich made the law aid their covetousness, as did Roger Mortimer the paramour of the ' She Wolf of France '. Some men had common of pasture in King's Norton Wood, Worcestershire, who, when Mortimer enclosed part of their common land with a dike, filled the dike up, for they were deprived of their inheritance. Thereupon Mortimer brought an action of trespass against them ' by means of jurors dwelling far from the said land ', who were put on the panel by his steward, who was also sheriff of the county, and the commoners were convicted and cast in damages of 300, not daring to appear at the time for fear of assault, or even death. 3 Neither dared they say a word about the matter till Mortimer was dead, when it is satisfactory to learn that Edward III gave them all their money back save 20 marks. We are told that Lord Maurice Berkeley consolidated much of his demesne lands, throwing together the scattered strips and exchanging those that lay far apart from the manor houses for those that lay near; trying evidently to get the home farms into a ring fence as we should term it. 4 In this policy he 1 Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, i. 113. 2 Ibid. i. 141. 8 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1331, p. 127. 4 Lives of the Berkeleys> i. 141. ENCLOSURE 75 was followed by his successor Thomas the Second, who during his ownership of the estate from 1281 to 1320, to the great profit of his tenants and himself, encouraged them to make exchanges, so as to make their lands lie in convenient parcels instead of scattered strips, by which he raised the rent of an acre from ^d. and 6d, to is. 6d. 1 There is a deed of enclosure made in the year 1250, preserved, by which the free men of North Dichton 'appropriated and divided between them and so kept for ever in fee all that place called Sywyneland, with the moor,' and they were to have licence to appropriate that place, which was common pasture (the boundaries of which are given), ' save, however, to the grantor William de Ros and his heirs ' common of pasture in a portion thereof named by bounds, with entry and exit for beasts after the wheat is carried. The men of North Dichton were also to have all the wood called Rouhowthwicke, and to do what they liked with it. 2 In return they gave the lord TO marks of silver and a concession as regards a certain wood. It has been noticed that the Black Death, besides causing many of the landlords to let their demesnes, also made them turn much tillage into grass to save labour, which had grown so dear. We have also seen that the statutes regulating wages were of little effect, and they went on rising, so that more land was laid down to grass. The landowners may be said to have given up ordinary farm- ing and turned to sheep raising. English wool could always find a ready sale, although Spanish sheep farming had developed greatly ; and the profit- able trade of growing wool attracted the new capitalist class who had sprung up, so that they often invested their recently made fortunes in it, buying up many of the great estates that were scattered during the war. 3 The increase of sheep farming was assisted by the fact that 1 Lives of the Berkeley f s, i. 1 60. 2 Historical MSS. Commission, 6th Report, p. 359. 3 Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 379. 76 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE the domestic system of the manufacture of wool, which sup- planted the guild system, led, owing to its rapid and successful growth, to a constant and increasing demand for wool. At the same time this development of the cloth industry helped to alleviate the evils it had itself caused by giving employment to many whom the agricultural changes wholly or partially deprived of work. ' It is important to remember, that where peasant proprietorship and small farming did maintain their ground it was largely due to the domestic industries which supplemented the profits of agriculture.' * Much of the land laid down to grass was demesne land, but many of the common arable fields were enclosed and laid down. John Ross of Warwick about 1460 compares the country as he knew it with the picture presented by the Hundred Rolls in Edward I's time, showing how many villages had been depopu- lated ; and he mentions the inconvenience to travellers in having to get down frequently to open the gates of enclosed fields. 2 Enclosure was really a sure sign of agricultural progress ; nearly all the agricultural writers from Fitzherbert onwards are agreed that enclosed land produced much more than unin- closed. Fitzherbert, in the fi rst quarter of the sixteenth century, said an acre of land rented for 6d. uninclosed was worth 8^. when enclosed. Gabriel Plattes, in the seventeenth century, said an acre enclosed was worth four in common. In fact, the history of enclosures is part of the history of the great revolu- tion in agriculture by which the manorial system was converted into the modern system as we know it to-day of several owner- ship and the triumvirate of landlord, tenant farmer, and labourer. No one could have objected to the enclosure of waste ; it was that of the common arable fields and of the common pasture that excited the indignation of contemporaries. They saw many of the small holders displaced and the country-side 1 Ashley, English Woollen Industry, pp. 80-1. Broadly speaking, there are four stages in the development of industry the family system, the guild system, the domestic system, and the factory system. 2 Hist. Reg. Angl. p. 120. ENCLOSURE 77 depopulated ; many of the labourers were also thrown out of employment, for there was no need in enclosed fields of the swineherd and shepherd and oxherd who had tended the common flocks of the villagers in the old unfenced fields. But much of the opposition was founded on ignorance and^ hatred of change ; England had been for ages mainly a corn- growing land, and, many thought, ought to remain so. As a matter of fact, what much of the arable land wanted was] laying down to grass ; it was worn out and needed a rest. The l common field system was wasteful ; the land, for instance, could never be properly ploughed, for the long narrow strips could not be cross-ploughed, and much of it must have suffered griev- ously from want of manure at a time when hardly any stock was kept in the winter to make manure. The beneficial effect of the rest is shown by the fact that at the end of the sixteenth century, when some of the land came to be broken up, the produce per acre of wheat had gone up largely. 1 Marling and liming the land, too, which had been the salvation of much of it for centuries, had gone out partly because of insecurity of tenure, partly because in the unsettled state of England men knew not if they could reap any benefit therefrom ; and partly because, says Fitzherbert, men were lazier than their fathers. There can be no doubt that enclosures were often accompanied \ with great hardships and injustice. Dugdale, speaking of Stretton in Warwickshire. 2 says that in Henry VII's time Thomas Twyford, having begun the depopulation thereof, de- caying four messuages and three cottages whereunto 1 60 acres of ' errable ' land belonged, sold it to Henry Smith ; which Henry, following that example, enclosed 640 acres of land more, whereby twelve messuages and four cottages fell to ruins and eighty persons there inhabiting, being employed about tillage and husbandry, were constrained to depart thence and live miserably. By means whereof the church grew to 1 Gisborne, Agricultural Essays, pp. 1 86-9. 2 Antiquities of Warwickshire, 2nd ed., p. 51. 78 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE such ruin that it was of no other use than for the shelter of cattle. A sad picture, and true of many districts, but much of the depopulation ascribed to enclosures was due to the devastation of the Civil Wars. In spite of these enclosures, which began to change the England of open fields into the country we know of hedgerows and winding roads, great part of the land was in a wild and uncultivated state of fen, heath, and wood, the latter sometimes growing right up to the walls of the towns. 1 An unbroken series of woods and fens stretched right across England from Lincoln to the Mersey, and northwards from the Mersey to the Solway and the Tweed ; Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, and Leicestershire were largely covered by forests, and Sherwood Forest extended over nearly the whole of Notts. Cannock Chase was covered with oaks, and in the forest of Needwood in Camden's time the neighbouring gentry eagerly pursued the cheerful sport of hunting. The great forest of Andredesweald, though much diminished, still covered a large part of Sussex, and the Chiltern district in Bucks and Oxfordshire was thick with woods which hid many a robber. The great fen in the east covered 300,000 acres of land in six counties, in spite of various efforts to reclaim the land, and was to remain in a state of marsh and shallow water till the seven- teenth century. North and west of the great fen was Hatfield Chase, 180,000 acres mostly swamp and bog, with here and there a strip of cultivated land, much of which had been tilled and neglected ; a great part' too of Yorkshire was swamp, heath, and forest, and of Lancashire marshes and mosses, some of which were not drained till recent times. The best corn-growing counties were those lying immediately to the north of London, stretch- ing from Suffolk to Gloucestershire, and including the southern portions of Staffordshire and Leicestershire ; Essex was a 1 Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century, p. 135. ENCLOSURE 79 great cheese county ; Hants, Cambridgeshire, Northampton- shire, and Bedfordshire were famous for malt, and Leicestershire for peas and beans. The population of England in 1485 was probably from two to two and a half millions. At the time of Domesday it was under two millions, and from that date increased perhaps to nearly four millions at the time of the Black Death in 1348-9, which swept away from one-third to one-half of the people, and repeated wars and pestilences seem to have kept it from increasing until Tudor times. Of the whole population no fewer than eleven-twelfths were employed in agriculture. 1 It was sought to remedy enclosure and depopulation by legis- lation, and the statute of 4 Hen. VII, c. 19, was passed, which stated in its preamble that where in some towns (meaning townships or villages) 200 persons used to be occupied and lived by their lawful labours, now there are occupied only two or three herdsmen, so that the residue fall into idleness, and husbandry is greatly decayed, churches destroyed, the bodies there buried not prayed for, the parsons and curates wronged, and the defence of this land enfeebled and impaired ; the latter point being wisely deemed one of the most serious defects in the new system of farming. Indeed, the encouragement of tillage was largely prompted by the desire to see the people fed on good home-grown corn and made strong and healthy by rural labour for the defence of England. It therefore enacted that houses which within three years before had been let for farms with 20 acres of tillage land should be kept in that condition, under a penalty of forfeiting half the profits to the king or the lord of the fee. Soon after Henry VIII ascended the throne came another statute, 6 Hen. VIII, c. 5, that all townships, villages, &c., decayed and turned from hus- bandry and tillage into pasture, shall by the owner be rebuilt and the land made mete for tillage within one year ; and this 1 See Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 331 ; Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century, p. 127. 8o HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE was repeated and made perpetual by a law of the next year. 1 But legislation was in vain ; the price of wool was now beginning to advance so that the attraction of sheep farming was irresistible, and laws, which asked landowners and farmers to turn from what was profitable to what was not, were little likely to be observed, especially as the administration of these laws was in the hands of those whose interest it was that they should not be observed. Their ill success, however, did not deter the Parliament from fresh efforts. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 13, sets forth the condition of affairs in its preamble : as many persons have accumulated into few, great multitude of farms and great plenty of cattle, especially sheep, putting such land as they can get into pasture, and enhanced the old rents and raised the prices of corn, cattle, wool, and poultry almost double, ' by reason whereof a mer- vaylous multitude and nombre of the people of this realme be not able to provide drynke and clothes necessary for themselves, but be so discoraged with myserie and povertie that they fall dayly to thefte and robberye or pitifully dye for hunger and colde.' So greedy and covetous were some of these accumu- lators that they had as many as 24,000 sheep; and a good sheep, that was used to be sold for zs. 4d. or 3^. at the most, was now from 4s. to 6s. ; and a stone of clothing wool, that in some shires was accustomed to be sold for i& or zod:, is now $s.4d. to 45-,; and in others, where it was zs. ^d. to y. it is now 4s. 8d. to 5-f. It was therefore enacted that no man, with some exceptions, was to keep more than 2,000 sheep at one time in any part of the realm, though lambs under one year were not to count. The frequency of these laws proves their inefficacy, and the con- duct of Henry VIII was the chief cause of it ; for while Parlia- ment was complaining of the decrease of tillage he gave huge tracts of land taken from the monasteries to greedy courtiers, 1 7 Hen. VIII, c. i. ENCLOSURE 81 who evicted the tenants and lived on the profits of sheep farm- ing. 1 For the dissolution of the monasteries was now taking place, 2 and the best landowners in England, some of whom farmed their own land long after most of the lay landlords had given it up or turned it into grass, and whose lands are said to have fetched a higher rent than any others, were robbed and ruined. Including the dissolution of the monasteries and the confiscation of the chantry lands in 1549 by Edward VI, about one-fifteenth of the land of England changed hands at this time. The transfer of the abbey lands to Henry's favourites was very prejudicial to farming ; it was a source of serious disloca- tion of agricultural industry, marked by all the inconvenience, injustice, and loss that attends a violent transfer of property. It is probable also that many of the monastic lands were let on stock and land leases ; and the stock was confiscated, with inevitable ruin to the tenant as well as the landlord. 3 And not only was a serious injury wrought to agriculture by the spoliation of a large number of landlords generally noted for their generosity and good farming, but with the religious houses disappeared a large number of consumers of country produce, the amount of which may be gathered from the following list of stores of the great Abbey of Fountains at the dissolution: 2,356 horned cattle, 1,326 sheep, 86 horses, 79 swine, and large quantities of wheat, oats, rye, and malt, with 392 loads of hay. 4 It must indeed have seemed to many as if the poor farmer was never to have any rest ; no sooner were the long wars over and pestilences in some sense dimin- ished, than the evils of enclosure and the dissolution of the monasteries came upon him. Many ills were popularly ascribed to the fall of the monasteries ; in an old ballad in Percy's Reliques one of the characters says, in western dialect : | Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 489. a Dissolution of small monasteries, 1536; of greater, 1539-40. 8 Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, iv. 129. 4 Dugdale, Monasticon, v. 291. 8a HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE ' Chill tell the what, good vellowe, Before the friers went hence, A bushel of the best wheate Was zold vor vorteen pence, And vorty eggs a penny That were both good and newe.' NOTE. If any further proof were needed of the constant attention given by Parliament to agricultural matters, it would be furnished by the Acts for the destruction of vermin. 1 Our forefathers had no doubt that rooks did more harm than good, yearly destroying a ' wonderfull and marvelous greate quantitie of corne and graine ' ; and destroying the 1 covertures of thatched housery, bernes, rekes, stakkes, and other such like' ; so that all persons were to do their best to kill them, ' on pain of a grevous amerciament '. 1 24 Hen. VIII, c. lo; 8 Eliz. c. 15 ; 14 Eliz. c. II ; 39 Eliz. c. 18. CHAPTER VIII FITZHERBERT. THE REGULATION OF HOURS AND WAGES THE farming of this period is portrayed for us by Fitz- herbert, the first agricultural writer of any merit since Walter of Henley in the thirteenth century. He was one of the Justices of Common Pleas, and had been a farmer for forty years before he wrote his books on husbandry, and on survey- ing in 1523, so that he knew what he was writing about ; ' there is nothing touching husbandry contained in this book but I have had experience thereof and proved the same.' In spite of the increase of grazing in his time he says the ' plough is the most necessarie instrument that an husbandman can occupy ', and describes those used in various counties ; in Kent, for instance, ' they have some go with wheeles as they do in many other places ' ; but the plough of his time is apparently the same as that of Walter of Henley, and altered little till the seventeenth century. The rudeness of it may be judged from the fact that in some places it only cost iod. or is. though in other parts they were as much as 6s. or even 8^. He says 1 it was too costly for a farmer to buy all his implements, where- fore it is necessary for him to learn to make them, as he had done in the Middle Ages before the era of ready-made imple- ments, when he always bought the materials and put them together at home. On the vexed question of whether to use horses or oxen for ploughing, he says it depends on the locality ; for instance, oxen will plough in tough clay and upon hilly ground, whereas horses will stand still ; but horses go 1 Booke of Husbandry (ed. 1568), fol. 5. The surveyor of Fitzherbert's day combined some of the duties of the modern bailiff and land agent : he bought and sold for his employer, valued his property, and supervised the rents. 84 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE faster than oxen on even ground and light ground, and are ' quicke for carnages, but they be far more costly to keep in winter.' According to him, oxen had no shoes as horses had. 1 Here is his description of a harrow : it is ' made of six final peeces of timber called harow bulles, made either of ashe or oke ; they be two yardes long, and as much as the small of a man's leg ; in every bulle are five sharpe peeces of iron called harow tyndes, set somewhat a slope forward.' This harrow, drawn by oxen, was good to break the big clods, and then the horse harrow came after to break the smaller clods. It differed slightly from the former, some having wooden tines. For weeding corn the chief instrument ' is a pair of tongs made of wood, and in dry weather ye must have a weeding hoke with a socket set upon a staffe a yard long.' 2 He recommends that grass be mown early, for the younger and greener the grass is the softer and sweeter it will be when it is hay, and the seeds will be in it instead of fallen out as when left late ; advice which many slovenly farmers need to-day. He does not approve of the custom of reaping rye and wheat high up and mowing them after, but advises that they be cut clean ; barley and oats, however, should be commonly mown. Both wheat and rye were to be sown at Michaelmas, and were cast upon the fallow and ploughed under, two London bushels of wheat and rye being the neces- sary amount of seed per acre. In spite of his praise of the plough he allows that the sheep ' is the most profitablest cattel that a man can have ', and he gives a list of their diseases, among the things that rot them being a grass called sperewort, another called peny grass, while marshy ground, mildewed grass, and grass growing upon fallow and therefore full of weeds were all conducive to rot. The chief cause, how- ever, is mildew, the sign of whose presence is the honeydew on the oak leaves. In buying cattle to feed the purchaser is 1 Booke of Husbandry (ed. 1568), fol. vi. a Ibid. fol. xv. FITZHERBERT 85 to see that the hair stare not, and that the beast lacks no teeth, has a broad rib, a thick hide, and be loose skinned, for if it stick hard to his ribs he will not feed l ; it should be handled to see if it be soft on the forecrop, behind the shoulder, on the hindermost rib upon the huck bone, and at the nache by the tail. Among other diseases of cattle he mentions the gout, ' com- monly in the hinder feet ' ; but he never knew a man who could find a remedy. He was a great advocate of enclosures ; for it was much better to have several closes and pastures to put his cattle in, which should be well quick-setted, ditched, and hedged, so as to divide those of different ages, as this was more profitable than to have his cattle go before the herds- man (in the common field). It will be seen from the above that Fitzherbert made no idle boast in saying he wrote of what he knew, and much of his advice is applicable to-day, though the time is past for the farmer's wife to ' wynowe all manner of cornes, to make malte, to shere corne, and in time of nede to helpe her husbande to fyll the mucke wayne or dounge carte, dryve the plough, lode heye, corne, and such other' ; though she may go or ride to the market ' to sel butter, cheese, milke, eggs, chekyns, hennes, and geese.' 2 It appears that the horses of England at this time had consider- ably deteriorated, for the statute 27 Hen. VIII, c. 6, mentions the great decay of the breed, the cause it is stated being that 1 in most places of this Realme little horsis and naggis of small stature and valeu be suffered to depasture and also to covour marys and felys of very small stature ' ; therefore owners and farmers of deer parks shall keep in every such park two brood mares of 13 'hand fulles' (hands) at least. Another statute, 32 Hen. VIII, c. 13, strove to remedy this evil by enacting that no entire horse under 15 hands was to feed on any forest, chase, waste, or common land. 1 Booke oj Husbandry (ed. 1568), fol. xxix. 2 Fitzherbert adds pigs and all manner of cornes, so altogether the farmer's wife seems to have done as much as the farmer. 86 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE This statute was a useful one, so also was 21 Hen. VIII, c. 8, which forbade for three years the killing of calves between January i and May i, under a penalty of 6s. %d., because so many had been killed by ' covetous persons ' that the cattle of the country were dwindling in number. Others, however, were merely meddlesome, and directed against that unpopular man the dealer. For instance, owners refusing to sell cattle at assessed prices were to answer first in the Star Chamber (25 Hen. VIII, c. i) ; and by 3 and 4 Edw. VI, c. 19, no cattle were to be bought but in open fair or market, and not to be resold then alive, though a man might buy cattle anywhere for his own use. No person, again, was to resell cattle within five weeks after he bought them (5 Edw. VI, c. 14); and a com- mon drover had by the same Act to have a licence from three justices before he could buy and sell cattle. We may be sure that these laws were more honoured in the breach than in the observance, as they deserved to be. Hops were said to have been introduced from the Low Countries about the middle of Henry VIIFs reign; but there can be no doubt that this is a mistake. It has been mentioned that they flourished in the gardens of Edward I, and a dis- tinguished authority l says the hop may with probability be reckoned a native of Britain ; but it was first used as a salad or vegetable for the table, the young sprouts having the flavour of asparagus and coming earlier. Hasted, the historian of Kent, states 2 that a petition was presented to Parliament against the hop plant in 1428 wherein it was called a 'wicked weed '. Harrison says, ' Hops in time past were plentiful in this land, afterwards their maintenance did cease, and now (cir. 1580) being revived where are anie better to be found ? ' 3 Even then growers had to face foreign competition, as the customs accounts prove that considerable quantities were 1 Sir Jas. E. Smith, English Flora, iv. 241. 2 History of Kent (ed. 1778), i. 123. 3 Description of Britain (Furnivall ed.), p. 325. REGULATION OF HOURS AND WAGES 87 imported into England. In 1482 a cwt. was sold for 8s. and i cwt. 21 Ib. for 19-5-. 6d., an early example of that fluctuation in price which has long characterized them. 1 Their average price about this time seems to have been 143. Q\d. a cwt. During the Tudor period the number of day labourers increased, largely owing to the enclosures having deprived the small holder and commoner of their land and rights. But judging by the statutes those paid yearly and boarded in the farm house were still most numerous. In 1495 the hours of labourers were first regulated by law. \ The statute n Hen. VII, c. 22, says that 23 Hen. VI, c. i2, 2 was insufficiently observed ; and besides increasing wages slightly set forth the following hours for work on the farm : the labourer was to be at his work from the middle of March to the middle of September before 5 a.m., and have half an hour for breakfast and an hour and a half for dinner and sleep, when sleep was allowed, that is from the middle of May to the middle of August ; when sleep was not allowed, an hour for dinner and half an hour for his nonemete or lunch ; and he was to work till between 7 and 8 p.m. During the rest of the year he was to work from daylight to dark. The attempt to regulate hours, which seem fair and reasonable, no doubt met with better success than that to regulate wages, for 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3 (1514), says the previous statutes had been very much disregarded, and sets down the rates once more : A bailiff's yearly wages, with diet, were to be not more than i 6s. 8 every re- ceiver to be imprisoned twenty- one days. The importance still attached to the harvest season is shown by the section that all artificers and others were compellable to work in harvest or be put in the stocks two days and a night. For the better advancement of husbandry and tillage every householder farming 60 acres of tillage or more might receive an appren- tice in husbandry, but no tradesman or merchant might take an apprentice save his own son, unless his parents had free- hold of the annual value of 4os. ; and no person was to use * any art mistery or manual occupation now in use ' unless he had served seven years' apprenticeship to it. There can be no doubt that the clauses last quoted confined a large portion of the population to agricultural work, but as we know that the people were deserting the country and flocking to the towns, this must have seemed to the framers of the law very desirable. This method of fixing wages was in force until 1814, and its repeal then was entirely contrary to the opinion of the artizan class; but it may be doubted if the magistrates extensively THE ASSESSMENT OF WAGES 109 used the powers given them by the Act, and wages seem to"\ have been settled generally by competition. Several instances ' remain, however, of wages drawn up under this Act. Almost immediately after it was passed, in June 1564, the Rutland magistrates met under the Act, and stated that the prices of linen, woollen, leather, corn, and other victuals were great, so they drew up the following list of wages *: A bailiff in husbandry, having charge of two plough lands, at least should have by the year 40^., and 8s. for his livery. A chief servant in husbandry, which can eire (plough), sow, mow, thresh, make a rick, thatch and hedge, and can kill and dress a hog, sheep, and calf, by the year 40*., and 6s. for his livery. A common servant in husbandry, which can mow, sow, thresh, and load a cart, and cannot expertly make a rick, hedge, and thatch, and cannot kill and dress a hog, sheep, or calf, by the year 33^. $d., and 5-r. for his livery. A mean servant in husbandry, which can drive the plough, pitch the cart, and thresh, and cannot expertly sow, mow, thresh, and load a cart, nor make a rick, nor thatch, by the year 24^., and $s. for his livery. The chief shepherd is only to receive 20.$-. and $s. for his livery ; but this must be an error, as in the statutes 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3, and 23 Hen. VI, c. 12, he was placed next the bailiff as we should expect. These wages were evidently ' with diet ', and show a con- siderable advance on those fixed by 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3- 2 By the day the ordinary labourer was to have 6d. in winter, yd. in summer, and Sd. to lod. in harvest time, 'finding himself.' A mower with meat earned 5 7 zs. 6d. Beans .4 zs. 6d. Vetches . i zs. od. The same statistician drew up a scheme of the income and 1 Houghton, about the same time, said England contained 28 to 29 million acres, of which 12 millions lay waste (Collections, iv. n). In 1907 the Board of Agriculture returned the total area of England and Wales, excluding water, at 37,130,344 acres. 156 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE expenditure of the 'several families' in England in 1688, the population being 5^ millions l : No, of families Class. Income, in class. 160 Temporal lords . . . ,3,200 o o 800 Baronets .... 880 o o 600 Knights .... 650 o o 3,000 Esquires .... 450 o o 11,000 Gentlemen .... 280 o o 2,000 Eminent merchants . . 400 o o 8,000 Lesser merchants . . 198 o o 10,000 Lawyers . . . . 154 o o 2,000 Eminent clergy . . . 72 o o 8,000 Lesser clergy . . . 50 o o f 40,000 Freeholders of the better sort 91 o o Yeomen \ r-i.ijr.i-i I 120,000 Freeholders of the lesser sort 55 o o 120,000 (Tenant) farmers . . 42 10 o 50,000 Shopkeepers and tradesmen 45 o o 60,000 Artisans . . . . 38 o o 364,000 Labouring people and out- servants . . . . 15 o o 400,000 Cottagers and paupers . 6 10 o He calculated that the freeholder of the better sort saved on an average 8 15^. vd. a year per family of 7 ; and the lesser sort 2 i$s. od. a year with a family of 5^. The tenant farmer with a family of 5, only saved 2^s. a year, while labouring families who, he said, averaged 3^ (certainly an under estimate), lost annually 7^., and cottagers and paupers with families of 3^ (also an under estimate) lost \6s. $d. 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 con- siderably less than the artisan. It will also be noticed that ] the rural population of England was about three-quarters of the whole. 2 1 Eden, State of the. Poor, i. 228. * If we allow that most of the two last classes enumerated were country folk. For the decline of the yeoman class, see chap, xviii. BAD SEASONS 157 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. 1 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 qos. 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 6os. a quarter, and in Kent turnips were made into bread for the poor. 2 The difference in the price of farm produce in various localities was striking, and an eloquent testimony to the wretched means of communication. At Newark, for instance, in 1692-3 wheat was from 36^. to 40^. a quarter, while at Brentford it touched 76^. ; next year in the same two places it was 32 s. and 86^. respectively. In 1695-6 hay at Newark was 13^. 4,d. a ton, at Northampton it was from 35^. to 40^. 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. 3 The Act states, 1 Evelyn's Diary. * Tooke, History of Prices, i. 23. 8 Fowle, Poor Law, p. 63. 158 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE that the reason for passing it was the continual increase of the poor throughout the kingdom, which had become exceed- ing 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.' l It was therefore determined to stop these wanderings, and most effectually was it done. Two justices were empowered to remove any person who settled in any tenement under the yearly value of ^"10 within forty days to the place where he was last legally settled, unless he gave sufficient security for the discharge of the parish in case he became a pauper. It is true that certain relaxations were subsequently made. The Act of 1691, 3 W. & M., c. 2. allowed derivative settle- ments 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. Ill, 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 pre- 1 vented the labourer carrying his work where it was wanted. 2 ) 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 1 times that this abominable system was destroyed. The agri- 1 Hasbach, op. cit. p. 66, says, ' the abuses complained of in the preamble (of the Act) did actually exist.' 2 Hasbach, op. cit. pp. 67, 134, says the statute of 1662 did not entail so much evil by hindering migration as is generally supposed. CORN LAWS 159 cultural labourer's difficulty in building a house was aggravated by the statute 31 Eliz., c. 7, before noticed, which in order to restrain the building of cottages enacted that none, except in towns and certain other places, were to be built unless 4 acres of land were attached to them, under a penalty of 10, and 40 s. 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. 1 At the restoration of Charles II the corn laws had practically been unaltered since i57f, 2 when it had been enacted that corn might be exported from certain ports in certain ships at all times when proclamation was not made to the contrary, on a payment of 12^. a quarter on wheat and ftd. 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 $s. in the quarter as long as the home price did not exceed 48.?. 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, 1 Shropshire County Records: Abstracts of the orders made by the Court of Quarter Sessions, 1638-1782, pp. xxiv, xxv. 2 See above, p. 70. 13 Eliz., c. 13. MCulloch, Commercial Dictionary (1852), p. 412. i6o HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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. 1 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. 2 ! 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. 3 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, 1 Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce, ii. 371. 2 Political Arithmetic, pp. 27-34, I93> 276. s Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, vi. 192. CORN LAWS 161 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 48^., but prohibited export and the bounty on export when wheat was at or above 44.?. 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 54^., while between 50^. and 54-r. a duty of 2s. 6d. was imposed, and under 50^. a duty of 24.?. $d. ; and export was allowed without bounty when wheat was under 46.$-. 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 1 2 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, 1 a period prolonged by 5 Geo. Ill, 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, 2 and by 16 Geo. II, c. n, wool might be sent from Ireland to any port in England under certain restrictions. 1 MPherson, Annals of Commerce, iii. 311. 2 Ibid. ii. 706; iii. 221, 293. M 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 richi 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. 1 They were often ably assisted by tenant farmers, many of whom were now men with con- siderable capital, for whom the smaller farms were amalga- mated 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 revolu- tion 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 manu- facturing 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 i 1 Six Centuries of Work and Wages, p. 472. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 163 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 ColHngs. 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, enclos- ing 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 con- stant 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.' l 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 lod. a day in the summer and yd. 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 is. 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 is. a rood (8 yards), if without the quick. 2 The magistrates remarked 1 See Baker, Record of Seasons and Prices, p. 185. 2 Eden, State of the Poor, iii. p. cvii ; Thorold Rogers, Work and Wages, p. 396. M 2 164 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE in their proclamation on the plenty of the times and were afraid that for the northern part of the county, which was then very backward, the wages were too liberal. Wheat was, unfortunately, that year 46^. \d. a quarter, but a few years before and after that date it was cheap 20^., 24^., 28^. a quarter and fresh meat was only 3^. a lb., so that their wages went a long way. 1 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. 2 As for his food, Eden tells us 3 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, crowd ie (also of oatmeal), frumenty or barley milk, barley broth, &c. 4 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. 5 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, 1 In Herefordshire at this time it was \\d. per lb. 2 Hasbach, op. cit. p. 86. s Eden, op. cit. i. 286. 4 Ibid. i. 498. 5 Hasbach, op. cit. p. 71. CROPS 165 grass seeds, &c.' l Crops, too, were improving ; and enclosed lands about 1726 were said to produce over 20 bushels of wheat to the acre. 2 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 ', 3 and in a letter to Houghton in 1684, he is the first to mention the feeding of turnips to sheep. 4 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. 5 For winter use they were to be sown from the 1 Smith, Memoirs of Wool, ii. 93. 2 John Lawrence, New System of Agriciilture, p. 45. In 1712, a normal season, 48 acres of wheat at South wick 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 Ss. each, cows 65.?., calves .1, horses 6, hay z$s. a ton (Hampshire Notes and Queries, iii. 120). 3 Worlidge, Systemi Agriculturae, p. 42. 4 Collections, iv. 142. 5 Lawrence, New System of Agriculture, p. 109. 166 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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, l 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. 2 ""^Clover, the other great novelty of the seventeenth century, was now generally sown with barley, oats, or rye grass, about 15 Ib. per acre. This amount, sown on 2 acres of barley, would next year produce 2 loads worth about 5. The next crop stood for seed, which was cut in August, the hay being worth 9, and the seed out of it, 300 Ib., was sold much of it for 1 6d. a Ib., the sum realized in that year from the 2 acres being 30, without counting the aftermath. At this time most of the seed was still imported from Flanders. 3 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. 4 1 Tour (ed. 1724), i. 87. 2 Ellis, Chiltern and Vale Farming, p. 353. 8 Bradley, General Treatise, i. 175. 4 Ellis, Chiltern and Vale Farming, p. 260. CATTLE 167 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. 1 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 Lam- mas. 2 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.' 3 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 Ceilings were to work such wonders. The then great price of 20 had been given for a cow of this breed. Bradley, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, and a well-known writer on agriculture, divided the cattle of England into three sorts according to their colour : the black, white, and red. 4 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. 5 The white were much larger, and 1 J. Lawrence, New System of Agriculture, p. 112. 2 Ibid. p. 92. About 1757 Lucerne, hitherto little grown in England, took its place in the rotation of crops. 3 Ibid. p. 130. 4 A General Treatise on Husbandry (1726), i. 72; cf. c. 5 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. 1 68 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 4 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 l : DR. s. d. 6 months' grass keep at is. 6d. per week per head 1711 o 6 months' winter keep (straw, hay, turnips, and grains) at zs. per week per head . . . 23 8 o 40 19 o CR. 13,140 gallons of milk 136 17 6 40 19 o Balance (profit) ,95 18 6 A correspondent, however, pointed out to Bradley that this yield and profit was far above the average, which was about 5 a cow, on whom Bradley retorted that it could be made, though it was exceptional. In the eighteenth century the great trade of driving Scottish* cattle to London began, Walter Scott's grandfather being they 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 road-side, generally arrived at Smithfield in good condition.'-' 1 Bradley, General Treatise, i. 76. 2 Slater, English Peasantry, p. 52. DAIRYING 169 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.' l It was no uncommon thing for a Galloway nobleman to send 4,000 black cattle and 4,000 sheep to England in a year, and altogether from 50,000 to 60,000 cattle were said to come to England from Galloway yearly. Gentlemen on the Border before the Union got a very pretty living by tolls from these cattle ; and the Earl of Carlisle made a good income in this way. Cattle were sometimes of a great size. In 1697, in the park of Sir John Fagg near Steyning, Defoe saw four bullocks of Sir John's own breeding for which was refused in Defoe's hearing 26 apiece. They were driven to Smith- field and realized 25 each, having probably sunk on the way, but dressed they weighed 80 stone a quarter! 2 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 j to 10. The best poultry at the same date (1726) 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. 3 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 1 Tour (ed. 1724), i. (l) 97, and iii. (2) 73. 2 Ibid. \. 63. 3 J. Lawrence, New System of Agriculture, p. 151. 1 70 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 12 hens and z cocks who had a free run in a farmyard and an orchard : l DR. s . d. 39 bushels of barley .350 Balance, profit . . 16 o CR. s. d, Eggs (number unfortu- nately not given) .150 20 early chickens at is. . i o o 72 late chickens at 6d. . i 16 o 4 i o He also recommends that in stocking a farm of ,200 a year the following poultry should be purchased : s. d. 24 chickens at ^d. 80 20 geese . i o o 20 turkeys . . . . . .100 24 ducks 120 6 pair of pigeons 12 o 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. 2 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 i.d. 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. 3 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 2,000 in a drove, starting in August when harvest was nearly over, so that the geese 1 Bradley, General Treatise, i. no. 2 Country Gentleman and Farmer's Director (1726), p. 7. 3 Defoe, Tour, i. 87. POULTRY AND HOPS 171 might feed on the stubble by the way ; ' and thus they hold on to the end of October, when the roads begin to be too stiff and deep for their broad feet and short legs to march on.' There was, however, a more rapid method of getting poultry to the great market, by means of carts of four stages or stories, one above another, to carry the birds in, drawn by two horses, which by means of relays travelled night and day, and covered as much as 100 miles in two days and one night, the driver sitting on the topmost stage. Hop growing in 1729, according to Richard Bradley, paid well ; he says, ' ground never esteemed before worth a shilling an acre per annum, is rendered worth forty, fifty, or sometimes more pounds a year by planting hops judiciously. An acre of hops shall bring to the owner clear profit about 30 yearly ; but I have known hop grounds that have cleared above 50 yearly per acre.' At this date 12,000 acres in England were planted with hops. The great market for hops was Stourbridge Fair, once the greatest mart in England and still preserving much of its former importance : ' there is scarce any price fixed for hops in England till they know how they sell in Stourbridge Fair.' * 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 '; 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 1 Defoe, Tour (3rd ed.), i. 81. 2 Defoe, Tour (ed. 1724), ii. I, 134. 172 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE eighteenth century l ; 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 yd., ftd., or more by the pound ; the same is now 4^. and still falling.' -' But the latter price was exceptionally low ; Smith 3 gives the following average prices per tod of 28 Ib. : 1706 . . \-js.6d. 1717-8 . . 23.?. to 275. 1737-42 . . iu. to 14.?. 1743 ~ os - 1743-53 24J. After 1753 it fell again, largely owing to the great plague among cattle, which brought about a ' prodigious increase 4 of sheep'; and about 1770 Young 5 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. 6 Yet although wool was being deserted for corn it had in Young's time 'been so long supposed the staple and 1 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. 2 The West Country Farmer , a Representation of the Decay of Trade, 1737- 3 Memoirs of Wool, ii. 243. 4 Ibid. ii. 399. 6 Farmer's Letters (3rd ed.), p. 27. 6 Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, ii. 384. CHEESE 173 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 i more economically ; and partly to the enclosure of commons, and the ploughing up of land for corn. 1 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, te ^ s us tna * ' ^e 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. 2 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 Ib. to 100 Ib. 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 is. a Ib. on the farm, 1 Cunningham, Inditstry and Commerce, ii. 458. 2 Ormerod, Cheshire, i. 129. These words were written about 1656. 174 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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. 1 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 '.- 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 9^. a dozen for them delivered free in London ; but those from Michaelmas to Christmas realized IQS. 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 id., but soon after nearly 6d. ; and in Hertfordshire was a warren where rabbit skins with silvery hair fetched is. each. 3 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 ; 1 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.' 2 Defoe, Tour, i. (i) 78. Cheshire cheese was "2.d. to 2.\d. per lb., Cheddar 6d. to &/. in 1724, an extraordinary difference. 8 Bradley, i. 172. TULL AND THE NEW HUSBANDRY 175 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 confine- ment within the limits of a lonely farm, in a country where I am a stranger, having debarred me from all conversation V He took to agriculture more by necessity than by choice, for he knew too much ' the inconveniency and slavery attending the exorbitant power of husbandly servants', and he further gives this extraordinary character of the farm labourer of his day : ' "Pis the most formidable objection against our agricul- ture 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.' 2 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 1 Preface to Horse-hoeing Husbandry (ed. 1733). 2 Horse-hoeing Husbandry, p. vi. HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 Ib. 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 Ib. of seed ; but when I added to this hopper an exceeding light plough that made 6 channels eight inches asunder, into which 2 Ib. 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 TULL AND THE NEW HUSBANDRY 177 enable a portion at least to escape the dreaded fly. He was a great believer in doing everything himself, and worked so hard at his drill that he had to go abroad for his health. He was somewhat carried away by his invention, and asserts that the expense of a drilled crop of wheat was one-ninth of that sown in the old way, giving the following figures to prove his assertion : The Old Way s. d. Seed, 2| bushels, at 3-y 76 Three ploughings, harrowing, and sowing . 16 o Weeding ...... 20 Rent of preceding fallow . . . . 10 o Manure . 2 10 o Reaping ..46 4 10 o 1 The New Way Seed, 3 pecks 23 Tillage 4 Drilling 6 Weeding 6 Uncovering (removing clods fallen on the wheat) 2 Brine and lime -. I Reaping -.', 2 6 10 o 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 1 The West Country Farmer, above quoted, says wheat growing (in 1737) paid little. Before a bushel can be sold it costs 4 an acre, and the crop probably fetches half the money. 178 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE course, like all improvers, he was met with unlimited opposi- tion, 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.' 1 Scotland was the first to perceive the merits of the system, and it gradually worked south wards 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. 2 In another of 1740, he was to leave in the last year of the tenancy one-third of the arable land summer tilled, ploughed, and fallowed, for which he was to be paid according to the custom of the country. In 1753, in the lease of Pinford End Farm, there was a penalty of 10 an acre for breaking up pasture ; a great increase in the amount of the penalty. All compost, dung, soil, and ashes arising on the farm were to be bestowed upon it. Only two crops successively were to be taken on any of the arable land, but land sown with clover and rye-grass, if fed off, or with turnips which were fed on some part of the farm, were not to count as crops. The ashes mentioned were those from wood, which were now carefully looked after, as it had become the custom to 1 R.A.S.E.Journ. (3rd Sen), ii. 20. 2 Cullum, Hawsted, p. 216. BAD TIMES 179 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 8u. yd. a quarter, and high prices lasted until I7J5- 1 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 34.?. a quarter, so that we are not surprised to find that its cultivation often did not pay at all.- 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. *. d. Rent 12 Dressing (manuring) . I 2\ bushels of seed 7 6 Ploughing first time 6 twice more 8 6 6 6 Threshing 3 9 343 CR. 15 bushels of wheat (a poor crop, as 20 s. d. bushels was now about the average) .220 Straw . . . . . . II 6 2 13 6 Loss 10 o On barley, worth about 1 a quarter, the loss was 3^. 6d. an 1 Tooke, History of Prices, {.35. 2 Wheat averaged : 1718-22 about 275. 1730 about 30J. 1750 about 30*. 1724 36*. 1732 24J. 1755 35 s - 1725 46*. 1736 3os. 1760 38 s. 1726 35*. 1740 42-r. 1765 42*. 1728 525. 1744 23*. N 2 i8o HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE acre; on oats, worth 135. a quarter, however, the profit was 215. ; on beans, 26s. 6d., these being that year exceptionally good and worth 2,os. a quarter. 1 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. 2 This estimate may be compared to that of Tull for the 'old way 'of sowing wheat, 3 and to the following estimate of fifty years later in Surrey, when wheat was a much better price : DR. s. d. Rent, tithe, taxes loo Team, &c I o o 2 bushels of seed 10 o Carting and spreading manure and water furrowing 2 6 Brining 6 Weeding I 6 Reaping and carrying 9 o Threshing and cleaning 76 Binding straw I 6 3 12 6 CR. 20 bushels at $s ........ 500 l loads of straw ....... 126 The profit was thus 2 los. od. an acre, and for barley it was 3 y. 6d. t for oats i 195. iod., for beans i 135. od. 5 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 1 Ellis, Chiltern and Vale Fanning, p. 209. Nothing is charged for tithe and taxes. 2 Ibid. p. 352. 3 See above, p. 177, also p. 199 for Young's estimate in 1770. 4 Nothing is charged for the manure which was carted and spread. 6 John Trusler, Practical Husbandry, p. 28. FALLOWS LESS FREQUENT 181 over frequent use of fallows, which had so long marked agri- culture, 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.' l 1 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 Wal- pole 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 experi- menting 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.' l There can be no doubt from this statement, made by an eye- witness 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 1 farmer's Letters, i. 10. TOWNSHEND 183 whole being let at 15^. an acre, or ten times its orignal 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 '. l 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 pros- perous 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. 2 Though, however, the first half of the century was gen- erally prosperous there were bad times for farmer and land- lord. 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 1 738 Lord Ly ttelton 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.' 3 1 R. A. S. E. Journal (3rd Series), iii. I. 2 See the Hyp Doctor, No. 49. 3 Tooke, History of Price $, i. 42, 1 84 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 CATTLE PLAGUE 185 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 '. l 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. 2 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 Ib.) of imported corn, unsaleable owing to the great crop in England. 3 The year 1740 was distinguished by one of the severest winters on record. From January i to February 5 the thermometer seldom reached 32, and the cold was so intense that hens and ducks, even cattle in their stalls died of it, trees were split asunder, crows and other birds fell to the ground frozen in their flight. This extraordinary winter was followed by a cold and late spring ; no verdure had appeared by May ; in July it was still cold, and thousands of acres of turnips rotted in the ground. Among minor mis- fortunes may be noticed the swarms of grasshoppers who devastated the pastures near Bristol at the end of August 1742,* and the swarms of locusts who came to England in 1 748 and consumed the vegetables. 5 The cattle plague of 1 745 6 was so severe that owing to the 1 Cf. this and Tull's character of servants with Defoe's accusation of their laziness. 2 Salisbury newspaper, quoted by Baker, Seasons and Prices, p. 187. 3 See Autobiography of Wm. Stout, ed. by J. Harland. * Gentleman's Magazine, 1742. 5 Baker, op. cit. p. 194. 6 A Defence of the Farmers of Great Britain (1814), p. 30. 1 86 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 I74O. 1 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 gun- powder burnt where infected cattle had died, and cow-houses washed with vinegar and water. Such were the sanitary pre- cautions of the time. 2 In 1756 came another bad year, corn was so scarce that there were many riots ; the king ex- pressed to Parliament his concern at the suffering of the poor, and the export of corn was temporarily prohibited. The fluc- tuations 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, 49^. ; Feb., 5u. ; March, 54^. ; April, 645. ; June, 72*. About the middle of the century, if we may judge from the Compleat Cyder man, 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.' 1 Tooke, History of Prices, i. 42. 2 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. FRUIT-GROWING 187 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, 1 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 ex- celled 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, Culver- ing, Russet, Holland Pippin, and Cowley Crab.' In Hereford- shire 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, 1 The Compleat Cyderman, p. 46. 188 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 l noted that in Here- fordshire 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, 2 a very good price if we allow for the differ- ence 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 lod. a bushel, in 1745 is. a bushel, in 1746 only 4^., and in 1747 cider there was worth 6d. a gallon. 3 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. Inciden- tally there is mentioned in the Complcat Cydcrman 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. 1 Rural Economy of Gloucestershire (1788), ii. 206. 2 Blundell's Diary, p. 55. 3 MS. accounts of Mr. Chevallier, of Aspall Hall. FRUIT-GROWING 189 An acre of good orchard land at this time was let at 2 an acre ; and this is a fair balance sheet for an acre l : DR - s. d. Rent of one acre . . . . . ^. . .200 Tithe on 10 hogsheads, @ 6d. ;. . __. . . 50 Gathering, making, and carriage to and from the pound, @ 3-r. 6d. a hogshead 1150 Racking twice, @ 6d. ..','.'.' . . . . 50 Casks and cooperage 80 4 13 o CR. s . d I o hogsheads diminished by racking and waste to 8, @ 1 2s. 6d. 500 Leaving a balance of 'js. 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 : ^ d. 132 trees, @ 2s. 1340 (The custom had been to plant 160 trees to the acre, but this was considered too close.) Carriage per tree, @ -id. ; manure per tree, @ ^d. ; planting per tree, @ ^>d. , . . .480 Interest on 17 12s. od. for fifteen years before orchard is profitable, @ 5 per cent 1326 Loss of half the rent of the land for the same period, @ icy. an acre . 7 10 o Building cellarage for product per acre 500 43 4 6 For this outlay the landowner would gain an additional rent of 1 a year, so that, according to this authority, growing cider fruit at that time paid neither landlord nor tenant. 1 The Case with the County of Devon with respect to the New Excise Duty on Cider (1763). The duty was 4*. 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 too 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 con- fessed that he began to advise people concerning the art of agriculture on a very limited experience. It paid him, how- ever, much better than farming, for between 1766 and 1775 he realized 3,000 on his works, among which were The Far- mers 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 culti- vated 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 com- 1 Northern Tour, i. 9. For an interesting account of Young, see R.A.S. E. Journal (y^. Series), iv. i. ARTHUR YOUNG 191 parison of the old and new husbandry.' 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 trans- lated 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 register- ing 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, pota- toes, sainfoin, and lucerne ; ploughing, &c., with as few cattle as possible ; the use of harness for oxen ; cultivation of madder, liquorice, hemp, and flax where suitable. 1 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 1 In 1726 Bradley had urged the use of liquorice, madder, woad, and caraway as improvers of the land in the Preface to the Country Gentle- i 9 2 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE endorse, ' have reason to think the government of this country the first in the world ; the middle classes bear the brunt.' Perhaps to-day ' men of large fortune ' have altered their opinion and only ' the poor ' are satisfied. However, he only visited France, and gave us his vivid picture of that country before the great revolution. In 1793 the Board of Agriculture was formed, and Young was made secretary with a salary of ,400 a year. About 1810 he wrote that the preceding half-century had been by far the most interesting in the progress of agriculture, and ascribes the increase of interest in it to the publication of his Tours. George III told him he always took with him the Farmer s Letters. The improvement, Young said, had been largely due to individual effort, for commerce had been predominant in Parliament and agriculture had begun to be neglected ; a statement which, seeing that Parliament was then almost entirely composed of landowners, must be accepted with some reserve. Young died in 1820, having been totally blind for some time, a misfortune which did not prevent him working hard. In his well-known Tours he often had much difficulty in ob- taining 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 reser- voir 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 ARTHUR YOUNG 193 a nobleman without his farm, most of the country gentlemen were farmers, and attended closely to their business instead of leaving it to stewards, c 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 novel- ties he introduced. Even the stable and the kennel were ousted by farming from rural talk, 1 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 state- ment 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. 2 The place subsequently taken by the Board of Agriculture, and in our time by the Royal Agricultural Society, was then ' 1 Rural Economy (1771), pp. 173-5. Trusler, who wrote in 1780, men- tions ' the general rage for farming throughout the kingdom.' Practical Husbandry, p. I. 2 In 1780 Sir Thomas Bernard, travelling through Northumberland, saw ' luxuriant plantations, neat hedges, rich crops of corn, comfortable farm-houses ' in a county whereof the greater part was barren moor dearly rented at is. 6d. an acre thirty years before, and he said the county had increased in annual value fourfold. (Contemporary MS., un- published.) CURTLER O 7 194 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE occupied by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, ; Manufactures, and Commerce, which offered premiums for I such objects as the cultivation of carrots in the field for stock, then little practised ; for gathering the different sorts of grass seeds and keeping them clean and free from all mixture with other grasses, a very rare thing at that time ; for experiments in the comparative merits of the old and new husbandry ; for the growth of madder ; 20 for a turnip-slicing machine, then apparently unknown, and for experiments whether rolling or harrowing grass land was better, ' at present one of the most, disputed points of husbandry.' In spite of this progress, many crops introduced years before were unknown to many farmers. Sainfoin, cabbages, pota- toes, 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.' l As for the outcry against enclosing commons and wastes, people forgot that the farmers as well as the poor had ajightp^ common and took special care by their large number of stock to starve every animal the poor put on the common. 2 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 en- 1 Rural Economy, p. 26. 2 Fanner's Letters (3rd ed.), p. 89. ENCLOSURE 195 closure very forcibly. 1 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 in- versely 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 cen- turies. 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. 2 The growing manu- facturing 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 con- sequent 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 1 Slater, English Peasantry and Enclosure, p. 95. 2 Ibid. p. 101. O 2 196 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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. 1 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 respect- able 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 allot-l ment, and the latter he often spent in the public-house. At this date the proprietors of large estates who wished fc^ enclose by Act of Parliament, generally settled all the parti- culars 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, how- ever, 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 com- missioners 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, i 1 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. CROPS AND THEIR COST 197 All these evils attending enclosure made many who were I eager to benefit by it very chary in commencing it. 1 Then, as now, one of the commonest errors of farmers was that of taking too much land for their capital ; Young con- sidered 6 an acre necessary on an average, equal to more than i 2 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. 2 Marl was applied in huge quan- tities 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 3 : On land worth 5*. an acre: Wheat 12 bushels per acre. Rye 16 Barley . . . . . 16 Oats 20 Turnips, to the value of Clover 1 Young, Northern Tour, i. 222. 2 Rural Economy, p. 252. ' Ibid. p. 271. 198 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE On land worth zos. an acre : Wheat 28 bushels per acre. Barley 40 Oats ....... 48 ,, Beans 40 ,, Turnips, to the value of $. Clover The cost of cultivating the latter, which may be given in full, as it affords an excellent example of the price of growing various crops, and the methods of their cultivation at this period, was as follows : First year, turnips : s. d. Rent I o o Tithe and ' town charges ' . 80 Five ploughings, @ 45. . . . . .100 Three harrowings . . . . . I o Seed 6 Sowing 3 Twice hand-hoeing 7 o 2 16 9 It will be noticed there was no horse-hoeing. Second year, barley : s. d. Rent, tithe, &c. . . . . . .180 Three ploughings 120 Three harrowings I o Seed 80 Sowing 3 Mowing and harvesting .... 3 Water furrowing . . . ... 6 Threshing, @ is. a quarter .... 50 ^2 17 9 Third year, clover : s. d. Rent, &c I 8 o Seed 50 Sowing 3 * 13 3 CROPS AND THEIR COST 199 Fourth year, 1 wheat : s. d. Rent, &c I 8 o One ploughing 4 Three harrovvings l o Seed . . . . . . '.'/".' lo Sowing . . ; . ^ j f'~' m , Water furrowing _ o Thistling r 5 Reaping and harvesting .... 70 Threshing, @ zs. a quarter . 70 2 19 6 Fifth year, beans : Rent, &c. i 8 o Two ploughings . . . . . . g o Seed, 2 bushels go Sowing 6 Twice hand-hoeing 120 Twice horse-hoeing 30 Reaping and harvesting .... go Threshing 50 3 *2 6 Sixth year, oats : Rent, &c I 8 o Once ploughing 40 Two harrowings 8 Four bushels of seed 60 Sowing 3 Mowing and harvesting .... 30 Threshing, @ i s. a quarter .... 60 2 7 ii Good land at a high rent is always better than poor land at a low rent ; the average profit per acre on 5^. land was then \ about 8s. &/., on 20^. land, zgs. Grass was much more profitable than tillage, the profit on i 20 acres of arable in nine years amounted to 88, whereas on grass it was 212, or 9^. 9^. an acre per annum for the former and 23^. for the latter. 2 Yet dairying, at all events, was then 1 Cf, above, p. 180. * Farmer's Letters (3rd ed), p. 372. 200 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE on the whole badly managed and unprofitable. The average cow ate 2 \ acres of grass, and the rent of this with labour and other expenses made the cost 5 a year per cow, and its average produce was not worth more than .5 6s. $d. 1 This scanty profit was due to the fact that few farmers used roots, cabbages, Sec., for their cows, and to their wrong management of pigs, kept on the surplus dairy food. By good management the nett return could be made as much as 4 i$s. od. per cow. The management of sheep in the north of England was wretched. In Northumberland the profit was reckoned at is. a head, partly derived from cheese made from ewes' milk. The fleeces averaged 2 lb., and the wool was so bad as not to be worth more than 3^. or ^d. per lb. 2 Pigs could be made to pay well, as the following account testifies : Food and produce of a sow in one year (1763), which produced seven pigs in April and eleven in October: DR. s. d. Grains .... 10 4 Cutting a litter . i 6 5 quarters peas . .520 10 bushels barley . .100 Expenses in selling s . n 6 10 bushels peas . .163 II 7 CR. s. d. A pig . . . . 23 A fat hog . . .190 Another, 1 10 lb. weight. i 12 9 116 .200 Heads .... 53 3 fat hogs . . .670 i fat hog . . .200 10 young pigs . 4 16 6 12 9 8 ii 7 Profit \o i 2 We have seen that Young thought little of the ' new hus- bandry ' ; he does not even give Tull the credit of inventing the drill : ' Mr. Tull perhaps again invented it. He practised it 1 Northern Tour, iv. 167. a Ibid. iv. 186. 3 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. CROPS AND THEIR COST 201 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.' l 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 adop-, tion 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 combina- tion 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 gate- ways 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 benefi- cial, 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 Sttbjects 2 thought the drill plough an 1 Rural Economy, p. 314. 2 I775> PP- x - xi - 202 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 im- plements. 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. 1 In his Tour in France Young, speaking of the smallness of French farms as compared with English ones, and of the con- sequent great inferiority of French farming, says, ' Where is the little farmer to be found who will cover his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 to 150 tons per acre; who will drain his land at the expense of 2 to ^3 an acre ; who will, to improve the breed of his sheep, give 1,000 guineas for the use of a single ram for a single season ; who will send across the kingdom to distant provinces for new implements and for 1 Northern Tour, iv. 192-202. CROPS AND THEIR COST 203 men to use them ? Deduct from agriculture all the practices that have made it flourishing in this island, and you have pre- cisely the management of small farms.' In 1868 the Report of the Commission on the Agriculture of France l agreed with Young, noting the grave consequences of the excessive sub- division of land, loss of time, waste of labour, difficulties in rota- tion 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: * d. Rent, tithe, and town charges for first year . . 70 o o Household furniture 30 o o Wagon 25 o o Cart with ladders 12 o o Tumbril 10 o o Roller for broad lands (of wood) . . . .200 narrow .... I 15 o Cart harness for 4 horses 8 17 o Plough ., . ." . . . 2 16 o 2 ploughs . . -3 A pair of harrows 1150 Screen, bushel, fan, sieves, forks, rakes, &c. .\j . 800 Dairy furniture 3 20 sacks 2 10 o 4 horses 32 o o Wear and tear, and shoeing one year . . . 13 o o Keep of 4 horses from Michaelmas to May Day, @ 2.5. 6d. each a week 14 o o 5 cows 20 o o 20 sheep . . . ....... 5 10 o One sow - . '5 One servant's board and wages for one year . . 15 o o A labourer's wages for one year ;"'" . 20 o o Seed for first year, 42 acres, @ us. 6d. '-.- -.''_ i 24 3 o Harvest labour ....- ;;'.-. * Io 326 II o Or nearly 5 an acre. See Parliamentary Reports Commission (1881), xvi. 260- 204 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE About the same date the Complete English Farmer reckoned that the occupier of a farm of 500 acres (300 arable, 200 pas- ture), ought to have a capital of 1,500, and estimated that, after paying expenses and maintaining his family, he could put by 50 a year ; ' but this capital was much beyond what farmers in general can attain to.' 1 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 cany a deeper and truer furrow, while they were just as handy as horses in wagons, carts, rollers, &c. William Marshall, the other great agricultural writer of the end of the eighteenth century, agreed with Young, yet in spite of all these advantages horses were continually supplanting oxen. Among the improvements in agriculture was the introduction of broad-wheeled wagons ; narrow-wheeled ones were usual, and these on the turnpikes were only allowed to be drawn by 4 horses so that the load was small, but broad-wheeled wagons might use 8 horses. The cost of the latter was 50 against 25 for the former. 2 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. 1 This is doubtless too sweeping. There must have been others like George Bar- well, whom Marshall tells of in his Rural Economy of the Mid- 1 Dissertations on Rural Subjects, p. 278. * farmer's Letters^ p. 433. LABOURERS' WAGES AND DIET - 205 lands, who had brought up a family of five or six sons and daughters on a wage of $s . to 7^. 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 in- discriminate parish relief, and habitually looked to the parish to maintain them in sickness and old age. Cullum, 1 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 depen- dence and reducing all ranks as near a level as possible.' ! Idle- ness, drunkenness, and what was then often looked on withf disgust and contempt, excessive tea-drinking, were rife. Tea then was very expensive, 8s. or los. a Ib. being an ordinary price, so that the poor had to put up with a very much adul- terated 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 com- modities as milk and butter, but sent them to the towns so that the poor often went without. 2 In 1767 Young found wages differing according to the distance from London 3 : s. d. 20 miles from London they were per week . 10 9 From 20 to 60 ,, 7 8 60 to 1 10 64 no to 170 63 Giving an average of js. gd. which, however, was often 1 History of Haivsted, p. 169. 2 Hasbach, op. cit. p. 127 ; Kent, Hints to Gentlemen, p. 152. 3 Southern Tour, p. 324. He says nothing of the manufacturing towns, which had not yet begun to influence the wages of farm labourers near them as they soon afterwards did. ao6 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 : J. d. Food, 6s. per week 1 ; per year . . . . 15 12 o Rent I 10 o Clothes 2 10 o Soap and candles 150 Loss of time through illness, and medicine . .100 Fuel 200 17 o The man's wages were, @ I s. $d. a day, for the year 19 10 o The woman's, @ -$\d. 4176 The boy of fifteen could earn . . . .900 The boy of ten could earn . . . ..476 37 IS o Which would give the family a surplus of 13 i$s. od. 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 Ib. of bread made of wheat, rye, and potatoes ' no bread exceeds it ' 2 Cheese, 2 oz. @ 4^. a Ib. \ Beer, 2 quarts ....... I 2nd ,, Three messes of soup 2 3rd Rice pudding . . . ... . . 2j 4th J Ib. of fat meat and potatoes baked together . 2| Beer i 5th Rice milk 2 6th Same as first day 3^ 7th Potatoes, fat meat, cheese, and beer . 4 As Young was a man of large practical experience we may 1 Some prices at this time were : bread per Ib., id. ; butter, $\d. to 8d. ; cheese, -$\d. to $d. ; beef, $d. to $d. ; mutton, -$\d. to tyi. LABOURERS' WAGES AND DIET 307 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 1 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. 2 In Suffolk, according to Cullum, 3 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 j 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. 4 The labourers of. the north were also noted for their skill in making soups in I 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 north- erner 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 enor- mous. Marshall says that in Gloucestershire drinking a gallon 1 bottle ', generally a little wooden barrel, at a draught was no uncommon feat ; and in the Vale of Evesham a labourer who 1 State of the Poor, i. 562. 2 According to Walter Harte, though the yeoman in the middle of 1 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 is. 6d. ! Tooke, History of Prices, i. 68. 3 History of Hawsted, p. 184. * Eden, State of the Poor, i. 513. ao8 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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.' l Yet in the beer-drinking counties great quantities were consumed ; a gallon a day per man all the year round being no uncommon allowance. 2 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 admit5 that very few labourers lived as cheaply as this, and he found the actual ordinary budget for the same family to be : *. d. Food, per week, 7-r. 6d. ; per year . . . 19 10 o Beer is. 6d. . 3 18 o Soap and candles 150 Rent i 10 o Clothes . . . . . . . 2 10 o Fuel 200 Illness, &c 100 Infant 2 12 o 34 S o This, with the same income as before, left him with a surplus of 3 los. od. ; 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 1 Rural Economy of Gloucestershire, i. 53. * Eden, op. cit. i. 547. THE LABOURER 209 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, 1 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. 2 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. 3 London was regarded as a source of great evil to the country by attracting the young and energetic thither. It used, men 1 Farmer's Letters, i. 300. 2 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. 8 Hasbach, op. cit. 82 ; Clarke, General View of Herefordshire, p. 29; Marshall, Review of Northern Department, p. 375. 210 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 countiy fellow 100 miles from London jumped on a coach in the morning and for 8s. or los. 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 1 1 as 'the most prosperous period that England has ever ex- perienced' 1 ; and it was Young's opinion about 1770 that 1 Tooke, History of Prices, i. 50; Hallam, Constitutional History, iii.3O2. THE COUNTRY SQUIRE 211 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.' l The great degree of luxury to which the country had arrived within a few years ' is not only astonish- ing 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.' 2 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 rough- ness of former times and the ' country, like the capital, is one scene of dissipation.' The private gentleman of 300 or 400 a year must have his horses, dogs, carriages, pictures, and parties, and thus goes to ruin. The articles of living, says the same writer, were 100 per cent, dearer than some time back. This is a very different picture from that in which Young represents every one rushing into farming, but no doubt depicts one phase of national life. An excellent observer 3 noticed in 1792 that the preceding forty or fifty years had witnessed the total destruction in England of the once common type of the small country squire. He was : 'An independent gentleman of ,300 per annum who com- monly appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver buttons, a jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels 1 Northern Tour, iv. 420. The increase of 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. a The Way to be Rich and Respectable, London, 1780. 8 Grose, Olio, pp. 41-4 ; Lecky, History of England in Eighteenth Century, vi. 169 et seq. P 212 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 Christ- mas 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 Rides, Vincent Wing's Almanac and a portrait of the Duke of Marlborough ; in his window lay Baker's Chronicle, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Glan- vill 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 Chrismas he entertained his tenants, assembled round a glowing fire made of the roots of trees ; and told and heard the tradition- ary 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 J ; 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 1 Cullum, History of Hawsted, p. 219. ELKINGTON 213 time, and the farmer's mode of living greatly improved. Farm- houses 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. For- merly one might see at church what was the cut of a coat half a century ago, now dress was spruce and modern. 1 As a proof of the spirit of improvement among farmers, Marshall instances the custom in the Midlands of placing their sons as pupils on other farms to widen their experience. ' Their entertainments are as expensive as they are elegant, for it is no uncommon thing for one of these new-created farmers to spend 10 or 12, at one entertainment, and to have the most expensive wines ; to set off the entertainment in the greatest splendour an elegant sideboard of plate is provided in the newest fashion.' 2 As to dress, no one could tell the farmer's daughter from the duke's. Marshall noticed that in War- wickshire the harness of the farmer's teams was often ridicu- lously ornamented, and the horses were overfed and under- worked 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 Prince- thorpe 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 ; 1 Cullum, History of Hawsted, p. 225. 2 Thoughts on Enclosure, by a Country Farmer (1786), p. 21. 214 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 as- certaining the line by levelling the spring can be cut effectu- ally. (3) Using the auger to tap the spring when the drain was not deep enough for the purpose. 1 It was owing to the Board of Agriculture at the end of the century that he obtained the vote of ji,ooo 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 BaJewell, who did more to improve live stock than any other man, was born at Dishley, Leicestershire, in 1725, and succeeding to the management of his father's farm in 1760 began to make experiments in breeding. 2 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 : (i) small versus large bone, and consequently a greater proportion of flesh and a greater tendency to fatten ; (2) permissible inbreeding 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 1 Johnstone, Account of Elkingtoifs Draining (1797), pp. 8-9. 8 R, A. S. E. Journal (1894), p. 1 1 , from which this account of Bakewell is mainly taken. BAKEWELL 215 on his stock. His great production was the new Leicester breed of sheep, 1 which in half a century spread over every part of the United Kingdom, as well as to Europe and America, and gave England 2 Ib. of meat where she had one before. Sheep at this time were divided into two main classes : (i) 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 de- scription 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 Ib. to the fleece, and wethers at two years old weighed from 20 to 30 Ib. a quarter. By 1770 his rams were hired for 25 guineas a season, and soon after he made 3,000 a year by their hire, one named ' T\vo-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 twot 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 1 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. ai6 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE and, afterwards, his sheep were generally called ' New Leicesters ', and sometimes the ' Dishley breed '. There was much pre- judice 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, year- ling wethers of the new breed were sold for 28s. while those of the old were 165-. 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.' 1 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 through- out, chine excepted, large, roomy, deep, and well spread.' 2 The new longhorn, however good for the grazier, was not a good milker. Bakewell was a great believer in straw as 1 Culley on Live Stock (1807), p. 56. 2 Marshall, Rural Economy of the Midland Counties, i. 273. BAKEWELL 217 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 consan- guineous 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 theTend of the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth centuries. Another farmer to whom English agriculture owes much was John Ell- man 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 218 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE founders of the Smithfield Cattle Show in 1 793, 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 l : 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 is. per rood for such as shall not be done after three months' notice has been given in writing. Not to break up certain lands specified in the schedule, ' under ,20 an acre.' Not to plough more than a specified number of acres of the rest of the land in any one year, under the same penalty. To forfeit the same sum for every acre that shall be ploughed for any longer time than three crops successively, without making a clean summer fallow thereof after the third crop. And the like sum for every acre over and above a specified number (clover excepted) that shall be mown in any one year. At the time of laying down arable lands to grass he shall manure them with 8 quarters of lime per acre, and sow the same with 12 Ib. of clover seeds, and one bushel of ryegrass per acre. 1 Victoria County History : Warwickshire^ Agriculture. THE STAFFORD ESTATES 219 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 ryegrass sown in the last year, and for all fallows made within that time.' 1 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. 2 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 1 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). J 1820, p. 173 et seq. 220 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 inde- pendent 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. 1 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 1 See Hasbach, op. cit. pp. 77 sq. ; Annals of Agriculture y xxxvi. 497 ; Scrutton, Commons and Common Fields, p. 139. THE ROADS 221 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 con- tinual 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. 1 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.' 2 It was owing to this defective condition of the roads that i the prices of corn still differed greatly in various localities ; , there would be a glut in one place and a deficiency in another, J 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. 3 Therefore farming was limited to procuring the subsistence of particular farms rather than feed- ing 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' 1 1 Defoe, Tour, ii. i, 178 et seq. 2 R. A. S. E. Journal ( 3 rd Sen), ii. 9- 3 Homer, Inquiry into the Means of Preserving the Public Koacls (1767), pp. 4 et seq. 222 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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. 1 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. 2 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 , 1 Victoria County History : Northants,, ii. 2$o. 8 Young, Southern Tour (ed. 2), p. 88. THE ROADS 223 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 cen- tury 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. 1 1779 was, however, a year of great fertility and prices were low all round : wheat 33^. 8d., barley 26s., oats 13^. 6d., wool 12s. a tod of 28 Ib. : 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 2 : Prices after harvest of \ 782. s. d. Wheat, per bushel . 10 6 Prices after harvest of 178 r. ' d. Wheat, per bushel . 5 o Barley . 29 Dutch oats for seed I 8 Clover seed, per cwt. in 6 Barley . 7 2 Dutch oats for seed 3 6 Clover seed, per cwt. 5100 1 Tooke, History of Prices, i. 68. It is difficult to understand the price of the quartern loaf, is. 6d. in 1766, as wheat was only 43-r. id. a quarter. Prices of wheat in these years were : s. d. s. d. s. d. S. d. 1767 1768 1769 47 53 40 4 9 7 1771 1772 1773 47 50 51 2 8 o 1774 1775 1776 5 o 4 8 38 8 4 2 1777 I 77 8 1779 45 42 33 6 8 1770 43 6 . _! see 1 11CSC ICLUlilO UUl^l 4*vy*A .v^w ~ - u Appendix III. J Annals of Agriculture, iii. 366. 224 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 i below zero; the worst since 1 739-40. In 1788 occurred a severe drought in the summer, 5,000 horned cattle perishing for lack of water. 1 In 1791 there was a remarkable change of temperature in the middle of June, the thermometer in a few days falling from 75 to 25, and the hills of Kent and Surrey were covered with snow. We have now to deal with one of those landowners whose great example is one of the glories of English agriculture. Coke of Holkham began his great agricultural work about 1776 on an estate where, as old Lady Tovvnshend 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 con- tradiction 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. 2 When Coke came into his estate, in five leases which were about to expire the farms were held at $s. 6d. an acre ; and in the previous leases they had been is. 6d. an acre. We may judge of the quality of this land by comparing it with the average rent of ios. 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 1 Baker, Seasons and Prices, pp. 224 et seq. 2 A. Stirling, Coke of Holkham, i. 249. COKE OF HOLKHAM 225 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. 1 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 i2s. an acre. He in- creased 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 no, and the Shorthorn had eaten more food than the two Devons. However, a single experiment of this kind is not very con- clusive. 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 country- side by planting 50 acres of trees every year until he had 3,coo acres well covered, and in 1832 had probably the unique experience of embarking in a ship which was built of oak 1 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.' CURTLER Q 226 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE grown from the acorns he had himself planted. 1 Between 1776 and 1842 (the date of his death) he is said to have spent 536,992 on improving his estate, without reckoning the large sums spent on his house and demesne, the home farm, and his marsh farm of 459 acres. This expenditure paid in the long run, but when he entered upon it, it must have seemed very doubtful if this would be the case. A good understanding between landlord and tenant was the basis of his policy, and to further this he let his farms on long leases, at moderate rents, with few restrictions. When farmers improved their holdings on his estate the rent was not raised on them, so that the estate benefited greatly, and good tenants were often rewarded by having excellent houses built for them ; so good, indeed, that his political opponents the Tories, whom he, as a staunch Whig detested, made it one of their complaints against him that he built palaces for farm-houses. 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 i kinds of grass seeds to different soils, arid thereby made the/ hitherto barren lands of his estate better pasture land than 1 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 neigh- bour for a supply of rubbish ; even Bake well derived his stock 1 A. Stirling, op. cit. i. 264. COKE OF HOLKHAM 227 from his hayloft. It was not until the Society for the En- couragement 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 zs. 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. 1 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 con- sultation 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 1 82 1 no less than 7,000 people were present. His skill, energy, and perse- verance worked a revolution in the crops ; his own wheat crops were from 10 to 12 coombs an acre, his barley sometimes nearly 20. The annual income of timber and underwood was .2,700, and from 1776 to 1816 he increased the rent roll of his estate from 2,200 to 20,000, which, even after allowing for the great advance in prices during that period, is a wonderful rise. It is a very significant fact that there was not an alehouse on 1 R. A. S. E. Journal (1895), p. 12. Q 2 228 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE f [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. CHAPTER XVII 1793-1815 THE GREAT FRENCH WAR. THE BOARD OF AGRICUL- TURE. 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 1 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. 5 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 1 R. A. S. E. Journal, 1896, p. I, and 1898, p. I. 230 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE members, with honorary and corresponding members. It was not a Government department in the modern sense of the term, but a society for the encouragement of agriculture, as the Royal Society is for the encouragement of science. It was, indeed, supported by parliamentary grants, receiving a sum of 3,000 a year, but the Government had only a limited control over its affairs through the ex-officio members, among whom were the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Lord Chan- cellor, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Speaker. The first president was Sir John Sinclair, and the first, secretary Arthur Young, with a salary of .400 a year, which j 1 he thought insufficient. 1 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 ap- pointed 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 is. 6d., though next year it dropped to 7|^., 2 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, 3 appears to have taken things too much into his own hands and pushed them too speedily. 1 Autobiography, p. 242. 2 Eden, State of the Poor, \. 1 8. ' Had his industry been under the direction of a better judgement, he would have been an admirable president.' Young, Autobiography, p. 316. THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 231 Financial difficulties came, chiefly owing to the cost of the surveys, which had been hurried on with undue haste and often with great carelessness, the surveyors sometimes being men who knew nothing of the subject. Sinclair was deposed from the presidency in 1798, and succeeded by Lord Somerville. He again was succeeded by Lord Carrington, under whose presidency the board offered premiums (the first of 200), owing to the high price of wheat and consequent distress, for essays on the best means of con- verting 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 tem- porary 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, 1 as a panacea for the prevailing distress, and after much opposition they managed to pass through both Houses in 1 80 1 a Bill cheapening and facilitating the process of parliamentary enclosure. This Act, 41 Geo. Ill, c. 109, 'extracted a number of clauses from various private Acts and enacted that they should hold good in all cases where 1 The Report of the Committee on Waste Lands, 1795, estimated wastes and commons at 7,800,000 acres, p. 221. 232 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE the special Act did not expressly provide to the contrary.' Another benefit rendered to agriculture was the establish- ment 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 sur- veys 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 improve- ment 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 in- quired was the divining rod for finding water, which was tested in Hyde Park in 1801, and successfully stood the test. In 1805, Davy the chemist reported on a substance in South America called 'guana', which he had analysed and found to contain one-third of ammoniacal salt with other salts and carbon, but its use was not to come for another generation. From the time of Sinclair's retirement in 1813 the board* declined. Arthur Young, its secretary, had become blind' and his capacity therefore impaired. One year its lack of energy was shown by the return of 2,000 of the Government grant to the Treasury because it had nothing to spend it on. The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was against it, the clergy feared the commutation of tithe which the board THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 233 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 1831, at Aldridge's Repository, the first national agricultural show. .685 was given in prizes, and the entries included 10 bulls, 9 cows and heifers, several fat steers and cows, 7 pens of Leicester and Cotswold rams and ewes ; is pens of Down, and 9 or 10 pens of Merino rams and ewes. 1 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 imple- ments. This first national show had been preceded by many local ones. 2 The end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries saw the establishment all over Eng- land of farmers' clubs, cattle shows, and ploughing matches. The period now before us is marked by the great work of the Pollings, 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 Dar- lington. 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 1 744 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 1 The Merino was largely imported into England by the efforts of George III, and a Merino Society was formed in 1811 ; but many circum- stances made it of such little profit to cultivate it in preference to native breeds, that it was diverted to Australia. Burnley, History of Wool, p. 17. 2 The first, the Bath and West of England, was established in 1777. 234 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE all-round cattle in the world, and to succeed where George Culley had failed. The first bull of merit he possessed was ' Hubback J ', 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 experi- ment being successful he became an enthusiast. The ex- periment 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. 2 One of Hubback's daughters had in i795 s by Favourite, a roan calf which grew to be the celebrated Durham Ox, which at five and a half years weighed 3,024 lb., and was sold for 140. It was sold again for 250, the second pur- chaser refusing 2,000 for it, and taking it round England on show made a profitable business out of it, in one day in London making 97. A still more famous animal was the bull Comet, born 1804, which at the great sale in 1810 fetched 1,000 guineas. This bull was the crowning triumph of Ceiling'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 1 R. A. S. E. Journal, 1899, p. 7. 2 Higher prices had been realized for the improved Longhorns ; in 1791, at the sale of Mr. Fowler of Little Rollright, Sultan a two-year-old bull fetched 210 guineas, and a cow 260 guineas; and at Mr. Paget's sale in 1793, a bull of the same breed sold for 400 guineas. Culley on Live Stock, P- 59- HIGH PRICES 235 held at a most propitious time, for the Durham Ox had adver- tised the name of Colling far and wide, and owing to the war prices were very high. Comet fetched 1,000 guineas, and the other forty-seven lots averaged 151 8j. 5 cultural Depression of 1822 asserted that during the war taxes and rates were quadrupled. 5 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 1 A Defence of the Farmers and Landowners of Great Britain (1814) p. 49. a Ibid. p. x. 3 Ibid. p. 7. 4 Agricultural State of the Kingdom, p. 67. 5 Parliamentary Reports (Committees), v. 72. 246 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 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 dis- counted 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.' l The following accounts, drawn up in 1805, 2 do not show that farmers were making much money with wheat at lew. a bushel : Account of the culture of an acre of wheat on good fallow land : Dr. * d. Two years' rent . 2 o Hauling dung from fold 10 o Four ploughings 2 Two harrowings 4 Lime .... i 18 o Seed, 2\ bushels i 5 Reaping 5 o Threshing . 10 Wages 5 Tithes and taxes 15 9 12 Cr. 20 bushels of wheat at los. The straw was set against the value of the dung. The tail- end wheat was eaten by the family ! d. IO O O O 1 Thoitghts on the Present Depressed State of the Agricultural Interest (1817), P. 4- 2 Duncumb, General View of the Agriculture of Hereford, 1805. The writer of A Defence of the Farmers and Landowners of Great Britain (1814) puts the average crop of wheat in the United Kingdom at 15 or 16 bushels an acre, p. 28. A very low estimate. HEAVY TAXATION 247 Cr. s. d. 360 bushels of wheat, @ los. . .,., . . 180 o o 300 bushels of barley, @ 6s. . . . 90 o o loo bushels of peas, 6s. . . . 30 o o 20 cwt. hops . 60 o o Sale of oxen, cows, and calves . . . 150 o o Profits from sheep . 100 o o from pigs, poul- try, dairy, and sundries . . .. r \ 50 o o And on a farm on good land in the same county the follow- ing would be the annual balance sheet at the same date : Dr. Rent . Tithes . Wages Extra harvestmen Tradesmen's bills Taxes and rates . Malt, hops, and cider Lime . Hop poles . Expenses at fairs and markets Clothing, groceries, &c., for the family Interest on i ,500 capi- tal, at j per cent. Sundries 660 o o According to this the farmer did little more than pay rent, interest on capital, and get a living. Yet prices of what he had to sell had gone up greatly : wheat in Herefordshire in 1 760 was 3J. a bushel, in 1805, los. ; butcher's meat in 1 760 was i\d. a lb., in 1804, >]d.\ fresh butter $%d. in 1 760, is. $d. in 1804 ; a fat goose in Hereford market in 1740, iod. ; 1760, is. ; 1804, 4s. ; a couple of fowls in 1740, 6d. ; 1760, *]d. ; 1804, 2s. ^d. 1 The winter of 1813-4 was extraordinarily severe, and the wheat crop was seriously injured, but the increased breadth of cultivation, a large surplus, and great importations kept the price down. Many sheep, however, were killed by the hard winter, which also reduced the quality of the cattle, so that meat was higher in 1814 than at any previous period. At Smithfield beef was 6s. to 7-y. a stone, mutton js. to 8s. 6d. With the peace of 1814 the fictitious prosperity came to an \ 1 Duncumb, General View of the Agriculture of Hereford, p. 140. 2 Tooke, History of Prices, li. 4. s. d. 200 o 40 o 58 o 7 o . So o o 58 o 60 j 20 o 10 o 8 o f 45 o 75 o 15 o 646 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE end, a large amount of paper was withdrawn from circulation,, which lowered the price of all commodities, and a large number of country banks failed. The first sufferers were the agricul- tural classes, who happened at that time to hold larger supplies than usual, the value of which fell at once ; the incomes of all were diminished, and the capital of many annihilated. 1 At the same time the demand for our manufactures from abroad fell off; the towns were impoverished, and bought less from the farmer. The short period of war in 1815 had little effect on prices, and in January, 1816, wheat was 52^. 6d., and the prices of live stock had fallen considerably. In 1815 protection reached its highest limit, the Act of that year prohibiting import of wheat when the price was under Sos. a quarter, and other grain in proportion. 2 However, it was of no avail ; and in the beginning of 1816 the complaints of agricultural distress were so loud and deep that the Board of Agriculture issued circular letters to every part of the kingdom, asking for in- formation on the state of agriculture. According to the answers given, rent had already fallen on an average 25 per cent., and agriculture was in a 'deplorable state 3 .' Bankruptcies, seizures, executions, imprisonments, were rife, many farmers had become parish paupers. Rent was much in arrear, tithes and poor rates unpaid, improvements generally dis- continued, live stock diminished ; alarming gangs of poachers and other depredators ranged the country. The loss was greater on arable than on grass land, and 'flock farms ' had suffered less than others, though they had begun to feel it heavily. All classes connected with the land suffered severely; the landlords could not get many of their rents ; the farmer's stock , had depreciated 40 per cent. 4 ; many labourers, who during the ' 1 farmer's Magazine (1817), p. 69. * The duties were often evaded by smuggling ; coasting vessels met the foreign corn ships at sea, received their cargoes, and landed them so as to escape the duty. 3 Agricultural State of the Kingdom, p. 5. 4 Observations for the Use of Landed Gentlemen (1817), p. 7. HEAVY TAXATION 349 war had been getting from 15.$-. to i6j. a week and i8s. in summer, 1 were walking the country searching for employment. Many tenants threw up their farms, and it was often noticed that landlords, ' knowing very little of agriculture and taken by surprise,' could not manage the farms thrown on their hands, and they went uncultivated. Some farmers paid up their rent to date, sold their stock, and went off without any notice ; others, less scrupulous, drove off their stock and moved their household furniture in the night without settling. 2 Farmers and landowners were asked to state the remedies required. Some asked for more rent reduction and further prohibition of import, but the most general cry was for the lessening of taxation. A Herefordshire farmer 3 stated that in 1815 the taxes on a farm of 300 acres in that county were : f- d. Property tax, landlord and tenant . .. . 95 16 10 Great tithes . 64 17 6 Lesser tithes ... . . . . 29 15 o Land tax . . . . . , . . 14 o o Window lights . . ... . . 24 I 6 Poor rates, landlord . , .. .'.". 10 o o ,, tenant . . '. -''. : " . . 40 o o Cart-horse duty, landlord, 3 horses i . 2 II o Two saddle horses, landlord ,;-.'>. .. 9 o o Gig .660 Cart-horse duty, 4 tenant . . . . " . 720 One saddle horse, tenant 2136 Landlord's malt duty on 60 bushels of barley .2100 Tenant's duty for making 120 bushels of barley into malt 42 o o New rate for building shire hall, paid by landlord 900 tenant .300 Surcharge . . --. .; .-. ; ; : ti - * 280 383 II 4 1 Defence of the Farmers, 3i7 6,827,346 The great majority of the first class here enumerated, those owning less than one acre, do not concern us, as they were evidently merely houses and gardens not of an agri- cultural character, but a large number of the second class and most of the other three must have been agricultural, though unfortunately no distinction is made. It will be seen, there- fore, that there were a considerable number of small owners in England in 1872, and their numbers have probably increased since. Many of them, however, are of the new class mentioned above, and there appears to be no doubt that the number of the peasant proprietors and of the yeomen of the old sort has much diminished, especially in proportion to the growth of population. 1 Parliamentary Accounts and Pa-pers, Ixxx. 21. The number of those owning over 500 acres does not concern the small owner or the yeoman class, but they were: from 500 acres to 1,000,4,799; from 1,000 to 2,000, 2,719; from 2,000 to 5,000, 1,815 from 5,000 to 10,000, 581 ; from 10,000 to 20,000, 223 ; from 20,000 to 50,000, 66 ; from 50,000 to 100,000, 3 ; over 100,000, i. For the numbers of the 'holdings' of various sizes in 1875 an d I 97 see below, p. 334. The term 'holdings', however, includes freeholds and leaseholds . CHAPTER XIX 1816-1837 DEPRESSION THE summer of 1816 was wretched ; the distress, aggravated by the bad season, caused riots everywhere. At Bideford the mob interfered to prevent the export of a cargo of potatoes ; at Bridport they broke into the bakers' shops. Incendiary fires broke out night after night in the eastern counties. At Swanage six people out of seven were paupers, and in one parish in Cambridgeshire every person but one was a pauper or a bankrupt. 1 Corn rose again : by June, 1817, it was 117^., but fell to 77-s 1 . in September. In 1818 occurred a drought of four months, lasting from May till September, and great preparations were made to ward off the expected famine ; immense quantities of wheat came from the Baltic, of maize from America, and beans and maize from Italy and Egypt, with hay from New York, as it was selling at 10 a ton. However, rain fell in September, brown fields suddenly became green, turnips sprang up where none had appeared, and even spring corn that had lain in the parched ground began to grow, so the fear of scarcity passed. In 1822 came a good season, which produced a great crop of wheat ; in the lifetime of the existing generation old men declared that such a harvest had been known only once before ; imports also came from Ireland to the amount of nearly a million quarters, so that the price at the end of the year was 38.$-., and the average price for the year was 44^. yd. Beef went down to is. $d. a stone and mutton to is. id. The cry of agricultural distress again rose loudly. Farmers were 1 Wai pole, History of England, i. 161. DEPRESSION 263 still, though some of the war taxes had been remitted, heavily taxed ; for the taxes on malt, soap, salt, candles, leather, all pressed heavily. 1 The chief cause of the distress was the long-felt reaction after the war, but it was aggravated by the j return to cash payments in 1819. Gold had fallen to its real value, and the fall in gold had been followed by a fall in the prices of every other article. 2 The produce of many thousand acres in England did not sell that year for as much money as was expended in growing it, without reckoning rent, taxes, and interest on capital. 3 Estates worth 3,000 a year, says the same writer, some years since, were now worth 1,000. Bacon had gone down from 6s. 6d. to zs. 4^. a stone ; South- down ewes from 50^. to i$s., and lambs from 42 s. to 5^. A Dorset farmer told the Parliamentary committee that since 1815 he knew of fifty farmers, farming 24,000 acres, who had failed entirely. 4 In the Tyne Mercury of October 30, 1821, it was recorded that Mr. Thos. Cooper of Bow purchased 3 milch cows and 40 sheep for 18 i6s. 6d., which sum four years previously would only have bought their skins. Prime beef was sold in Salisbury market at 4d. retail, and good joints of mutton at 3^/. 5 Everywhere the farmers were complaining bitterly, but 1 hanging on like sailors to the masts or hull of a wreck '. In Sussex labourers were being employed to dig holes and fill them in again, proof enough of distress but also of great folly. Many thousands of acres were now a mass of thistles and weeds, once fair grass land ploughed up during the war for wheat, and abandoned at the fall of prices. 1 Inquiry into Agricultural Distress (1822), p. 40. 2 Walpole, op. cit. ii. 22. 3 A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory, 1822. The Com- mittee on Agricultural Distress found that farmers were paying rent out of capital {Parliamentary Reports, Committees, v. 71), and that leases fixed on the basis of the high prices of the war meant ruin to the farmer if held to his engagement. 4 Parliamentary Reports, Committees, ix. 138. 3 Cobbett, Rural Rides (ed. 1885), i. 3, 16. t 264 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE There were no less than 475 petitions on agricultural distress presented to the House from 1820 to March 21, 1822. In 1822 it was proposed that the Government should purchase wheat grown in England to the value of one million sterling and store it ; also that when the average price of wheat was under 6os. the Government should advance money on such corn grown in the United Kingdom as should be deposited in certain warehouses, to an extent not exceeding two-thirds the value of the corn. 1 There were not wanting men, how- ever, who put the other side of the question. In a tract called The Refutation of the Arguments used on the Subject of the Agricultural Petition^ written in 1819, it was said that the increase in the farmer's expenditure was the cause of his discontent. ' He now assumes the manners and demands the equipage of a gentleman, keeps a table like his landlord, anticipates seasons in their productions, is as choice in his wines, his horses, and his furniture.' Let him be more thrifty. ' Let him dismiss his steward, a character a few years back only known to the great landowner, and cease from degrading the British farmer into a synonym for prodigality.' Lord Liverpool, in the House of Lords, in a speech which roused great opposition among agriculturists, minimized the distress ; distress there was, he admitted, but it was not confined to England, it was world-wide; neither was it produced by excessive taxation, for since 1815 taxation had been reduced 25 per cent., while though rents and prices had fallen they were much higher than before the war. Another writer said at the time, ' Individuals of all classes have of late been as it were inflated above their natural size : let this unnatural growth be reduced ; let them resume their proper places and appearances, and the quantum of substantial enjoyment, real comfort and happiness, will not be found lessened.' It was also asserted that the taxes on malt, leather, soap, salt, and candles, were not very pressing. 1 Report of the Committee on Agricultural Depression (1822), pp. 3, 4. DEPRESSION 265 The persistent cries of distress produced a Bill giving still further protection to corn-growers, which was fortunately not carried into effect. There was no doubt, however, about the reality of the crisis through which the landed classes were passing. Many of the landowners were heavily in debt. Mortgages had been multiplied during the war, and while prices were high payment of interest was easy ; but when prices fell and the tenant threw up his farm, the landlord could not throw over the mortgage, and the interest hung like a dead weight round his neck. 1 The price to which wheat fell at the end of 1822 was to be the lowest for some years ; it soon recovered, and until 1834 the average annual prices ranged from 53^. to 68s. 6d., while in 1825 beef at Smithfield was $s. and mutton 55-. A,d. a stone. In 1823 there was a marked improvement, and the king's speech congratulated the country on ' the gradual abatement of those difficulties under which agriculture has so long suffered. 2 In 1824 'agriculture was recovering from the depression under which it laboured.' 3 In 1825 it was said, ' there never was a period in the history of this country when all the great interests of the nation were in so thriving a con- dition.' 4 In that year over-speculation produced a panic and agricultural distress was again evident. In 1826 Cobbett said, ' the present stock of the farms is not in one-half the cases the property of the farmer, it is borrowed stock.' 5 In 1828 all the farmers in Kent were said to be insolvent. 6 At the meeting of Parliament in 1830 the king lamented the state of affairs, and ascribed it to unfavourable seasons and other causes beyond the reach of legislative remedy. Many had learnt that high protection was no protection 1 Walpole, History of England, ii. 23. 2 Hansard, ix. 1544. 3 Ibid. x. I, 2. 4 Ibid. xii. I. 5 Rural Rides, ii. 199. 6 Walpole, History of England, ii. 526. The distress was aggravated by rot among sheep, which is said to have destroyed one-fourth of those in the kingdom. See Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1836), viii (2), p. 198. 266 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE for farmers, and it was stated more than once that the large foreign supply of grain, though only then about one-third of the home-grown, depressed our markets. At the same time, it must be admitted that agriculture, like all other industries, was suffering from the crisis of 1835. In 1830, the country was filled with unrest, in which the farm labourer shared. His motives, however, were hardly political. He had a rooted belief that machinery was injuring him, the threshing machine especially ; and he avenged himself by burning the ricks of obnoxious farmers. Letters were sent to employers demanding higher wages and the disuse of machines, and notices signed ' Swing ' were affixed to gates and buildings. Night after night incendiary fires broke out, and emboldened by impunity the rioters proceeded to pillage by day. In Hampshire they moved in bodies 1,500 strong. A special Commission was appointed, and the disorders put down at last with a firm hand. In 1828 there had been a relaxation in the duties on corn, the object of the Act passed in that/ year being to secure the farmer a constant price of 8j. a bushel instead of los. as in 1815, and by a sliding scale to prevent! the disastrous fluctuations in prices. The best proof of its failure is afforded by the appointment of another parlia- mentary committee in 1833 to inquire into the distressed state of agriculture. At this inquiry many witnesses asserted that the cultivation of inferior soils and heavy clays had diminished from one-fourth to one-fifth. 1 It was also asserted that farmers were paying rent out of capital. 2 Tooke, how- ever, thought there was much exaggeration of the distress, which was proved by the way the farmers weathered the low prices of i 835, when wheat, after a succession of four remark- ably good seasons, averaged 39^. ^d. for the year. In these abundant years, too, he asserts that the home supply was equal to the demand, 3 though the committee of 1833 had 1 Tooke, History of Prices, ii. 227. 2 Report of 1833, p. 6. 3 Tooke, History of Prices, ii. 238. DEPRESSION 267 stated that this had ceased to be the case. 1 Another com- mittee, the last for many years, sat in 1835 to consider the distress ; but although prices were low the whole tenor of the evidence established the improvement of farming, the exten- sion of cultivation, and the increase of produce, and it was noticed at this time that towns dependent on agriculture were uniformly prosperous. 2 On the whole, in spite of exaggeration from interested motives, the distress for the twenty years after the battle of Waterloo was real and deep ; twenty years of depression succeeded the same period of false exaltation. The progress, too, during that time was real, and made, as was remarked, because of adversity. From this time agriculture slowly revived. On one point both of the two last committees were agreed, that the condition of the labourer was improved, and they said he was better off than at any former period, for his wages remained the same, while prices of necessaries had fallen. That his wages went further is true, but they were still miserably low, and he was often housed worse than the animals on the farm. 'Wattle and dab' (or mud and straw) formed the walls of his cottage, the floors were often of mud, and all ages and both sexes frequently slept in one room. A block of ten cottages were put up in the parish of Holmer 3 1 Imports fell considerably at this date ; they were: 1832 . . . 1,254,351 quarters. 1836 . . 861,156 quarters 1833 . . . 1,166,457 1837 . . 1,109,492 1834 . . . 981,486 1838 . . 1,923,40 1835 . 75o,8o8 There were also considerable exports : 1832 . . . 289,558 quarters. 1836 . . 256,978 quarters. 1833 . . . 96,212 1837 . . 308,420 1834 . . . 159,482 1838 . . 158,621 1835 . . . 134,076 M c Culloch, Commercial Dictionary (1847), p. 438. 2 Porter, Progress of the Nation, p. 151. 3 See Duncumb, General View of Herefordshire (1805). 268 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE at the commencement of the nineteenth century, which were said to have combined ' comfort, convenience, and economy ; ' they each contained one room 12 feet by 14 feet and 6 feet high with a bedroom over, and cost ,32 IQS. each. They were evidently considered quite superior dwellings, far better than the ordinary run of labourer's cottages. Cobbett gives us a picture of some in Leicestershire in 1826 ; ' hovels made of mud and straw, bits of glass, or of old cast-off windows, without frames or hinges frequently, and merely stuck in the mud wall. Enter them and look at the bits of chairs or stools, the wretched boards tacked together to serve for a table, the floor of pebble, broken brick, or of the bare ground ; look at the thing called a bed, and survey the rags on the backs of the wretched inhabitants.' 1 The chief exceptions to this state of affairs were the estates of many of the great landlords. On that of the Earl of Winchelsea in Rutland, the cottages he had built contained a kitchen, parlour, dairy, two bedrooms, and a cow-house, and several had small holdings attached of from 5 to 20 acres. 2 Not long before, wages in Hampshire and Wiltshire were $s. and 6s, a week. 3 In 1822 it was stated that 'beef and mutton are things the taste of which was unknown to the mass of labourers. No one has lived more in cottages than I, and I declare solemnly I never remember once to have seen such a thing.' 4 A group of women labourers, whom Cobbett saw by the roadside in Hampshire, presented ' such an assemblage of rags as I never saw before even amongst the hoppers at Farnham.' 5 The labourer's wages may have gone a little further, but he 1 Rural Rides, ii. 348. 2 Loudon, Encyclopaedia of Agriculture (1831), p. 1156. 3 Cobbett, Rural Rides, i. 149. The average, however, now was about 9-r. ; see Parliamentary Reports, v. 72. 4 A Letter to the Earl of Liverpool by an Old Tory (1822), p. 16. 8 Rural Rides, i. 18. DEPRESSION 269 had lost his by-industries, his bit of land and rights of/ common, and would have had a very different tale to tell! from that of the framers of the reports above quoted. In spite of the complaints made that the improvements of the coaches and of the roads drew the countryman to the towns, many stirred hardly at all from their native parish, and their lives were now infinitely duller than in the Middle Ages. The great event of the year was the harvest home, which was usually a scene of great merry-making. In Devonshire, when a farmer's wheat was ripe he sent round notice to the neighbourhood, and men and women from all sides came to reap the crop. As early as eleven or twelve, so much ale and cider had been drunk that the shouts and ribald jokes of the company were heard to a considerable distance, attract- ing more helpers, who came from far and near, but none were allowed to come after 12 o'clock. Between 12 and i came dinner, with copious libations of ale and cider, which lasted till 2, when reaping was resumed and went on without interruption except from the squabbles of the company till 5, when what were called ' drinkings ', or more food and drink, were taken into the field and consumed. After this the corn reaped was bound into sheaves till evening, when after the sport of throwing their reaping hooks at a sheaf which had been set up as a mark for a prize, all proceeded to supper and more ale and cider till the small hours. 1 No wages were paid at these harvestings, but the unlimited amount of eating and drinking was very expensive, and about this date the practice of using hired labour had largely super- seded this old custom. The close of this period was marked by two Acts of great benefit to farmers: the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (4 & 5 Wm. IV, c. 76), which reduced the rates, 2 and marked 1 Moore, History of Devonshire, i. 430. 2 By this Act and the various amending Acts the law of settlement, so long a burden on the labourer, is now settled thus : a settlement may be 270 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE ' the beginning of a period of slow recovery in the labourer's standard of life, moral and material, though at first it brought him not a little adversity ' ; l and the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 (6 & 7 Wm. IV, c. 71), which substituted for the tithe paid in kind or the fluctuating commuted tithe, a tithe rent charge equivalent to the market value, on a septennial average, of the exact quantities of wheat, barley, and oats, which made up the legal tithes by the estimate in 1836. Thus was removed a perpetual source of dispute and antagonism between tithe-payer and tithe-owner. The system hitherto pursued, moreover, was wasteful. In exceptionally favour- able circumstances the clergy did not receive more than two- thirds of the value of the tithe in kind. The delays were a frequent source of loss. In rainy weather, when the farmer desired to get his crops in quickly, he was obliged to shock his crops, give the tithe-owners notice to set out their tithes, and wait for their arrival ; in the meantime the crop, perhaps, being badly damaged. 2 acquired by birth, parentage, marriage, renting a tenement, by being bound apprentice and inhabiting, by estate, payment of taxes, and by residence. Stephen, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1903), iii. 87. 1 Hasbach, op. cit. p. 217. 2 R. A. S. E. Journal (1901), p. 9. V CHAPTER XX 18371875 REVIVAL OF AGRICULTURE. THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. CORN LAW REPEAL. A TEMPORARY SET-BACK. THE HALCYON DAYS THE revival of agriculture roughly coincided with the/ accession of Queen Victoria. It was proved that Scotch farmers who had farmed highly had weathered the storm. Instead of repeatedly calling on Parliament to help them they had helped themselves, by spending large sums in draining and manuring the land ; they had adopted the subsoil plough, and the drainage system of Smith of Deanston, used machinery to economize labour, and improved the breed of stock. This was an object-lesson for the English farmer, and he began to profit by it. It was high time that he did. In spite of the undoubted progress made, farming was still often terribly backward. Little or no machinery was used, implements were often bad, teams too large, drilling little practised, drainage utterly inefficient ; in fact, while one farmer used all the improvements made, a hundred had little to do with them. But better times were at hand. About 1835 Elkington's system of drainage, which among the more advanced agriculturists, at any rate, had been used for half a century, was superseded by that of James Smith of Deanston, a system of thorough drainage and deep ploughing, which effected a complete revolution in the art of draining, and holds the field to-day. Hitherto the draining of land had been done by a few drains where they were thought necessary, which was often a failure. Smith initiated a complete system of parallel underground drains, near enough to each other to catch all the superfluous water, running into a main drain 272 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE which ran along the lowest part of the ground. His system has also been called ' furrow or frequent draining ', as the drains were generally laid in the furrows from two to two-and- a-half feet deep at short intervals. Even then the tributary drains were at first filled in with stones 12 inches deep, as they had been for centuries, and sometimes with thorns, or even turves, as tiles were still expensive ; and the main was made of stonework. However, the invention of machines for making tiles cheapened them, and the substitution of cylin- drical pipes for horse-shoe tiles laid on flat soles still further lowered the cost and increased the efficiency. 1 In 1848, Peel introduced Government Drainage Loans, repayable by twenty- two instalments of 6\ per cent. This was consequently an' era of extensive drainage works all over England, which sorely needed it ; but even now the work was often badly done. In some cases it was the custom for the tenant to put in as many tiles as his landlord gave him, and they were often merely buried. At Stratfieldsaye, for instance, where the Iron Duke was a generous and capable landlord, the drains were some- times a foot deep, while others were 6 feet deep and 60 feet apart, 2 although the soil required nothing of the kind. Vast sums were also spent on farm-buildings, still often old and rickety, with deficient and insanitary accommodation ; in Devonshire the farmer was bound by his lease to repair ' old mud and wooden houses', at a cost of 10 per cent, on his rent, and there were many such all over England. Farm- buildings were often at the extreme end of the holding, the cattle were crowded together in draughty sheds, and the farmyard was generally a mass of filth and spoiling manure, spoiling because all the liquid was draining away from it into the pool where the live stock drank ; a picture, alas, often true to-day. It was to bring the great mass of landlords and 1 Cylindrical pipes came in about 1843, though they had been recom- mended in 1727 by Switzer. 2 R.A.S. E. Journal (ist series), xxii. 260. THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 273 farmers into line with those who had made the most of what progress there had been, that the Royal Society was founded y in 1838, in imitation of the Highland Society, but also owing > to the realization of the great benefits conferred on farming during the last half-century by the exertions of Agricultural Societies, the Smithfield Club Shows having especially aided the breeding of live stock. Writing on the subject of the Society, Mr. Handley l spoke of the wretched modes of farming still to be seen in the country, especially in the case of arable land, though there had been a marked improvement in the breeding of stock. Prejudice, as ever, was rampant. Bone manure, though in the previous twenty years it had worked wonders, was in many parts unused. It was felt that what the English farmer needed was ' practice with science '. The first President of the Society was Earl Spencer, and it at once set vigorously to work, recommending prizes for essays on twenty-four subjects, some of which are in the first volume of the Society's Journal. Prizes were also offered for the best draining-plough, the best implement for crushing gorse, for a ploughing match to be held at the first country meeting of the Society fixed at Oxford in 1839, for the best cultivated farm in Oxfordshire and the adjacent counties, and for the invention of any new agricultural implement. In 1840 the Society was granted a charter under the title ( of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and its career since then has been one of continued usefulness, and forms, a prominent feature in the agricultural history of the times. In 18392 the first country meeting of the Society was held at Oxford, and its 247 entries of live stock and 54 of implements were described as constituting a show of un- precedented magnitude. According to Belts Weekly Mes- senger for July 22, 1839, the show for some time had been the all - absorbing topic of conversation not only among 1 R. A. S. E. Journal, 1890, pp. I sq. 2 Ibid., 1894, pp. 205 sq. 274 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE agriculturists, but among the community at large, and the first day 20,000 people attended the show, many having come great distances by road. Everybody and every exhibit had to get to Oxford by road ; some Shorthorn cattle, belonging to the famous Thomas Bates of Kirkleavington, took nearly three weeks on the road, coming from London to Aylesbury by canal. But such a journey was not unusual then, for cattle were often two or three weeks on the road to great fairs, and stood the journey best on hay; it was surprising how fresh and sound they finished. 1 The show ground covered 7 acres, and among the implements tested was a subsoil plough, Biddell's Scarifier, and a drill for deposit- ing manure after turnips. There were only six classes for cattle Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Cattle of any other breed, Dairy Cattle, and Oxen; one class for horses, and three for sheep Leicesters, Southdown or other Short Wool, and Long Woolled ; with one for pigs. 2 The Shorthorns, with the exception of the Kirkleavingtons, were bred in the neighbourhood, and many good judges said long afterwards that a finer lot had not been seen since. The Duchesses especially impressed all who saw them. The rest of the live stock was in no way remarkable. From this small beginning, then thought so much of, the show grew fast, and the Warwick meeting 3 of 1892, after several years of agricultural depression, illustrates the excel- lent work of the Society and the enormous progress made by English agriculture. The show ground covered 90 acres ; horses were now divided into Thoroughbred Stallions, Hunters, Coach Horses, Hackneys, Ponies, Harness Horses and Ponies, Shires, Clydesdales, Suffolks, and Agricultural Horses. Cattle were classified as Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Sussex, Longhorns (described as few in number and of no particular quality, ' a breed which has now been many 1 McCombie, Cattle and Cattle Breeders, p. 33. 2 These classes, however, did not comprise all the then known breeds of live stock. 3 R.A.S.E. Journal, 1892, pp. 479 sq. ARTIFICIAL MANURES 275 years on the wane', but has recently been revived), 1 Welsh, Red Polled, Jerseys, Guernseys, Kerry and Dexter-Kerry. The increased variety of sheep was also striking ; Leicesters, Cotswolds, Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Shropshires, Southdowns, Hampshire Downs, Suffolks, Border Leicesters, Clun Forest, and Welsh Mountain. Pigs were divided into Large, Middle, and Small white Berkshires, any other black breed, and Tamworths. Altogether the total number of stock exhibited was 1,858, and the number of implements was 5430. In 1840 appeared Liebig's Chemistry in its Application to\ Agriculture and Physiology ', tracing the relations between the nutrition of plants and the composition of the soil, a book which was received with enthusiasm, and completely changed the attitude which agriculturists generally had maintained towards chemistry ; one of contempt, founded on ignorance. But, as Mr. Prothero has said, 2 ' if the new agriculture was born in the laboratory of Glissen, it grew into strength at the experimental station of Rothamsted.' There, for more than half a century, Lawes and Gilbert conducted experiments, of vast benefit to agriculture, in the objects, method, and effect of manuring ; the scientific bases for the rotation of crops, and the results of various foods on animals in the production of meat, milk, and manure. The use of artificial manures now spread rapidly ; bones, used long before uncrushed, are said to have been first crushed in 1772, and their value was realized by Coke of Holkham, but for long they were crushed by hammer or horse mill, and their use was consequently limited. Then iron rollers worked by steam ground them cheaply and effectively, and their use soon spread, though it was not till about 1840 that it can be said to have become general. Its effects were often described 1 At the show at Birmingham in 1898 there were 22 entries of Long- horns ; in 1899 a Longhorn Cattle Society was established, and the herd- book resuscitated. More than twenty herds of the breed are now well established. s R. A. S. E. Journal, 1901, p. 24. T 2 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE as wonderful. In Cheshire, cheese-making had exhausted the soil, and it was said that by boning and draining an additional cow could be kept for every 4 acres, and tenants readily paid 7 per cent, to their landlords for expenditure in bone manure. Its use had indeed raised many struggling farmers to com- parative independence. 1 A very large quantity of the bones used came from South America. 2 Porter also noticed that 'since 1840 an extensive trade has been carried on in an article called Guano ', the guana of Davy, ' from the islands of the Pacific and off the coast of Africa '. Nitrate of soda was just coming in, but was not much used till some years later. In 1840 Liebig suggested the treatment of bones with sul- phuric acid, and in 1843 Lawes patented the process and set up his works at Deptford. 3 Italian rye grass, not to be confounded with the old English ray grass, had been introduced by Thomson of Banchory, in 1834, from Munich; 4 and though the swede was known at the end of the eighteenth century, in many parts it had only just become common. In Notts it was in 1 844 described as having recently become ' the sheet-anchor of the farmer 5 '. In Cheshire a writer at the same date said, ' in the year 1814 there were not 5 acres of Swedish turnips grown in the parish where I reside ; now there are from 60 to 80, and in many parts of the county the increase has been in a much greater ratio.' G About this time a remedy was found in the south for leaving the land idle during the nine months between har- vesting the corn crop in August, and sowing the turnip crop in the following June, by sowing rye, which was eaten green by the sheep in May, a good preparation for the succeeding winter crop. Turnip cutters were at last being used, and corn and cake crushers soon followed. 1 Caird, English Agriculture in 1850-1, pp. 252 sq. 2 Porter, Progress of the Nation, p. 142. 3 R. A. S.E. Journal, 1901, p. 25. 4 Ibid., 1896, p. 96. B Ibid, (ist sen), vi. 2. 6 Ibid. (1st ser.), v. 102. CORN LAW REPEAL 277 The seasons from 1838 to 1841 were bad, and must be characterized as a period of dearth, wheat keeping at a good price. 1 That of 1844-5 was remarkable for the first general appearance of the potato disease, not only in these islands but on the continent of Europe. 2 In August, 1 846, the worst apprehensions of the failure of the crop were more than realized, and the terrible results in Ireland are well known. In the early part of 1847 there was a fear of scarcity in corn, and the price of wheat rose to 1025". $d. in spite of an importation of 4,500,000 quarters, but this was largely owing to the absence of any reliable agricultural statistics, which were not furnished till 1866, and the price soon fell. 3 We have now reached the period of free trade, when the Corn Laws, which had protected agriculture more or less effectually for so long, were definitely abandoned. That they had failed to prevent great fluctuations in the price of corn is abundantly evident, it is also equally evident that they kept up the average price; in the ten years from 1837 to 1846, the average price of wheat was 58^. 'jd. a quarter, in the seven years from 1848 to 1853, the average price was 48.5-. id.^ The average imports of wheat and flour for the same period were 2,161,813 and 4,401,000 quarters 1 1838, 64*. yd. ; 1839, 7o.y. Set. ; 1840, 66s. 4,d. ; 1841, 64^. ^d. 2 Tooke, History of Prices, iv. 19. s C. Wren Hoskyns, Agricultural Statistics, p. 5. 4 The abnormal prices during the Crimean War cannot fairly be taken into account. The home and foreign supplies of wheat and flour from 1839-46 were: Home Supplies. Foreign Supplies. qrs. qrs. 1839-40 4,022,000 1,762,482 1840-1 3,870,648 1,925,241 1841-2 3,626,173 2,985,422 1842-3 5,078,989 2,405,217 1843-4 5> 2I 3>454 1,606,912 1844-5 6,664,368 476,190 1845-6 5,699,969 2,732,134 Tooke, History of Prices, iv. 414. 1844-5 was a verv abundant crop, and the threatened repeal of the Corn Laws induced farmers to send all the corn possible to market. 278 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE respectively. But to obtain the real effect of free trade on prices, the prices for the period between 1815 and 1846 must be compared with those between 1846 and the present day, when the fall is enormous. The Act of 1815, which Tooke said had failed to secure any one of the objects aimed at by its promoters, had received two important alterations. In 1828 (9 Geo. IV, c. 60) a duty of 36^. 8^/. was imposed when the price was 50^., decreasing to is. when it was 'jy. In 1842 (5 Viet. c. 14) a duty of 2oj. was imposed when the price was 50^., and the duty became js. when the price reached 65.$-. A contemporary writer denies that these duties benefited the farmer at all : ' if the present shifting scale of duty was intended to protect the farmer, keep the prices of corn steady, insure a supply to the consumer at a moderate price, and benefit the revenue, it has signally failed. During the con- tinuation of the Corn Laws the farmers have suffered the greatest privations. The variations in price have been extreme, and when a supply of foreign corn has been required it has only reached the consumer at a high price, and benefited the revenue little.' 1 Rents of farms were often calculated not on the market price of wheat, but on the price thought to be fixed by the duties, which was occasionally much higher. 2 It was also said that but for the restrictions that had been imposed in the supposed interests of agriculture, the skill and enterprise of farmers would have been better directed than it had been. By means of these restrictions and the consequent enhancement of the cost of living, the cultivation of the land had been injuriously restricted, for the energies of farmers had been limited to producing certain descriptions of food, and they had neglected others which would have been 1 Tooke, History of Prices, iv. 32. 2 Cobden's Speech, March 12, 1844. RESULTS OF PROTECTION 279 far l more profitable. The landlord had profited by higher rents, but, according to Caird, a most competent observer, had generally speaking been induced by a reliance on pro- tection to neglect his duty to his estates, so that buildings were poor, and drainage neglected. The labourer was little if any better off than eighty years before. It was a mystery even to farmers how they lived in many parts of the country ; 'our common drink', said one, 'is burnt crust tea, we never know what it is to get enough to eat.' 2 Against these dis- advantages can only be put the fact that protection had kept up the price of corn, a calamity for the mass of the people. The amount of wheat imported into England before the \ era of Corn Law repeal was inconsiderable. Mr. Porter has l shown 3 how very small a proportion of wheat used in this country was imported from 1801-44. From 1801 to 1810 the average annual import of wheat into the kingdom was 600,946 quarters, or a little over a peck annually per head, the average annual consumption per head being about eight bushels. Between 1811 and 1820 the average importation was 458,578 quarters, or for the increased population a gallon-and-a-half per head, and the same share for each person was imported in the next decade 1821-30. From 1831-40 the average imports arose to 607,638 quarters, or two-and-a-quarter gallons per head, and in 184 1-4 an average import of 1,901,495 quarters raised the average supply to four-and-a-half gallons per person, still a very small proportion of the amount consumed. In 1836 a small association had been formed in London for advocating the repeal of the Cora Laws, and in 1838 a similar association was formed in Manchester. 4 At one 1 Tooke, History of Prices, iv. 142. 8 From evidence collected by Mr. Austin in the southern counties. 3 Progress of Nation, pp. 137 sq. For the amount imported before that date, see Appendix 2. 4 Walpole, History of England, iv. 63 sq. Cobden apparently never contemplated such low prices for corn as have prevailed since 1883. In his speech of March 12, 1844, he mentioned 501. a quarter as a probable price under free trade, and he died before the full effect of foreign com- petition was felt by the English farmer. 280 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE of its earliest meetings appeared Richard Cobden, under whose guidance the association became the Anti-Corn Law League, and at whose invitation John Bright joined the League. Under these two men the Anti-Corn Law League commenced its great agitation, its object being 'to convince the manufacturer that the Corn Laws were interfering with the growth of trade, to persuade the people that they were raising the price of food, to teach the agriculturist that they had not even the solitary merit of securing a fixed price for corn'. The country was deluged with pamphlets, backed up by constant public meetings ; and these efforts, aided by unfavourable seasons, convinced many of the errors of pro- tection. In 1840 the League spent 5,700 in distributing 160,000 circulars and 150,000 pamphlets, and in delivering 400 lectures to 800,000 people. Bakers were persuaded to bake taxed and untaxed shilling loaves, and, on the purchaser choosing the larger, to demand the tax from the landlord ; in 1843 the League collected 50,000, next year 100,000, and in 1845 250,000 in support of their agitation. Yet for some years they had little success in Parliament ; even in 1842 Peel only amended the laws ; and it was not until 1846 that, convinced by the League's arguments, as he himself confessed, and stimulated by the famine in Ireland, he introduced the famous Act, 9 & 10 Viet. c. 22. By this the maximum duty on imported wheat was at once to be reduced to los. a quarter when the price was under 485-., to 5-y. on barley when the price was under 26s., and to 4s. on oats when the price was under ifts., with lower duties as prices rose above these figures, but the most important part of the Act was that on February i, 1849, these duties were to cease, and only a nominal duty of is. a quarter on \ foreign corn be retained, which was abolished in 1860. , By 9 and 10 Viet. c. 23 the duties on live stock were also abolished entirely. Down to 1842 the importation of horned cattle, sheep, hogs, and other animals used as food was CAIRO'S TOUR 281 strictly prohibited, 1 but in that year the prohibition was withdrawn and they were allowed to enter the country on a payment of 2os. a head on oxen and bulls, 15^. on cows, 3^. on sheep, $s. on hogs ; which duties continued till 1846. It is interesting to find that so shrewd an observer as McCulloch did not expect any great increase in the imports of live animals from the reduction of the duties, but he antici- pated a great increase in salted meat from abroad ; cold storage being then undreamt of. The full effect of this momentous change was not to be felt for a generation, but the immediate effect was an agricul- tural panic apparently justified by falling prices. In 1850 wheat averaged 40^. $d. and in 1851 385-. 6d. On the other hand, stock farmers were doing well. But on the corn lands the prices of the protection era had to come down ; many farms were thrown up, some arable turned into pasture ; dis- tress was widespread. Owing to the depressed state of agriculture in 1850, the Times sent James Caird on a tour through England, and one of the most important conclusions arrived at in his account of his tour is, that owing to protection, the majority of landowners had neglected their land ; but another cause of neglect was that the great body of English landlords knew nothing of the management of their estates, and committed it to agents who knew little more and merely* received the rents. The important business of being a land- owner is the only one for which no special training is provided. Many of the landlords, however, then, as now, were unable tOi improve their estates if they desired to do so, as they were hopelessly encumbered, and the expense of sale was almost prohibitive. The contrast between good and bad farmers was more marked in 1 850 than to-day, the efforts of the Royal Agricultural Society to raise the general standard of farming had not yet borne much fruit. In many counties, side by side, were farmers who used every modern improvement, and those 1 McCulloch, Commercial Dictionary, 1847, p. 274. See below, pp. 325 sq. 282 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE who still employed the methods of the eighteenth century : on one farm wheat producing 40 bushels an acre, threshed by steam at a cost of 3^. 6d., on the next 20 bushels to the acre threshed by the flail at a cost of qs. 1 Drainage in the counties where it was needed had made considerable progress, the removal of useless hedgerows often crowded with timber, that kept the sun from the crops and whose roots absorbed much of the nourishment of the soil, was slowly extending, but farm-buildings almost everywhere were defective. ' The inconvenient ill-arranged hovels, the rickety wood and thatch barns and sheds devoid of every known improvement for economizing labour, food, and manure, which are to be met with in every county in England, are a reproach to the landlords in the eyes of all good farmers.' 2 The farm- buildings of Belgium, Holland, France, and the Rhenish Pro- vinces were much superior. In parts of England indeed no progress seems to have been made for generations at this date. Thousands of acres of peat moss in Lancashire were unre- claimed, and many parts of the Fylde district were difficult even to traverse. Even in Warwickshire, in the heart of England, between Knowle and Tamworth, instead of signs of industry and improvement were narrow winding lanes leading to! nothing, traversed by lean pigs and rough cattle, broad copse- i like hedges, small and irregular fields of couch, amidst which straggled the stalks of some smothered cereal ; these with gipsy encampments and the occasional sound of the poacher's gun from woods and thickets around were the characteristics of the district. 3 Leases were the exception throughout England, though more prevalent in the west. 4 The greater proportion of farms were held on yearly agreements terminable by six months' notice on either side, a system preferred by the landlord as enabling him to retain a greater hold over his land, and 1 Caird, English Agriculture in 1850-1, p. 498. 2 Ibid. p. 490. 3 Victoria County History : Warwickshire, ii. 277. 4 Caird, op. '/., p. 481. LEASES 283 acquiesced in by the tenant because of easy rents. In spite of this insecurity of tenure and the absence of Agricultural Holdings Acts, the tenants invested their capital largely with no other security than the landlord's character, ' for in no country of the world does the character of any class of men stand so high for fair and generous dealing as that of the great body of the English landlords.' The custom of tenant-right was unknown except in certain/ counties, Surrey, Sussex, the Weald of Kent, Lincoln, North Notts, and in part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. 1 Where it existed, the agriculture was on the whole inferior to that of the districts where it did not, and it had frequently led to fraud in a greater or less degree. Many farmers were in the practice of ' working up to a quitting ', or making a profit by the difference which their ingenuity and that of their valuer enabled them to demand at leaving as compared with what they paid on entry. The best farmers as well as the landlords were said to be disgusted with the system. The dislike for leases in the days immediately before the repeal of the Corn Laws was partly due to the uncertainty how long protection would last ; but chiefly then, as afterwards, to the fact that if a man improved his farm under a lease he had nearly always to pay an increased rent on renewal, but if he held from year to year his improvement, if any, was so gradual and imper- ceptible that it was hardly noticed and the rent was not raised. It may also be attributable to the modern disinclina- tion to be bound down to a particular spot for a long period. At all events, the general dislike of farmers for leases is a curious commentary on the assertions of those writers who said that leases were his chief necessity. The disparity of the labourer's wages in 1850 was most remarkable, ranging from i$s. a week in parts of Lancashire to 6s. in South Wilts, the average of the northern counties being us. 6d., and of the southern Ss. $d. a difference due 1 Caird, op. at., p. 507. 284 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE wholly to the influence of manufactures, which is still further proved by the fact that in Lancashire in 1770 wages were below the average for England. In fact since Young's time . wages in the north had increased 66 per cent., in the south; only 14 per cent. In Berkshire and Wiltshire there had been no increase in that period, and in Suffolk an actual decrease. It is not surprising to learn that in some southern counties wages were not sufficient for healthy sustenance, and the consequence was, that there, the average amount of poor relief per head of population was 8s. 8^, but in the north 4s. 7|^., and the percentage of paupers was twice as great in the former as in the latter. This was mainly due to two causes: (i) the ratepayers of parishes in the south were accustomed to divide among themselves the surplus labour, not according to their requirements but in proportion to the size of their farms, so that a farmer who was a good economist of labour was reduced by this system to the same level as his unskilful neighbours, and the labourer himself had no motive to do his best, as every one, good and bad, was employed at the same rate. (2) To the system of close and open parishes, by which large proprietors could drive the labourer from the parish where he worked to live in some distant village in case he should become chargeable to the rates, so that it was a common thing to see labourers walking three or four miles each day to their work and back, and in one county farmers provided donkeys for them. Between 1840 and 1850 the labourer had, how- ever, already benefited by free trade, for the price of many articles he consumed fell 30 % ; on the other hand the rent of his cottage in eighty years had increased 100 %, and meat 70 %, which however did not, unfortunately, affect him much. The great development of railway construction also helped him by absorbing much surplus labour, and the work of his wife and children was more freely exploited at this date to swell the family budget. 1 1 Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 220, 226. THE LABOURER'S COTTAGE 285 The great difference between the wages of the north and the south is a clear proof that the wages of the agricultural labourer are not dependent on the prices of agricultural produce, for those were the same in both regions. It was unmis- takably due to the greater demand for labour in the north. The housing of the labourer was, especially in the south, often a black blot on English civilization. From many instances collected by an inquirer in 1844 the following may be taken. At Stourpaine in Dorset, one bedroom in a cottage contained three beds occupied by eleven people of all ages and both sexes, with no curtain or partition whatever. At . Milton Abbas, on the average of the last census there were thirty-six persons in each house, and so crowded were they that cottagers with a desire for decency would combine and place all the males in one cottage, and all the females in another. But this was rare, and licentiousness and im- morality of the worst kind were frequent. 1 As for the farmer, the stock raiser was doing better than the corn grower. The following table shows the rent of cultivated land per acre, the produce of wheat per acre in bushels, the price of provisions, wages of labour, and rent of cottages in England at the date of Young's tours, about 1770, and of Caird's in 1850 : 2 Rent of cultivated land Produce of Price per Ib. of per acre. Wheat per acre. Bread. Meat. Butter. 1770 13.?. 4//. 23 \\d. $\d. 6d. 1850 26s. lod. 26 3 l\d. 5 - In Berks, and Wilts, farms let at 14*. per acre in 1790, rose by 1810 to 70^., or fivefold ; sank in 1820 to 50^.. and in 1847 to 30^. In Staffordshire farms on one estate let for 8j. an acre in 1790, rose during the war to 35^., and at the peace were lowered to 20^., at which price they remained. Owing to better farming light soils had been applied to uses for which heavy lands alone had formerly been considered fit, with a considerable increase of rent. On the Duke of Rutland's 2 Belvoir estate, of from 18,000 to 20,000 acres of above average quality, rents were in 1799 . . . 19^. 3f^. an acre. 1812 . . . 25^. 8|^. 1830 . . . 25 s. ild. 1850 . . . 36*. %d. But the Dukes of Rutland were indulgent landlords and evidently took no undue advantage of the high prices during the war, a policy whose wisdom was fully justified afterwards. It was the opinion of most competent judges, even after the abolition of the Corn Laws, that English land would continue 1 Progress of the Nation, p. 151. 2 Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, v. 29. RECOVERY 387 to rise in value. Porter stated that the United Kingdom could never be habitually dependent on the soil of other countries for the food of its people, there was not enough shipping to transport it if it could. 1 Caird prophesied that in the next eighty years the value of land in England would more than double. The wellnigh universal opinion was that as the land of England could not increase, and the population was constantly increasing, land must become dearer. Men failed to foresee the opening of millions of acres of virgin soil in other parts of the world, and the improvement of transport to such an extent that wheat has occasionally been carried as ballast. About twenty- five or thirty years after these prophecies their fallacy began to be cruelly exposed, 2 About i853 3 matters began to mend, chiefly owing to the great expansion in trade that followed the great gold dis- coveries in America and Australia. Then came the Crimean/ War, with the closing of the Baltic to the export of Russian) corn, wheat in 1855 averaging 74^. 8<, and in the next decade the American War crippled another competitor, the imports! of wheat from the United States sinking from 16,140,000 cwt. in 1862 to 635,000 cwt. in 1866. From 1853 until 1875 English agriculture prospered exceedingly, assisted largely by good seasons. Between 1854 and 1865 there were ten good harvests, and only two below the average. Prices of produce rose almost continuously, and the price and rent of land with them. The trade of the country was good, and the demand for the farmer's products steadily grew ; the capital value of the land, live stock, and crops upon it, increased in this period by 445,000,000.* 1 Progress of the Nation, pp. 137-9. 8 Yet as the growth of population overtakes the corn and meat supply, these prophets may in the end prove correct. s The Great Exhibition of 1851 was said to have widely diffused the use of improved implements. R. A. S.E. Journal, 1856, p. 54. 4 R. A. S. E.Jozirnal, 1890, p. 34. 288 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE It appeared as if the abolition of the Corn Laws was not to have any great effect after all. Now at last the great body of farmers began to approach the standard set them long before by the more energetic and enterprising. Early maturity in finishing live stock for the market by scientific feeding probably added a fourth to their weight. The produce of crops per acre grew, and drainage and improvements were carried out on all sides, the greatest improvement being made in the cultivation and management of strong lands, of which drainage was the foundation, and en- abled the occupier to add swedes to his course of cropping. 1 It was in this period that Shorthorns, Herefords, and Devons attained a standard of excellence which has made them sought after by the whole world ; and other breeds were perfected, the Sussex and Aberdeen Angus especially ; while in sheep the improvement was perhaps even greater. 2 The improved Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Hampshire Downs, and Shropshires took their place as standard breeds at this period. In 1866, after many years of expectation and disappointment, agri- culturists were furnished with statistics which are trustworthy for practical purpose, but are somewhat vitiated by the fact that the live stock census was taken on March 5. which obviously omitted a large number of young stock ; so that those for 1867, when the census was taken on June 25, are better for purposes of comparison with those of subsequent years, when the census has been taken on June 4 or 5. Between 1867 and 1878 the cattle in England and Wales had increased from 4,013,564 to 4,642,641, though sheep had diminished from 22,025,498 to 2i,369,8io. 3 The total acreage under cultivation had increased from 25,451,526 acres to 27,164,326 acres in the same period. There was, however, one black shadow in this fair picture: 1 R. A. S.E. Journal, 1856, p. 60. 2 Ibid. 1901, p. 30. See below, p. 343. 3 Board *f Agriculture Returns, 1878, and R.A.S.E. Journal, 1868, p. 239. Young estimated the number of cattle in England in 1770 at 2,852,048, including 684,491 draught cattle. Eastern Tour, iv. 456. CATTLE PLAGUES 289 in 1865 England was invaded by the rinderpest, which spread with alarming rapidity, killing 2,000 cows in a month from its first appearance, and within six months infecting thirty-six counties. 1 The alarm was general, and town and country meetings were held in the various districts where the disease appeared to concert measures of defence. The Privy Council issued an order empowering Justices to appoint inspectors authorized to seize and slaughter any animal labouring under such diseases ; but, in spite of this, the plague raged with redoubled fury throughout September. There was gross mismanagement in combating it, for the inspectors were often ignorant men, and no compensation was paid for slaughter, so that farmers often sold off most of their diseased stock before hoisting the black flag. The ravages of the disease in the London cowhouses was fearful, as might be expected and they are said to have been left empty ; by no means an unmixed evil, as the keeping of cowhouses in towns was a glaring defiance of the most obvious sanitary laws. In October a Commission was appointed to investigate the origin and nature of the disease, and the first return showed a total of 17,673 animals attacked. By March 9, 1866, 117,664 animals had died from the plague, and 26,135 been killed in the attempt to stay it. By the end of August the disease had been brought within very narrow limits, and was eventually stamped out by the resolute slaughter of all infected animals. By November 24 the number of diseased animals that had died or been killed was 209,332^ and the loss to the nation was reckoned at .3,000,000. The disease was brought by animals exported from Russia, who came from Revel, via the Baltic, to Hull. In 1872, cattle brought to the same port infected the cattle of the East Riding of Yorkshire, but this outbreak was checked before much damage had been done, and since 1877 there has been no trace of this dreaded disease in the kingdom. The cattle plague, 1 R. A.S. E. Journal (2nd ser.), ii. 230. a Ibid. iii. 430. 290 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE rinderpest, or steppe murrain, is said l to have first appeared in England in 1665, the year of the Great Plague, and re- appeared in 1714, when it came from Holland, but did little damage, being chiefly confined to the neighbourhood of London. The next outbreak was in 1745, and lasted for twelve years, undoubtedly coming from Holland ; it is said to have caused such destruction among the cattle, that much of the grass land in England was ploughed up and planted with corn, so that the exports of grain increased largely. In 1769 it came again, but only affected a few localities, and disappeared in 1771, not to return till 1865. Foot and mouth disease was first observed in England in i839, 2 and it was malignant in 1840-1, when cattle, sheep, and pigs were attacked as they were during the serious out- break of 1871-2. In 1883 no less than 219,289 cattle were attacked, besides 217,492 sheep, and 24,332 pigs, when the disease was worse than it has ever been in England. Since then, though there have been occasional outbreaks, it has much abated. Another dread scourge of cattle, pleuro-pneu- monia, was at its worst in 1872, a most calamitous year in this respect, when 7,983 cattle were attacked. In 1890 the Board of Agriculture assumed powers with respect to it under the Diseases of Animals Act of that year, and their consequent action has been attended with great success in getting rid of the disease. At the end of this halcyon period farmers had to contend with a new difficulty, the demand for higher wages by their j labourers at the instigation of Joseph j\rch. 3 This famous agitator was born at Barford in Warwickshire in 1826, and as a boy worked for neighbouring farmers, educating himself in his spare time. The miserable state of the labourer which he saw all around him entered into his soul, meat was rarely seen on his table, even bacon was a luxury in many cottages. 1 R.A. S. E. Journal (2nd ser.), ii. 270. 2 Ibid. ix. 274. 8 See Autobiography of Joseph Arch. JOSEPH ARCH 291 Tea was 6s. to JS. a lb., sugar 8d., and other prices in pro- portion ; the labourers stole turnips for food, and every other man was a poacher. Arch made himself master of everything he undertook, became famous as a hedger, mower, and ploughman, and being consequently employed all over the Midlands and South Wales, began to gauge the discontent of the labourer who was then voiceless, voteless, and hopeless. His wages by 1872 had increased to 12s. a week, but had not kept pace with the rise in prices. Bread was i\d. a loaf; the labourer had lost the benefit of his children's labour, for they had now all gone to school ; his food was ' usually potatoes, dry bread, greens, herbs, " kettle broth " made by putting bread in the kettle, weak tea, bacon sometimes, fresh meat hardly ever' l . It is difficult to realize that at the end of the third quarter of the nineteenth century, when Glad- stone said the prosperity of the country was advancing ' by leaps and bounds ', that any class of the community in full work could live under such wretched conditions. Arch came to the conclusion that labour could only improve its position when organized, and the Agricultural Labourers' Unioji^was initiated in 1872. Not that the idea of obtaining better con- ditions by combination was new to the rural labourer. It was attempted in 1832 in Dorset, but speedily crushed, and not till 1865 was a new union founded in Scotland, which was followed by a strike in Buckinghamshire in 1867, and the foundation of a union in Herefordshire in 1871.^ It was determined to ask for i6s. a week and a 9^ hours' working day, which the farmers refused to grant, and the men struck. The agitation spread all over England, and was often con- ducted unwisely and with a bitter spirit, but the labourer was embittered by generations of sordid misery. Very reluctantly,- the farmers gave way, and generally speaking wages went up' during the agitation to 14.?. or i$s. a week, though Arch!, 1 In many districts, however, his food was better than this. 2 Hasbach, op. tit,, pp. 276-7. U 2 292 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE himself admits that even during the height of it they were often only iu. and iis. With the bad times, about 1879,- wages began to fall again, and men were leaving the Agri- cultural Union; by 1882 Arch says many were again taking; what the farmer chose to give. From 1884 the Union steadily declined, and after a temporary revival about 1890, practically collapsed in 1894. Other unions had been started, but were then going down hill, and in 1906 only two remained in a moribund condition. Their main object, to raise the labourer's wages, was largely counteracted by the acute de-< pression in agriculture, and though there has since been considerable recovery, there are districts in England to-day[ where he only gets us. and izs. a week. The Labourers' Union helped to deal a severe blow to the ' gang system ', which had grown up at the beginning of the century (when the high corn prices led to the breaking up of land where there were no labourers, so that ' gangs ' were collected to cultivate it 1 ), by which overseers, often coarse bullies, employed and sweated gangs sometimes numbering 60 or 70 persons, including small children, and women, the latter frequently very bad specimens of their sex. These gangs went turnip-singling, bean-dropping, weeding ) &c., while pea-picking gangs ran to 400 or 500. Though some of these gangs were properly managed, the system was a bad one, and the Union and the Education Acts helped its disappearance. 1 Hasbach, op. at., pp. 193, et seq. The Gangs Act (30 & 31 Viet. c. 130) had already brought the system under control. CHAPTER XXI 1875 1908 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS AGAIN. FOREIGN COMPE- TITION. AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACTS NEW IMPLEMENTS. AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS. THE SITUATION IN 1908 ABOUT the year 1875 the good times came to an end. The j full force of free trade was at last felt. The seasons assisted the decline, and there was now no compensation in the shape of higher prices. In the eight years between 1874 and 1882: there were only two good crops. A new and formidable competitor had entered the field ; between 1860 and 1880 the produce of wheat in the United States had trebled. Vast stretches of virgin soil were opened up with the most astonishing rapidity by railroads, and European immigrants poured in. The cost of transport fell greatly, and England was flooded with foreign corn and meat. English land which, had to support the landlord, the tithe-owner, the land agent, the farmer, the labourer, and a large army of paupers 1 , had to compete with land where often one man was owner, farmer and labourer, with no tithe and no poor rates. Yet price; held up fairly well until 1884, when there was a collapse from which they have not yet recovered. In 1877 wheat was 565. 9^., in 1883 41 s. yd., and in 1884 35.$-. %d. ; by 1894 the average price for the year was 22s. iOd?. 2 Farmers' capital was reduced from 30 to 50 per cent., and/ rents and the purchase value of land in a similar proportion.! Poor clays only fit for wheat and beans went out of cultiva- tion, though much has since been laid down to grass, and much has ' tumbled down '. In fact most of the increased value of the good period between 1 853-75 disappeared. 1 And an ever increasing burden of taxation. 2 See Appendix III. 294 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE The year 1879 will long be remembered as 'the Black Year '. It was the worst of a succession of wet seasons in the midland, western and southern counties of England, the average rainfall being one-fourth above the average, and 1880 was little better. The land, saturated and chilled, produced coarser herbage, the finer grasses languished or were destroyed, fodder and grain were imperfectly matured. Mould and ergot were prevalent among plants, and flukes producing liver-rot among live stock, especially sheep. In 1879 in England and Wales 3,000,000 sheep died or were sacrificed from rot, 1 by 1 88 1 5,000,000 had perished at an estimated loss of ^10,000,000, and many, alas! were sent to market full of disease. Cattle also were infected, and hares, rabbits, and deer suffered. In some cases entire flocks of sheep disappeared. The disease was naturally worst on low-lying and ill-drained pastures, but occurred even on the drier uplands hitherto perfectly free from liver-rot, carried thither no doubt by the droppings of infected sheep, hares, and rabbits, and perhaps by the feet of men and animals. Apart from medicine, con- centrated dry food given systematically, the regular use of common salt, and of course removal from low-lying and damp lands, were found the best preventives. Besides this great calamity, this year was distinguished by one of the worst harvests of the century, outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, of pleuro-pneumonia, and a disastrous attack of foot-rot. The misfortunes of the landed interest produced a Commission in_i89 under the Duke of Richmond, which conducted a most laborious and comprehensive inquiry. Their report, issued in 1882, stated that they were unanimously convinced of the great intensity and extent of the distress that had fallen upon the agricultural community. Owner and occupier had alike been involved. Yet, though agricultural distress had prevailed over the whole country, the degree had varied in different counties, and in some cases in different 1 R.A.S. E. Journal, 1881, pp. 142, 199. "-'FOREIGN COMPETITION 295 parts of the same counties. Cheshire, for instance, had not suffered to anything like the same extent as other counties, nor was the depression so severe in Cumberland, Westmore- land, Northumberland, and parts of Yorkshire. The rainfall had been less in the northern counties. In the midlands, the eastern, and most of the southern counties the distress was severe, in Essex the state of agriculture was deplorable, but Kent, Devon, and Cornwall were not hardly hit. 1 The chief causes of the depression were said to be these : 1. The succession of unfavourable seasons, causing crop? deficient in quantity and quality, and losses of live stock. 2. Low prices, partly due to foreign imports and partly to the inferior quality of the home production. 3. Increased cost of production. 4. Increased pressure of local taxation by the imposition of new rates, viz. the education rate and the sanitary rate ; and the increase of old rates, especially the highway rate, in consequence of the abolition of turnpikes. Some exception- ally bad instances of this were given. In the parish of Didmarton, Gloucestershire, the average amount of rates paid for the five years ending March 31, 1858, was 26 6s. <$d., for the five years ending March 31, 1878, 118 u*. "]d. In the Northleach Union the rates had increased thus in decennial periods from 1850: 1850-1 .... s,47i 1860-1 .... 5,534 1870-1 .... 8,525 1878-9 .... 10,089 On one small property in Staffordshire the increase of rates, other than poor rates, amounted to 3^. 6d. in the on the rateable value. 5. Excessive rates charged by railway companies for the conveyance of produce, and preferential rates given to foreign agricultural produce; the railway companies alleging, in defence; 1 Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners, 1882, xiv. pp. 9 sq. 296 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE of this, that foreign produce was consigned in much greater' bulk, by few consignors, than home grown, and could be con-j veyed much more economically than if picked up at different stations in small quantities. As to the effect of restrictive covenants on the depression, the balance of evidence did not incline either way. 1 The Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875 was stated to have done much good in the matter of compensation to tenants f improvements, notwithstanding its merely permissive character, as it had reversed the presumption of law in relation to improvements effected by the tenant, prescribed the amount of compensation, and the mode in which it should be given. As to the important subject of freedom of cropping and sale of produce, there were diverse opinions, some advocating it wholly, others not believing in it at all, others saying each landlord and each tenant should make their own bargains since each farm stands on its own footing, others again favouring modified restrictions. The preponderance of opinion was in favour of a modification of the law of distress. The Commission further said that the pressure of foreign competition was greatly in excess of the anticipations of the supporters and of the apprehensions of the opponents of Corn i Law Repeal ; if it had not been for this, English farmers would have been partly compensated for the deficient yield by higher prices. On the other hand, the farmer had had the advantage of an increased and cheapened supply of feeding stuffs, such as maize, linseed and cotton cakes, and of artificial manures imported from abroad. At the same time the benefit to the community from cheap food was immense. It seemed just, however, that as agriculture was suffering from low prices, by which the country gained as a whole, that the proportion of taxation imposed on the land should be lessened ; it was especially unjust that personal property was exempted from local rates, contrary to the Act of 43 Eliz. c. 2, and the whole [ 1 Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners, 1882, xiv. 14. AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACTS 297 burden thrown on real property. The difficulties of farmers were aggravated by the high price of labour, which had in- creased 25 per cent, in twenty years, largely owing to the competition of other industries, and at the same time become less efficient. As provisions were cheap, and employment abundant, the labourer had been scarcely affected by the distress. His cottage, however, especially if in the hands of a small owner, with neither the means nor the will to expend money on improvements, was often still very defective. Farmers were already complaining of the results of the new system of education, for which they had to pay, while it de- prived them of the labour of boys, and drained from the land the sources of future labour by making the young discontented with farm work. The Commission denied that rents had been unduly raised previous to 1875 l ; and in the exceptional cases where they had been, it was due to the imprudent competition of tenant farmers encouraged by advances made by country bankers, the sudden withdrawal of which had greatly contri- buted to the present distress. Districts where dairying wasi carried on had suffered least, yet the yield of milk was much diminished, and the quality deteriorated, owing to the in- feriority of grass from a continuance of wet seasons. The production and sale of milk was increasing largely, so that the attention of farmers and landlords was being drawn to this important branch of farming, milk-sellers necessarily suffering less from foreign competition than any other farmers. Let us turn once more to the hop yards: in 1878 the acreage of hops in England reached its maximum. We have seen that in the first half of the eighteenth century hop yards covered 12,000 acres ; which between 1750 and 1780 increased to 25,000, and by 1800 to 32,000. In 1878, 71,789 acres were grown. The great increase prior to that year was due to the abolition of the excise duty in 1862, which on an average 1 The rise between 1857 and 1878 has been estimated at 20 per cent., and between 1867 and 1877 at ll| per cent., Hasbach, op. '/., p. 291. 298 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE was equal to an annual charge of nearly 7 an acre. 1 This encouraged hop-growing more than the taking off of the import duty in the same year discouraged it. In 1882 there was a very small crop in England, which raised the average price to 18 los. a cwt. ; some choice samples fetching 30 a cwt. ; growers who had good crops realizing much more than the freehold value of the hop yards. This, however, was most unfortunate for them, as it led to a great increase in the use of hop substitutes, such as quassia, chiretta, Colombo, gentian, &c., which, with the decreasing consumption of beer and the demand for lighter beer, has done more than foreign competi- tion to lower the price and thereby cause so large an area to be grubbed up as unprofitable, that in 1907 it was reduced to 44,938 acres. Yet the quality of the hops has in the last generation greatly improved in condition, quality, and appear- ance. Growers also have in the same period often incurred great expense in substituting various methods of wire-work for poles ; and washing, generally with quassia chips and soft soap and water, has become wellnigh universal, so that the expense of growing the crop has increased, while the price has been falling. 2 The crop has always been an expensive one to grow; Marshall in 1798 put it at .20 an acre, ex- clusive of picking, drying, and marketing; 3 and Young estimated the total cost at the same date at 31 los. an acre ; 4 to-day 40 an acre is by no means an outside price. It may be some encouragement to growers to remember that hops have always been subject to great fluctuations in price ; between 1692 and 1700, for instance, they varied from 40^. to 2405-. a cwt., so that they may yet see them at a remunerative figure. ( Upon the whole ', says an eighteenth-century writer, ' though many have acquired large estates by hops, their real advantage is perhaps questionable. By engrossing the 1 R. A. S.E. Journal, 1890, p. 324. 2 See infra, p. 330. 3 Rural Economy of Southern Counties, i. 285-6. * Victoria County History : Hereford, Agriculture. AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACTS 299 attention of the farmer they withdraw him from slower and more certain sources of wealth, and encourage him to rely too much upon chance for his rent, rather than the honest labour of the plough. To the landlord the cultivation of hops is an evil, defrauding the arable land of its proper quantity of manure and thereby impoverishing his estate.' It was by this time the general opinion of men with a thorough experience of farming, that in many parts of Great Britain no sufficient compensation was secured to the tenant for his unexhausted improvements. In some counties and districts this compensation was given by established customs, in others customs existed which were insufficient, in many they did not exist at all. It must be confessed that, often when a tenant leaves his farm there is more compensa-l tion due to the landlord than to the tenant. Human nature being what it is, the temptation to get as much out of the land just before leaving it is weljnigh irresistible to many farmers. In these days, when the landlord is often called upon by the. tenant to do what the tenant used to do himself, the question of compensation to the tenant must on many estates appear td the landlord extremely ironical. It is, in the greater number of cases, the landlord who should receive compensation, and not the tenant ; and though he has power to demand it, such( power is over and over again not put in force. At the same time there are bad men in the landlord class as in any other, and from them the tenant required protection. By the Agricultural Holdings (England) Act of 1875, 38 & 39 Viet. c. 92, improvements for which compensation could be" claimed by the tenant were divided into three classes. First; class improvements, such as drainage of land, erection or enlargement of buildings, laying down of permanent pasture; &c., required the previous consent in writing of the landlord to entitle the tenant to compensation. Second class improve-' ments, such as boning of land with undissolved bones, chalking^ 3 oo HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE claying, liming, and marling the land, the latter now hardly ever practised, required notice in writing by the tenant to the landlord of his intention, and if notice to quit had been given or received, the consent in writing of the landlord was necessary/ For third class improvements, such as the application to the land of purchased manure, and consumption on the holding by cattle, sheep, or pigs, of cake or other feeding stuff not produced on the holding, no consent or notice was required. Improvements in the first class were deemed to be exhausted in twenty years, in the second in seven, and in the third, in two. It was the opinion of the Richmond Commission of 1879 that, notwithstanding the beneficial effects of this Act, no sufficient compensation for his unexhausted improvements was secured to the tenant. The landlord and tenant also might agree in writing that the Act should not apply to their contract of tenancy, so in 1883 when the Agricultural Holdings Act of that year (46 & 47 Viet. c. 61 J ) was passed, it was made compulsory as far as regarded compensation, and the time limit as regards the tenant's claims for improvements was abolished, the basis for compensation for all improvements recognized by the Act being laid down as ' the value of the improvement to an incoming tenant '. Improvements for which compensation could be claimed were again divided into three classes as before, but the drainage of land was placed in the second class instead of the first, and so only required notice to the landlord. This was the only improvement in the second class ; the other improvements which had been in the second class in the Act of 1875 were now placed in the third, where no consent or notice was required. 1 In one respect the Act of 1883 restricted the rights of tenants to compensation, for while the Act of 1875 na d expressly reserved the rights of the parties under 'custom of the country', the Act of 1883 provided that a tenant ' shall not claim compensation by custom or otherwise than in manner authorized by this Act for any improvement for which he is entitled to compensation under this Act' ( 57). AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACTS 301 The Act also effected three other important alterations in the law ; first, as to ' Notices to Quit ', a year's notice being necessary where half a year's notice had been sufficient, though this section might be excluded by agreement ; secondly, after January i, 1885, the landlord could only dis- train for one year's rent instead of six years as formerly; and thirdly, as to fixtures. These formerly became the property of the landlord on the determination of the tenancy, but by 14 & 15 Viet. c. 25 an agricultural tenant was enabled to remove fixtures put up by him with the consent of his landlord for agricultural purposes. Now all fixtures erected after the commencement of the Act were the property of and removable by the tenant, but the landlord might elect to I purchase them. This Act was amended by the Act of 1900 (63 & 64 Viet, c. 50), and has been much altered by the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1906 (6 Edw. VII, c. 56), which TiaTtTeateJ the landlord with a degree of severity, which considering the excellent relations that have for the most part existed between English landlords and tenants for generations, is utterly un- warranted. In several respects indeed he has been treated by the Act as if the land did not belong to him, while freedom of contract, until recent years one of the most cherished principles of our law, is arbitrarily interfered with. The chief alterations made by the Act of 1906 were : i. Improvements. By the Act of 1883, in the valuation for improvements under the first schedule, such part of the im- provement as is justly due to the inherent capabilities of the soil was not credited to the tenant. This provision is repealed by the Act of 1906, in reference to which it must be said that the latent fertility of the soil, sometimes very considerable may be developed by a small outlay on the part of the tenant for which outlay he is certainly entitled to compensation But the greater part of the improvement may be due to the soil which belongs to the landlord, yet the Act credits the HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE tenant with the whole of this improvement. An addition is made to the list of improvements which a tenant may make without his landlord's consent and for which he is entitled on quitting to compensation, viz. repairs to buildings, being buildings necessary for the proper working of the holding, other than repairs which the tenant is obliged to execute. 2. Damage by Game. A tenant may now claim compen-s sation for damage to crops by deer, pheasants, partridges,| grouse, and black game. 3. Freedom of Cropping and Disposal of Produce. Prior to this Act it had been the custom for generations to insert cove- nants in agreements providing for the proper cultivation of the farm ; as, for instance, forbidding the removal from the holding of hay, straw, roots, green crops, and manure made on the farm. These and other covenants were merely in the interests of good farming, and to prevent the soil deteriorating. In recent times vexatious covenants formerly inserted had practically disappeared, and where still existing were seldom enforced. By this Act, notwithstanding any custom of the country or any contract or agreement, the tenant may follow any system of cropping, and dispose of any of his produce as he pleases, but after so doing he must make suitable and adequate provision to protect the farm from injury thereby : a proviso vague and difficult to enforce, and not sufficient to prevent an unscrupulous tenant greatly injuring his: farm. 4. Compensation for unreasonable disturbance. If a land-, lord without good cause, and for reasons inconsistent with I good estate management, terminates a tenancy by notice to I quit ; or refuses to grant a renewal of the tenancy if so re- quested at least one year before the expiration thereof ; or if a tenant quits his holding in consequence of a demand by the landlord for an increased rent, such demand being due to an increased value in the holding owing to improvements done by NEW IMPLEMENTS 303 the tenant ; in either of such events the tenant is entitled to/ compensation. This compensation for disturbance is in direct opposition to the recommendation of the Commission of 1894,* and seems to be an unwarrantable interference with the owner's manage- ment of his own land. Another benefit, and one long needed, was conferred on farmers by the Ground Game Act of 1880, 43 & 44 Viet., c. 47. Before the Act the tenant had by common law the ex- clusive right to the game, including hares and rabbits, unless it was reserved to the landlord, which was usually the case. By this Act the right to kill ground game, which often worked i terrible havoc in the tenant's crops, was rendered inseparable! from the occupation of the land, though the owner may reserve' to himself a concurrent right. One consequence of this Act has been that the hare has disappeared from many parts of England. The greatest improvement in implements during this period was in the direction of reaping and mowing machines, which have now attained a high degree of perfection. As early as 1780 the Society of Arts offered a gold medal for a reaping machine, but it was not till 1812 that John Common of Denwick, Northumberland, invented a machine which em- bodied all the essential principles of the modern reaper. Popular hostility to the machine was so great that Common made his early trials by moonlight, and he ceased from working on them. 2 His machine was improved by the Browns of Alnwick, who sold some numbers in 1822, and shortly after- wards emigrated to Canada taking with them models of Common's reapers. M c Cormick, the reputed inventor of the reaping machine, knew the Browns, and obtained from them a model of Common's machine which was almost certainly the father of the famous machine exhibited by him at the Great 1 Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 96. 2 R. AIS. E. Journal (1892), p. 63. 304 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE Exhibition of 1851. Various other inventors have assisted in improving this implement, and in 1873 the first wire binder was exhibited in Europe by the American, W. A. Wood, wire soon giving place to string owing to the outcry of farmers and millers. The self-binding reaper is the most ingenious of agricultural machines, and has been of enormous benefit to farmers in saving labour. Though the hay-tedding machine was invented in 1814 it is only during the last thirty years that its use has become common, the spread of the mowing machine making it a necessity, cutting the grass so fast that only a very large number of men with the old forks could keep up with it. The tedder also rendered raking by hand too slow, and the horse-rake, patented first in 1841, has im- mensely improved in the last thirty years. Another enormous labour saver is the hay and straw elevator, having endless chains furnished with carrying forks at intervals of a few feet, driven by horse gear. The steam cultivator invented by John Fowler is much used, but cannot be said to have superseded the ordinary working stock of the farm, though for deep ploughing on large farms of heavy land it is invaluable. Improvements in dairying appliances have also been great, but the English farmer has generally fought shy of factories or creameries, so that his butter still lacks the uniform quality of his foreign rivals. In manures the most important innovation in the last gen- eration has been the constantly growing use of basic slag, formerly left neglected at the pit mouth and now generally recognized as a wonderful producer of clover. Most of the suggestions of the Commission of 1879 were carried into effect. Rents were largely reduced, so that between 1880 and 1884 the annual value of agricultural land in England sank ^'5,75o,ooo. 1 Grants were made by the Government in aid of local burdens, cottages were improved although the landowners' capital was constantly dwindling, 1 /?. A. S. E. Journal (1901), p. 33. Cf. infra, p. 310. AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS 305 Settled Land Acts assisted the transfer of limited estates, a Minister of Agriculture was appointed in 1889, and in 189,1 the payment of the tithe was transferred from the tenant to the landlord, which generally meant that the whole burden was now borne by the latter. Still foreign imports continued to pour in and prices to fall. Wheat land, which was subject to the fiercest competition, began to be converted to other uses, and between 1878 and 1907 had fallen in England from 3,041,214 acres to 1,537,208, most of it being converted to pasture or ' tumbling down ' to grass, while a large quantity was used for oats. The price of live stock was now falling greatly before increasing imports of live animals and dead meat, while cheese, butter, wool, and fruit were also pouring in. Farming, too, was now suffering from a new enemy, gambling in farm produce, which began to show itself about 1880 and has since materially contributed to lowering prices. 1 The enormous gold premium in the Argentine Republic, with the steady fall in silver, was another factor. As Mr. Prothero says, ' Enterprise gradually weak- ened, landlords lost their ability to help, and farmers their recuperative power. The capital both of landlords and tenants was so reduced that neither could afford to spend an unnecessary penny. Land deteriorated in condition, drainage was practically discontinued . . . less cake and less manure were bought, labour bills were reduced, and the number of males employed in farming dwindled as the wheat area con- tracted.' 2 The year 1893 was remarkable for a prolonged drought in the spring ; from March 2 to May 14 hardly any rain fell, and live stock were much reduced in quality from the parching of the herbage, while in many parts the difficulty of supplying them with water was immense. In the same year another Commission on Agriculture was appointed, whose description of the condition of agriculture 1 R. A. S. . Journal (1893), p. 286; (1894), p. 677. Sometimes to artificially raising them, 2 Ibid. (1901), p. 34. CURTLER X 3 o6 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE was a lamentable one. The Commission in their final report x stated that the seasons since 1882 had on the whole been satisfactory from an agricultural point of view, and the evidence brought forward showed that the existing depression was to be mainly attributed to the fall in prices of farm produce. This fall had been most marked in the case of grain, particularly wheat, and wool also had fallen heavily. It was not surprising therefore to find that the arable counties 2 had suffered most ; in counties where dairying, market garden- ing, poultry farming, and other special industries prevailed the distress was less acute, but no part of the country could be said to have escaped. In north Devon, noted for stock rear- ing, rents had only fallen 10 to 15 per cent, since 1881, and in many cases there had been no reduction at all. In Hereford- shire and Worcestershire good grass lands, hop lands, and dairy farms had maintained their rents in many instances, and the reductions had apparently seldom exceeded 15 per cent. ; on the heavy arable lands, however, the reduction was from 20 to 40 per cent. In Cheshire, devoted mainly to dairying, there had been no general reduction of rent, though there had been remissions, and in some cases reductions, of 10 per cent. In fact, grazing and dairy lands, which comprise so large an area of the northern and western counties, were not badly affected, though the depreciation in the value of live stock and the fall in wool had considerably diminished farm profits and rents. But of the eastern counties, those in which there are still large quantities of arable land, a different tale was told. In Essex much of the clay land was going out of cultiva- 1 Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 2 Broadly speaking, the arable section, or eastern group, included the counties of Bedford, Berks., Bucks, Cambridge, Essex, Hants, Hertford, Huntingdon, Kent, Leicester, Lincoln, Middlesex, Norfolk, Northampton, Notts, Oxford, Rutland, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Warwick, and the East Riding of York ; the grass section, or western group, included the re- maining counties. AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS 37 tion ; many farms, after lying derelict for a few years, were let as grass runs for stock at a nominal rent. The rent of an estate near Chelmsford of 1,418 acres had fallen from 1,314 in 1879 to 415 '"n 1892, or from i8s. 6d. an acre to 5?. iod. 1 The net rental of another had fallen from 7,682, in 1881 to 2,22,4 in 1892, and the landlord's income from his estate of 13,009 acres in 1892-3 was is. an acre. The balance sheet of the estate for the same year is an eloquent example of the landowner's profits in these depressed times : ~ RECEIPTS. Tithe received Cottage rents . Garden Estate Tithes refunded by tenants 'S. PAYMENTS. s. d. s. d. 798 5 9 Tithe, rates, and taxes 2,964 l 9 495 8 6 Rent-charge and fee 213 5 10 farm rents . 179 o 4 7,45 2 M 8 Gates and fencing . 8 7 8 Estate repairs and 530 15 2 buildings . 4,350 12 8 Draining . . . 170 6 I Brickyard . . 170 I 8 Management / . 936 14 7 Insurances . . ; 58 II 5 Balance profit . . 652 13 9 9,490 9 II ^9,490 9 ii In the great agricultural county of Lincoln rents had fallen from 30 to 75 per cent. 3 The average amount realized on an acre of wheat had fallen from 10 6s. $d. in 1873-7 to 2 iSs. nd. in 1892 4 ; and the fall in the price of cattle between 1882 and 1893 was a little over 30 per cent. Many of the large farmers in Lincolnshire before 1875 had lived in consider- able comfort and even luxury, as became men who had invested large sums, sometimes 20,000, in their business. They had carriages, hunters, and servants, and gave their children an ex- cellent start in life. But all this was changed ; a day's hunting 1 Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1894), xvi (l), App. B. ii. a Ibid. App. B. iii. 3 Ibid. (1895), xvi. 169. * Ibid. p. 164. X 2 308 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE occasionally was the utmost they could afford, and wives and daughters took the work from the servants. The small farmers had suffered more than the large ones, and the condition of the/ small freeholders was said to be deplorable ; a fact to be noted! by those who think small holdings a panacea for distress. 1 Even near Boston, where the soil is favourable for market gardening, the evidence of the small holder was ' singularly unanimous ' as to their unfortunate condition. The small occupiers were better off than the freeholders, because their rents had been reduced and they could leave their farms if they did not pay; but their position was very unsatisfactory. From the evidence given to the assistant commissioner it is clear that the small occupier and freeholder could only get on by working harder and living harder than the labourer. ' We all live hard and never see fresh meat,' said one. ' We can't afford butcher's meat,' said another. Another said, ' In the summer I work from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m., and often do not take more than an hour off for meals. That is penal servitude, except you have your liberty. A foreman who earns i a week is better off than I am. He has no anxiety, and not half the work.' These instances could be multiplied many times, so that it is not surprising that the children of these men have flocked to the towns. In Norfolk, ' twenty or thirty years ago, no class connected with the land held their heads higher ' than the farmers. Many of them owned the whole or a part of the land they farmed, and lived in good style. All this was now largely changed. ' The typical Norfolk farmer of to-day is a harassed and hard- working man/ engaged in the struggle to make both ends meet. Many were ruined. However, there were farmers who, by skill, enterprise, and careful management, made their business pay even in these times, such as the tenant of the farm at Papplewick in Notting- hamshire who gained the first prize in the Royal Agricultural 1 Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1895), xvi. 187-8. AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS 39 Society's farm competition in 1888. 1 This farm consisted of 522 acres, of which only 61 were grass, but chiefly owing to the trouble taken in growing fine root crops, a large number of live stock were annually purchased and sold off, the following balance sheet showing a profit of 3 is. od. per acre : CR. 278 Corn, hay, potatoes, and 387 like produce sold . -655 Live stock, poultry, dairy produce, and wool sold DR. Rent, tithes, rates, taxes, &c. Wages Purchase of cake, corn, seeds, manure, &c. . Purchase of live stock . 2,654 Profit .4,007 1,589 4,941 .5,596 The reductions of rents in various counties were estimated thus 2 : Per cent. . 20 to 30 . 20 to 40 . 25 to 50 . up to 70 . 25 to loo . . . 15 to too . ' . 25 to ico . . 10 to 75 . 10 to 25 . 10 to 100 This large reduction in the rent rolls of landowners has/ materially affected their position and weakened their power.! Many, indeed, have been driven from their estates, while others' can only live on them by letting the mansion house and the; shooting, and occupying some small house on the lands they are reluctant to leave. The agricultural depression, which set 1 R. A. S. E. Journal (2nd ser.), xxiv. 538. 2 Ibid. (1894), p. 681. Per cent. Northumberland . 20 tO 25 Hereford . Cumberland . 30 to 40 Somerset York . 10 to 50 Oxford . Lancaster 5 to 30 Suffolk . Stafford . . 10 to 25 Essex Leicester . 40 Kent Nottingham . 14 to 50 Hants Warwick . . 25 to 60 Wilts. . Huntingdon . 40 to 50 Devon Derby . 14 to 25 Cornwall . 3 io HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE in about 1875, may in short be said to have effected a minor social revolution, and to have completed the ruin of the old landed aristocracy as a class. The depreciation of their rents may be judged from the following figures 1 : Gross annual value of lands, including tithes, under Schedule A in England. 1879-80 1893-4 48,533,340 36,999,846 Decrease. Amount. Per cent. ",533,494 237 These figures, however, are far from indicating the full extent of the decline in the rental value of purely agricultural land, as they include ornamental grounds, gardens, and other properties, and do not take into account temporary remissions of rent. Sir James Caird, as early as 1886, estimated the average reduc- tion on agricultural rents at 30 per cent. The loss in the capital value of land has inevitably been, great from this reduction in rents, and has been aggravated by' the fact that the confidence of the public in agricultural land I as an investment has been much shaken. In 1875 thirty years', purchase on the gross annual value of land was the capital value, in 1894 only eighteen years' purchase; and whereas the capital value of land in the United Kingdom was in 1875 2,007,330,000, in 1894 it was 1,001,829,212, a decrease of 49-6 per cent. Moreover, landlords have incurred increased \ expenditure on repairs, drainage, and buildings, and taxation ) has grown enormously. On the occupiers of land the effect of - the depression was no less serious, their profits having fallen \ on an average 40 per cent. 2 Occupying owners had suffered < as much as any other class, both yeomen who farmed consider- >. able farms and small freeholders. Many of the former had bought land in the good times when land was dear and left a large portion of the purchase money on mortgage, with the 1 Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 22. Cf. p. 319 n. 2 Ibid. pp. 30-1. AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS 311 result that the interest on the mortgage was now more than the rent of the land. 1 They were thus worse off than the tenant farmer, for they paid a higher rent in the shape of interest ; moreover, they could not leave their land, for it could only be sold at a ruinous loss. The 'statesmen ' of Cumberland were weighed down by the same burdens and their disappearance furthered ; for instance, in the parish of Abbey Quarter, between 1780 and 1812 their number decreased from 51 to 38. By 1837 it was 30 ; by 1864, 21 ; and in 1894 only 9 remained. The small freeholders were also largely burdened with mortgages, and even in the Isle of Axholme were said to have suffered more than any other class ; largely because of their passion for acquiring land at high prices, leaving most of the purchase money on mortgage, and starting with insufficient capital. As regards the agricultural labourer, 2 the chief effect of the depression had been a reduction of the number employed and a consequent , decrease in the regularity of employment. | Their material condition had everywhere improved, 3 though there were still striking differences in the wages paid in dif-j ferent parts; and the improvement, though partly due to increased earnings, was mainly attributable to the cheapening \ of the necessaries of life. The great majority of ordinary labourers were hired by the 1 Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 31. 2 Ibid. p. 37 : NUMBER OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 1871. 1881. 1891. 1901. 996,642 890,174 798,912 595J0 2 The figures for 1901 are from Summary Tables, Parliamentary Blue Book (C, d. 1,523), p. 202, Table xxxvi. 3 According to the Report of the Royal Commission on Labour, 1893-4, the labourer was 'better fed, better dressed, his education and language improved, his amusements less gross, his cottage generally improved, though generally on small estates there were many bad ones still left'. Parliamentary Reports, 1893, xxxv, Index 5 et seq. 312 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE week, except those boarded in the farm-house, who were generally hired by the year. Men, also, who looked after the live stock were hired by the year. Weekly wages ranged from tos. in Wilts, and Dorset to i8j. in Lancashire, and averaged 13.?. 6d. for the whole country. The fall in the prices of agricultural produce is best repre- sented in tabular form : TRIENNIAL AVERAGE OF BRITISH WHEAT, BARLEY, AND OATS PER QUARTER. Wheat. Barley. Oats. s. d. s. d. s. d. 1876-8 49 9 38 4 25 6 1893-5 24 I 24 o 16 9 Thus wheat had fallen 52 per cent., barley 37, and oats 34. TRIENNIAL AVERAGE PRICES OF BRITISH CATTLE, PER STONE OF 8 LB. Inferior quality. Second quality. First quality. s. d. s. d. s. d. 1876-8 45 56 60 1893-5 28 40 47 Or a fall of 24 per cent, in the best quality, and 40 per cent, in inferior grades. The decline in the prices of all classes of sheep amounted on the average to from 20 to 30 per cent., and in the price of wool of from 40 to 50 per cent. ; that is, from an average of is. 6d. a Ib. in 1874-6, to a little over gd. in 1893-5. Milk, butter, and cheese were stated to have fallen from 25 to 33 per cent, between 1874 and 1891, and there had been a further fall since. In districts, however, near large towns there had been much less reduction in the price of milk. This general fall in prices seems to have been directly/ connected with the increase of foreign competition 1 . Wheat( 1 Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 53, 85. Sir Robert GifFen suggested that the decline in the price of wheat may be partly attributed to the great increase in the supply and consumption of meat. AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS 3 T 3 has been most affected by this development, and at the date of the Commission the home production had sunk to 25 per cent, of the total quantity needed for consumption. Other home-grown cereals had not been similarly displaced, but the large consumption of maize had affected the price of feeding barley and oats. As regards meat, while foreign beef and mutton had seriously affected the price of inferior British grades, the influence on superior qualities had been much less marked. Foreign competition had been, on the whole, perhaps more severe in pork than in other classes of meat, but had been confined mainly to bacon and hams. The successful competition of the foreigner in our butter and cheese markets was attributed mainly to the fact that the dairy industry is better organized abroad than in Great Britain. The Commission found that another cause of the depression was the increased cost of production, not so much from the increase of wages, as from the smaller amount of work done for a given sum. Where wages in the previous twenty years had remained stationary, the cost of work had increased because the labourer did not work so hard or so well as his forefathers. The following table 1 is a striking proof of the increased ratio of the cost of labour to gross profits : Ratio of Acreage Period County. of of farm. account. Average gross profit. Average Average cost of annual cost per labour cost of acre, to gross labour. profits. s. d. s. d. s. d. Per cent. Suffolk 590 1839-43 1,577 13 3 773 II o 26 2 49'3 1863-7 1,545 9 836 9 28 4 54-07 1871-5 1,725 I 1,026 14 8 35 2 59-48 1890-4 728 IO 5 973 I 5 33 O I33-50 On a farm in Wilts., between 1858 and 1893, the ratio of the cost of labour to gross profits had increased from 1 Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv, App. iii, Table viii. From an examination of the accounts of seventy-seven farms, the average expenditure on labour was found to be 31-4 per cent, of the total outlay. 314 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 47-0 per cent, to 88-3 per cent.; on one in Hampshire, between 1873 and 1890, from 44-4 per cent, to 184-3 P er cent - J an d many similar instances are given, illustrating very forcibly the economic revolution which has led to the transfer of a larger share of the produce of the land to the labourer. On the other hand, this Commission found, like the last, that the farmer had derived considerable benefit from the decrease in cost of cake and artificial manure, while the low price of corn had led to its being largely used in place of linseed and cotton cakes. Before leaving the subject of this famous Commission it is well to state the answer of Sir John Lawes, than whom there was no higher authority, to the oft-repeated assertion that high farming would counteract low prices. ' The result of all our experiments,' he said, ' is that the reverse is the case. As you increase your crops so each bushel after a certain amount costs you more and more . . . the last bushel always costs you more than all the others.' As prices went lower ' we must contract our farming to what I should call the average of the seasons ' ; and in the corn districts, the higher the farmer had farmed his land by adding manure the worse had been the financial results. 1 In 1896 the injustice of the incidence of rates on agricultural land was partly remedied, the occupier being relieved of half the rates on the land apart from the buildings, which Act was continued in I9OI. 2 But the system is still inequitable, for a farmer who pays a rent of 240 a year even now probably pays more rates than the occupier of a house rated at ,120 a year. Yet the farmer's income would very likely not be more than ^200 a year, whereas the occupier of the house rated at 1 20 might have an income of ,2,000 a year. In 1901 and 1902 Mr. Rider Haggard, following in the foot- steps of Young, Marshall, and Caird, made an agricultural tour 1 Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 1 06. But see above, p. 271. 2 59 & 60 Viet., c. 16 ; I Edw. VII, c. 13. THE SITUATION IN 1908 315 through England. He considered that, after foreign competi- 1 tion, the great danger to English farming was the lack of] labour, 1 for young men and women were everywhere leaving the country for the towns, attracted by the nominally high wages, often delusive, and by the glamour of the pavement. Yet the labourer has come better out of the depression of the last generation than either landowner or farmer : he is better housed, better fed, better clothed, better paid, but filled with discontent. Since Mr. Haggard wrote, however, there seems to be a reaction, small indeed but still marked, against the townward movement, and in most places the supply of labour is sufficient. The quality, however, is almost universally described as inferior; the labourer takes no pride in his work,) and good hedgers, thatchers, milkers, and men who understand! live stock are hard to obtain 2 ; and the reason for this is in! _ large measure due to the modern system of education which keeps a boy from farm work until he is too old to take to it. His wages to-day in most parts are good ; near manufacturing towns the ordinary farm hand is paid from iSs. to zos. a week with extras in harvest, and in purely agricultural districts from i$s. to 15^. a week, often with a cottage rent free at the lower figure. His cottage has improved vastly, especially on large estates, though often leaving much to be desired, and the rent usually paid is 4 or 5 a year, rising to 7 and 8 near large towns. The wise custom of giving him a garden has spread, and is nearly always found to be much more helpful than an allotment. The superior or more skilled workmen, 3 such as 1 Rural England, ii. 539. Yet the census returns of 1871, 1881, and 1891 gave no support to the idea that young men were leaving agriculture for the towns. See Parl. Reports (1893), xxxviii. (2) 33. 2 The author speaks from information derived from answers to ques- tions addressed to landowners, farmers, and agents in many parts of England, to whom he is greatly indebted. 3 It is, however, a fallacy to assume, as is nearly always done, that the ordinary farm labourer, at all events of the old type, is unskilled. A good man, who can plough well, thatch, hedge, ditch, and do the innumerable tasks required on a farm efficiently, is a much more skilled worker than many who are so called in the towns. 316 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE the wagoner, stockman, or shepherd, earns in agricultural counties like Herefordshire from 14^. to i8j. a week, and in manufacturing counties like Lancashire from 20^. to iis. a week, with extras such as $d. a lamb in lambing time. At the lower wages he often has a cottage and garden rent free. The improved methods of cutting and harvesting crops have* so enabled the farmer to economize labour that the once! familiar figure of the Irish labourer with his knee-breeches and tall hat, who came over for the harvest, has almost disappeared. Women, who formerly shared with the men most of the farm work, now are little seen in most parts of England at work in the fields, and are better occupied in attending to their homes. The divorce of the labourer from the land by enclosure had early exercised men's minds, and many efforts were made to remedy this. About 1836 especially, several land- owners in various parts of England introduced allotments, and the movement spread rapidly, so that in 1893 the Royal Commission on Labour stated that in most places the supply was equal to or in excess of the demand. 1 However, previous Allotments and Small Holdings Acts not being considered so successful as was desired, in IQO^ an effort was made to give more effect to the cry of ' back to the land ' by a Small Holdings and Allotments Act 2 which enables County Councils to purchase land by agreement or take it on lease, and, if unable to acquire it by agreement, to do so compulsorily, in order to provide small holdings for persons desiring to lease them. The County Council may also 1 ParL Reports (1893), xxxv. Index. 2 7 Edw. VII, c. 54, amending the Allotments Acts of 1887 and 1890 and the Small Holdings Act of 1892. The Allotments Act of 1887 defined ; an ' allotment ' as any parcel of land of not more than 2 acres held by a tenant under a landlord ; but for the purposes of the Acts of I_8g2 and 1907 a ' small holding' means an agricultural holding which exceeds one acre and either does not exceed 50 acres or, if exceeding 50 acres, is of an annual value not exceeding .50. At the same time the Act defines an allotment as a holding of any size up to 5 acres, so that up to that size a parcel of land may be treated as a small holding or an allotment. THE SITUATION IN 1908 317 arrange with any Borough Council or Urban District Council to act as its agent in providing and managing small holdings. The duty of supplying allotments rests in the first instance with the Rural Parish Councils, though if they do not take proper steps to provide allotments, the County Council may\ itself provide them. It is a praiseworthy effort, though marked by arbitrary methods and that contempt for the rights of property, pro- vided it belongs to some one else, that is a characteristic of to-day. That it will succeed where the small holder has some other trade, and in exceptionally favoured situations, is very probable ; most of the small holders who were successful before the Act had something to fall back upon : they were dealers, hawkers, butchers, small tradesmen, &c. There is no doubt, too, that an allotment helps both the town artisan and the country labourer to tide over slack times. Whether it will succeed in planting a rural population on English soil is another matter. It is a consummation devoutly to be wished, for a country without a sound reserve of healthy country- people is bound to deteriorate. The small holder, pure and simple, without any by-industry, has hitherto only been able to keep his head above water by a life which without ex- aggeration may be called one of incessant toil and frequent privation, such a life as the great mass of our ' febrile factory element' could not endure. And if there is one tendency/ more marked than another in the history of English agricuN ture, it is the disappearance of the small holding. In the Middle Ages it is probable that the average size of a man's farm was 30 acres, with its attendant waste and wood ; since then amalgamation has been almost constant. It is true that the occupier of a few acres often brings to bear on it an amount of industry which is greater in propor- tion than that bestowed on a large farm ; but the large farmer has, as Young pointed out long ago, very great advantages. He is nearly always a man of superior intelligence and train- 318 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE ing. He has more capital, and can buy and sell in the best markets ; he can purchase better stock, and save labour and the cost of production by using the best machinery. By buying in large quantities he gets manures, cakes, seeds, &c., better and cheaper than the small holder. Besides the small holders who have outside industries to fall back upon, those who are aided by some exceptionally favourable element in the soil or climate, or proximity to good markets, should do well. Yet in the Isle of Axholme, the paradise of small holders, we have seen that the Com- mission of 1894 reported that distress was severe. This, how- ever, seems to have been largely due to the exaggerated land- hunger in the good times, which induced the tenants to buy lands at too high a price ; and under normal conditions, such as they are now returning to, the tenants seem to thrive. In this district the preference for ownership as opposed to tenancy is, in spite of recent experiences, unqualified, though it is admitted that the best way is to begin by renting and save enough to buy. 1 The soil is peculiarly favourable to the production of celery and early potatoes ; and large tracts of land are divided into unfenced strips locally known as ' selions ' of from a quarter of an acre to 2 acres each, cultivated by men who live in the villages, each having one or more strips, some as much as 20 acres, and it is considered that 10 acres is the smallest area on which a man can support a family without any other industry to help him. Yet in the fen districts and on the marsh lands between Boston and the east coast of Lincolnshire, where the land is naturally very productive, many people are making livings out of 5 or 6 acres, mainly by celery and early potatoes. 2 Other districts adapted naturally to small holdings are those of Rock and Far Forest, the famous Vale of Evesham, the Sandy and Biggleswade district of Bedfordshire ; Upwey, Dorset ; Cal- stock and St. Dominick, Cornwall ; Wisbech, Cambridgeshire ; 1 Jebb, Small Holdings, p. 25. 2 Jebb, op. cit. p. 28. SMALL HOLDINGS 319 and Tiptree, Essex. Apart, however, from by-industries, and exceptional climate, soil, and situation, the small holding for the purpose of raising corn and meat, as distinguished from that which is devoted to dairying, fruit-growing, and market gardening, does not seem to-day to have much chance of sue- / cess. If farms were still self-sufficing, and simply provided food and clothing for the farmer, the small producer even of corn and meat might do as well as the larger farmer on a lower j scale, but such conditions have gone ; all holdings now are I chiefly manufactories of food, and the smaller manufactory has little chance in competition with the greater. The example of foreign countries is usually held up to Englishmen in this connexion, and the argument naturally used is that ' if small holdings answer in France and Belgium, why can they not do so in England ? ' On this point the testi- mony of Sir John Lawes is worth quoting. 1 ' In most, if not in all continental countries,' he says, ' the success of small holdings depends very materially on whether or not the soil and the climate are suitable for what may be called industrial crops: such as tobacco, hops, sugar beet, colza, flax, hemp, grapes, and other fruit and vegetables ; where these conditions do not exist the condition of the cultivators is such as would not be tolerated in this country' That is the reason probably why small holdings, apart from exceptional conditions, do not answer in England ; the Englishman of to-day is not anxious to face the hard and grinding conditions under which the continental small holder lives. Since Mr. Haggard's tour the black clouds which have so long lowered over agriculture have shown signs of lifting. ; Rents have been adjusted to a figure at which the farmer has some chance of competing with the foreigner, 2 though the 1 Allotments and Small Holdings (1892), p. 19 et seq. 2 The gross income derived from the ownership of lands in Great Britain, as returned under Schedule A of the Income Tax, decreased from ^51,81 1,234 in 1876-7 to ^36,609,884 in 1905-6. In 1850 Caird estimated the rental of English land, exclusive of Middlesex, at ,37,412,000. Cf. above, p. 310. 320 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE price of grain keeps wretchedly low ; stock has improved, and there is undoubtedly to-day (1908) a brisker demand for farms, and in some localities rents have even advanced slightly. The yeoman that is, the man who owns and farms his own land, perhaps the most sound and independent class in the com- munity has, unfortunately for England, largely disappeared. Even of those who remain, some prefer to let their property and rent holdings from others ! It has been noticed that the labourer's lot has improved in this generation of adversity ; and well it might, for his previous condition was miserable in the extreme. The farmers have suffered severely, many losing all their capital and becoming farm labourers. The landlords/ have suffered most ; they have not been able to throw up. their land like the farmer, and until quite recently have^ watched it becoming poorer and poorer. The depression, in short, has driven from their estates many who had owned them for generations. Those who have survived have usually been men with incomes from other sources than land, and they have generally deserved well of their country by keeping their estates in good condition in spite of falling rents and increasing taxation. No class of men, indeed, have been more virulently and; consistently abused than the landlords of England, and none 1 with less justice. There have been many who have forgotten that property has its duties as well as its rights ; they have erred like other men, but as a rule they play their part well. Even the worst are to some extent obliged by their very position to be public spirited, for the mere possession of an estate involves the employment of a number of people in healthy outdoor occupations which Englishmen to-day so especially need to counteract the degenerating influences of town life. Many of the great estates l are carried on at a 1 According to the Commission of 1894, the amount expended on improvements and repairs alone on some great estates was : On Lord Derby's, in Lancashire, of 43,217 acres, .200,000 in twelve years, or ^16,500, or 7s. 835,86i Denmark and the Duchies .... 969,890 Germany . . . . , . . 6,358,229 France . . . ..." ; 3,828,691 Spain 33I.463 Wallachia and Moldavia .... 295,475 Turkish dominions, not otherwise specified . 528,568 Egypt 1,423,193 Canada. . 2,223,809 United States 10,080,911 Other countries 1,036,968 In the years 1871-5 the United States held the first place, Russia came next, and Germany third with only about one- sixth of the American imports, and Canada was running 1 M c Culloch, Commercial Dictionary (1882), p. 449. Y 2 324 HISTORY OF AGRTCULTURE Germany close. Other formidable competitors were now arising, and by 1901 the chief importing countries were 1 : Cwt. Argentina . .... 8,309,706 Russia 2 2,580,805 United States of America .... 66,855,025 Australia 6,197,019 Canada 8,577,960 India 3,341,500 Since then the imports of wheat and flour from the United States have decreased, and in 1904 India took the first place, Russia the second, Argentina the third, and the United States the fourth. However, in 1907 the United States sent more than any other country, followed by Argentina, India, Canada, Russia, and Australia, in the order named. It is probable in the near future that the imports from the United States will decline considerably, for in the last quarter of a century its population has increased 68 per cent, and its wheat area only 25 per cent. On the other hand, the popu- lation of Canada increased 33 per cent, and her wheat area 158 per cent, in the same time; while in Argentina an addition of 70 per cent, to the population has been accompanied by an increase of the wheat area from half a million to fourteen million acres. It is probable also that India and Australia will continue to send large supplies, and there are said to be vast wheat-growing tracts opened up by the Siberian Railway, so that there seems little chance of wheat rising very much in price for many years to come, apart from exceptional causes such as bad seasons and ' corners '. M c Culloch, writing in i843, 3 says that, except Denmark and Ireland, no country of Western Europe ' has been in the habit of exporting cattle '. Danish cattle, however, could rarely be 1 See Returns of the Board of Agriculture. 2 The imports from Russia were that year exceptionally small. s M c Culloch, Commercial Dictionary (1852), p. 274. IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 325 sold in London at a profit., and Irish cattle alone disturbed the equanimity of the English farmer. For a few years after the repeal of the corn laws and of the prohibition of imports of live stock, the imports of live stock, meat, and dairy produce were, except from Ireland, almost nil 1 ; since then they have increased enormously, and in 1 907 the value of live cattle, sheep, and pigs imported was 8,273.640, not so great, however, as some years before, owing to restrictions imposed ; but this decrease has been made up by the increase in the imports of meat, which in 1907 touched their highest figure of 18.75 [,555 cwt -> valued at the large sum of 4 1 ,697,905.2 Forty years ago hardly any foreign butter or cheese was imported ; to-day it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that not one hundredth part of the butter eaten in London is British ; in 1907 the amount of butter imported was 4,310,156 cwt., and of cheese, 2,372,233 cwt. The increase in the imports was largely assisted by the fact that in the last half of the nine- teenth century English farmers had directed their attention chiefly to meat-producing animals and neglected the milch cow. However, of late years great efforts have been made to recover lost ground, and in England the number of cows and heifers in milk or in calf has increased from 1,567,789 in 1878 to 2,020,340 in 1906. The regulation of the imports and exports of live stock did not concern the legislature so early as those of corn. One of the earliest statutes on the subject is n Hen. VII, c. 13, which for- bade the export of horses and of mares worth more than 6s. 8d., because many had been conveyed out of the land, so that there were few left for its defence and the price of horses had been thereby increased. A subsequent statute, 22 Hen. VIII, c. 7, says this law was disobeyed by many who secretly exported 1 In 1860 the number of live cattle imported was 104,569 ; in 1897* 618,321; in 1907,472,015. 2 In 1860 the quantity of beef imported was 283,332 cwt. ; in 1907, 6,033,736 cwt. 3 a6 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE horses, so it was enacted that no one should export a horse without a licence ; and i Edw.VI, c. 5, continued this. But after this date the export of horses does not seem to have occupied the attention of Parliament. 22 Hen. VIII, c. 7, also forbade the export of cattle and sheep without a licence because so many had been carried out of the realm that victual was scarce and cattle dear. By 22 Car. II, c. 13, oxen might be exported on payment of a duty of is. each, the last statute on the subject. As for sheep, their export without the king's licence had been forbidden by 3 Hen. VI, c. 2, because men had been in the habit of taking them to Flanders and other countries, where they sheared them and sold the wool and the mutton. 8 Eliz., c. 3, forbade their export, and 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18, declared the export of sheep and wool a felony. The importation of cattle was forbidden by 15 Car. II, c. 7, which stated that the ' comeing in of late of vast numbers of cattle already fatted 'had caused ' a very great part of the land of this kingdom to be much fallen and like dayly to fall more in their rents and values ' ; therefore every head of great cattle imported was to pay zos. to the king. los. to the in- former, and ioj. to the poor after July i, 1664. By 18 Car. II, c. 2, the importation of cattle was declared a common nuisance, and if any cattle, sheep, or swine were imported they were to be seized and forfeited. By 32 Car. II. c. 2, this was made perpetual and continued in force till 1842, though it was repealed as to Ireland, as we have seen. 1 It appears from the laws dealing with the matter that in the time of the Plantagenets England exported butter and cheese. In the reign of Edward III they were merchandise of the staple, and therefore when exported had to go to Calais when the staple was fixed there. This caused great damage, it is said, to divers persons in England, for the butter and cheese would not keep until buyers came ; therefore 3 Hen. 1 See p. 161. IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 327 VI, c. 4, enacted that the chancellor might grant licence to export butter and cheese to other places than to the staple. The regulation of the export of wool frequently occupied the attention of Parliament. It has been noticed 1 that the laws of Edgar fixed its price for export, and Henry of Hunting- don mentions its export in the twelth century, while during the reign of Edward I it was for some time forbidden except by licence, which led to its being smuggled out in wine casks. 2 The Hundred Rolls give the names of several Italian merchants who were engaged in buying wool for export, the ecclesiastical houses, especially the Cistercians, furnishing a great quantity, and the chief port then for the wool trade was Boston. The ex- port was again prohibited in 1337, the great object being to make the foreigner pay dearly for our staple product : an object which was certainly effected, for when Queen Philippa redeemed her crown from pawn at Cologne in 1342 by a quantity of English wool, is. $\d. a Ib. was the price, and it was even said to sell in Flanders at $s. a Ib., a price which, expressed in modern money, seems fabulous. 3 However, in the next reign English wool began to decline in price, owing probably to changes in fashion, but the long wools maintained their supe- riority and their export was forbidden by Henry VI and Elizabeth. 4 In the reign of James I it was confessed ' that the cloth of this kingdom hath wanted both estimation and vent in foreign parts, and that the wools are fallen from their stated values ', so that export was prohibited entirely ; and 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 1 8. declared the export of wool a felony, though 7 and 8 Will. Ill, c. 38, says this did not deter people fromj exporting it, so that the law was made more stringent on thej subject, and export continued to be forbidden until i825. 6 Ii 1 Supra, p. 38. 2 Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 176, 192; Hundred Rolls, i. 405, 414- 8 Burnley, History of Wool, p. 65. Ibid. p. 70. 6 Cf. supra, p. 172. 328 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE a letter written in 1677 the fall of rents in England, which had caused the value of estates to sink from twenty-one to sixteen or seventeen years' purchase, is ascribed mainly to the low price of wool, 1 owing to the prohibition of export and increased im- ports from Ireland and Spain. It was now, said the writer, worth yd. instead of nd., and a great quantity of Spanish wool was being sold in England at low rates. These ' low rates ' were 2s . and is. id. a Ib. for the best wool, whereas in 1 660 the best Spanish wool was 4.?. and 4s. id. a Ib. We have seen 2 that Spanish wool was imported into England in the Middle Ages. In 1677, according to Smith, 3 England imported 2,000 bags of 200 Ib. each from Spain 4 ; in the three years 1709-11, 14,000 bags ; in the three years 1712-14, 20,000 bags ; and about 1730 some came from Jamaica, Maryland, and Virginia, and down to 1802 imports were free. 5 In that year a duty of 5J. 3*/. a cwt. was imposed, which in 1819 was raised to 56^. a cwt., which, however, was reduced to id. a Ib. on is. woo and \d. alb. on wool under is. in 1824. In 1825 colonial woo was admitted free, and in j 844 the duty taken off altogether, anc imports from our colonies and foreign countries soon assumec enormous proportions. Down to 1814 nearly all our imports of wool came from Spain ; after that the greater part came from Germany and the East Indies ; but Russia and India soon began to send large quantities, and in recent times Australasia has been our chief importer, in 1907 sending 321,470.554 Ib., while New Zealand sent 158,406,255 Ib. out of a total import of 764,286,625 Ib. About 1800 our imports of wool were 8,609,368 Ib. ! 6 Of our enormous imports of wool, however, a very large quantity is re-exported. 1 Smith, Memoirs of Wool, i. 222. 2 See above, p. 38. 3 Smith, Memoirs of Wool, ii. 252. * M c Pherson, Annals of Commerce, iii. 156. 5 MCulloch, Commercial Dictionary, p. 1431. For imports see Ap- pendix, p. 354. 6 Of which 6,000,000 Ib. came from Spain. The first Spanish Merino sheep were introduced into Australia in 1797. See Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, ii. 538, and cf. below, p. 354. IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 329 In 1828 it was stated before the House of Lords that English wool had deteriorated considerably during the previous thirty years, owing chiefly to the farmer increasing the weight of the carcase and the quantity of wool, so that fineness of fleece was injured. The great extension of turnips and the introduction of a large breed of sheep also appeared to have lessened the value of the fleece, yet English wool to-day still commands a high price in comparison with that of other countries, though the price in recent years has declined greatly; in 1871 it was is. $%d. a lb., in 1872 is. <)%d., in 1873 is. yd. In 1907 Leicester wool was i2^/., Southdown 14^. to 15^., and Lin- coln \id. a lb. ; Australian at the same date being nd. y and New Zealand i\\d. The fruit-grower has also had to contend with an enormous foreign supply, which nearly always has a better appearance than that grown in these islands, though the quality is often inferior. In 1860 apples were included with other raw fruits in the returns, so that the exact figures are not given, but apparently about 500,000 cwt. came in ; by 1903 this had in- creased to 4.569,546 bushels, and in 1907 3,526,232 bushels arrived. Enormous foreign supplies of grapes, pears, plums, cherries, and even strawberries have also combined to keep the home price down. The decrease in the acreage of hops, from its maximum of 71,789 acres in 1878 to 44,938 in 1907, was ascribed by the recent Commission to the lessening demand for beer in England, the demand for lighter kinds of beer, and the use of hop substitutes, and not to increase in foreign competition ; which the following figures seem to bear out : IMPORTS OF HOPS. Cwt. 1861 149,176 1867 . 296,117 1869 322,515 1870 ; . . 127,853 1875 , w - .-. .y. v. 256,444 1877 (the year before the record acreage planted) . 250,039 330 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE Cwf. 1879 262,765 1903 H3.998 1904 313,667 1905 108,953 1906 232,619 1907 202,324 In recent years they have been a loss to the grower ; as the average crop is a little under 9 cwt. per acre, and the total cost of growing and marketing from 35 to 45 an acre, it is obvious that prices of about ^3 per cwt., which have ruled lately, are unremunerative. However disastrous to the farmer and landowner, the in- creased quantities and low prices of food thus obtained have been of inestimable benefit to the crowded population of Eng- land. In 1851 the whole corn supply, both English and foreign, afforded 317 Ib. per annum per head of the population of 27 millions. In 1889 the total supply gave 400 Ib. per head to a population of 37^ millions at a greatly reduced cost. 1 The supply of animal food presents similar contrasts ; in 1851 each person obtained 90 Ib., in 1889 115 Ib. The average value of the imports of food per head in the period 1859-65 was about 25^.; in the period 1901-7, 6$s. 2 The products which have stood best against foreign competition are fresh milk, hay and straw, the softer kinds of fruit that will not bear carriage well, and stock of the finest quality. These islands still maintain their great reputation for the excellent quality of their live stock, and exports, chiefly of pedigree animals, touched their highest figure in 1906: Average per No. Total value. head. Cattle . . . 5,616 327.335 58 Sheep . . . 12,716 204,061 16 Pigs . . . 2,221 20,292 9 1 R. A. S. E. Journal (1890), p. 29. 9 Board of Agriculture Returns (1907), p. 187. CROPS AND GRASS 33 1 IS;;. 1 1907. Acreage under crops Total acreage under and grass in England 24,312,033 crops and grass . 24,585.455 Corn crops. Corn crops. Wheat .... 2,987,129 Wheat . ^ . 1,537,208 Barley or here . . 2,000,531 Barley .... 1,411,163 Oats .... 1,489,999 Oats . . 1,967,682 Rye .... 48,604 Rye . . . . 53,837 Beans .... 470,153 Beans .... 296,186 Peas .... 306,356 Peas .... 164,326 Total 7,302,772 Total 5,430,402 Potatoes . . . 381,891 Green crops. Potatoes . . . 303,964 Turnips and swedes . 1,495,885 Mangels . . . 348,289 Turnips and swedes Mangels . . ( . Cabbage Kohl rabi 1,058,292 436,193 65,262 20,572 Carrots . . . 14,445 Cabbage, kohl rabi, and Rape . . Vetches or tares . 79,913 145,067 rape .... 176,218 Lucerne . . . ~ J t 1 63,379 Vetches and other green Hops .... 44,938 crops. . . . 420,373 Small fruit . 73.372 Total 2,759,174 Clover, sainfoin, and Flax .... 7,210 grasses under rotation 2,611,722 Hops .... 71,239 Bare fallow or uncropped Other crops . . Bare fallow . 117,914 248,678 arable . . . 576,235 Total arable io777,595 Clover, sainfoin, and Permanent grass 13,807,860 grasses under rotation 2,737,387 24,585,45'; Total arable 13.454,017 The small fruit was divided into : Permanent grass, exclu- Strawberries . 23,623 sive of mountain or Raspberries 6 ,479! heath land . . 10,858,016 I Currants and goose- berries 24,178! Others . . 19,090 24,312,033 | 73,37iJ 1 Cf. Appendix iv, p. 353. 332 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE As arable land has suffered much more than grass from foreign imports, it was inevitable that this country should become more pastoral; in 1877 the arable land of England amounted to 13,454,017 acres, and permanent grass to 10,858,016. By 1907] this was practically reversed, the permanent grass amounting/ to 13,807,860 acres and the arable to 10,777,595. In corn crops the great decrease has been in the acreage of wheat, but barley, beans, and peas have also diminished, while oats have increased. In green crops there has been a great decrease in turnips and swedes, compensated to some extent by an in- crease in mangels, and a sad decrease in hops. The changes in thirty years can be gathered from the tables of the Board of Agriculture given on p. 331. In 1877 no separate return of small fruit was made, but in 1878 the orchards of England, including fruit trees of any kind, covered 161,228 acres, which by [907 had grown to a total area under fruit of 294,910 acres, among which were 168,576 acres of apples, 8,365 of pears, 11,952 of cherries, and 14,571 of plums. Much of the small fruit is included in the orchards. ' Other crops ' were further divided into : Acres. Acres. Carrots .... 11,897 Flax .... 355 Onions .... 3,416 Others . . . 97,020 Buckwheat . . . 5,226 117,914 The average yield per acre of various crops in England for the ten years 1897-1906 was : Bushels. Wheat 31-15 * Barley 32-88 Oats 41-38 Beans 29-28 Peas . . . 27-15 in 1 In 1907 the average wheat crop was 33-96 bushels per acre i_ England and 39-18 in Scotland. The average yield per acre of wheat in Holland is 34-1 bushels ; Belgium, 34 ; Germany, 30-3 ; Denmark, 28-2 ; France, 197. LIVE STOCK 333 Tons. Potatoes ........ 5.74 Turnips and swedes ..... .12-19 Mangels ........ 19-24 Cwt. Hay from clover, and grasses under rotation . 29*40 Hay from permanent grass . . .' . 24-33 Hops . ' . . . ,,\ . . . 8-81 The live stock in 1877 consisted of: Horses used solely for purposes of agriculture . . . 761,089 Unbroken horses and mares kept solely for breeding . ; ". '' 309,119 1,070,208 Cattle. Cows and heifers in milk or in calf . . . . 1,557,574 Two years old and over . . "."*'. . . 1,072,407 Under two years of age . . ; . - : .. --.- . 1,349,669 3,979,650 Sheep ......... . 18,330,377 Pigs ....... ^-. ' . ' . _." 2,114,751 In 1907 : Horses used solely for agriculture . . . . . . 863,817 Unbroken ....... . . . 325,330 1,189,147 Cattle. Cows and heifers in milk or in calf . . . . 2,032,284 Two years old and over . . . . 1,043,034 Under two years of age ...... 1,912,413 Sheep 1 ....... .... 15,098,928 Pigs ........... 2,257,136 The decrease in sheep and the increase in cattle and horses (though of late years the latter have shown a tendency to decrease) are to be noted. 1 The total number of sheep in Great Britain in 1877 was 28,161^164 ; in 1907, 26,115,455. In 1688 Youatt estimates it at 12,000,000; in 1741, 17,000,000 ; in 1800, 26,000,000 ; in 1830, 32,000,000. 334 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE The number of live stock per i.ooo acres of cultivated land in the United Kingdom and other countries is : Country. Cattle. Sheep. Pigs. Total. United Kingdom . 247 619 76 942 Belgium ... 411 54 240 705 Denmark . . . 264 126 209 599 France . . . 167 207 88 462 Germany . . . 221 90 216 527 Holland . . . 322 116 164 602 It will be observed that in cattle the United Kingdom comes out badly, but is pre-eminent in sheep and has the largest total ; though, as cattle require more acreage, Belgium nearly equals its aggregate produce for 1,000 acres. As regards prices at the two periods 1871-5 and 1906-7, if we take TOO as the price at the former the following are the prices at the latter : Beef ... 71 Mutton ... 93 Bacon 121 Wheat ... 56 Butter ... 97 Cheese . 100 Turning once more to the occupation of land, the percentage of land occupied by owners in 1907 in England was 13-4, the rest being occupied by tenants, and the following is a state- ment of the number of agricultural holdings of various sizes in 1875 and 1907 : 1875.' 50 acres 50 to 100 to 300 to 500 to Above and loo 300 500 1,000 1,000 under. acres. acres. acres. acres. acres. 293,469 44,842 58,450 11,245 3,871 463 1907. Above I and not Above 5 and not Above 50 and not Above 300 exceeding 5 acres, exceeding 50 acres, exceeding 300 acres. acres. 80,921 165,975 109,927 H,652 1907. ot res, e 80,921 165,975 109,927 1 Unfortunately the class 50 acres and under at this time included holdings under one acre, so that it is useless for the comparison of the number of small holdings at the two dates, for in 1907 none appear under one acre. CHAPTER XXIII MODERN FARM LIVE STOCK CART HORSES ARTHUR YOUNG at the end of the eighteenth century found only two kinds of cart horses worthy of mention, the Shire and the Suffolk Punch ; to-day, besides these two, we have the Clydesdale. The Shire horse, according to Sir Walter Gilbey, is the purest survival of the Great Horse of mediaeval times, known also as the War Horse, and the Old English Black Horse. It is the largest of draught horses, attaining a height of 17 to 17-3 hands and a weight of 2,200 lb., its general characteristics being immense strength, symmetrical propor- tions, bold free action, and docile disposition. In 1878 the Shire Horse Society was established to improve the breed, and distribute sound and healthy sires through the country. The Clydesdale, whose native home is the valley of the Clyde, is not so large as the Shire, but strong, active, and a fine worker. They are either derived from a cross between Flemish stallions and Lanarkshire mares, or are an improve- ment of the old Lanark breed. 1 The Suffolk Punch looks what he is a thorough farm horse. He stands lower than the two former breeds, but weighs heavily, often 2,000 Ib. They are generally chestnut or light dun in colour, and their legs are without the feather of the Clydesdale and Shire. They have been long asso- ciated with Suffolk, and were mentioned by Camden in 1586. According to the Suffolk Stud Book of 1880, the Suffolk 1 Youatt, Complete Grazier (1900), p. 388 ; cf. pp. 104-5. 336 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE horses of to-day are with few exceptions the descendants in the direct male line of the original breed described by Arthur Young. CATTLE What was the original breed of cattle in this island is uncertain. The Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1887 favours the view that the herds of wild cattle, such as still exist at Chillingham, represent the original breed of Great Britain. It states that the ' urus ' was the only indigenous wild ox in this country, and the source of all our domesticated breeds as well as of the few wild ones that remain, such as the Chillingham breed, which is small, white, with the inside of the ear red, and a brownish muzzle. Some, however, assert they are merely the descendants of a domesticated breed run wild, which have reverted somewhat to the ancient type. 1 According to Thorold Rogers, the cattle of the Middle Ages were small rough animals like the mountain breeds of to-day, and at the end of the sixteenth century we have seen they had large horns, were low and heavy, and for the most part black. 2 The great variety of cattle in Great Britain may be due to their being the descendants of several species, or to difference of climate and soil, or to spontaneous variation, but the chief cause is the diligent selection of breeders. Marshall is quite positive 3 that the Hereford, Devon, Sussex, and the black mountain breeds of Scotland and Wales are all descended from the original native breed of this island, that the Shorthorns came from the Continent, and the Longhorns probably from Ireland. Bradley 's division of cattle into black, white, and red tells us little. 4 There was very little attempt at improvement until the middle of the eighteenth century, for peace was necessary for long 1 Youatt, Complete Grazier (1900), p. 6. 2 See p. 167. 3 Rural Economy of West of England, i. 235 ; cf. above, p. 235. 4 See above, p. 167. MODERN FARM LIVE STOCK 337 continued effort, and 1746, the date of Culloden, the last battle fought on British soil, may be taken practically as the commencement of the era of progress. The Shorthorn is the most famous and widely-spread breed of this country, if not in the world ; it exceeds in number any other breed in the United Kingdom, and most cross-breds have Shorthorn blood in them. It adapts itself to any climate, and is equally noted for beef-making and milk-yielding. The origin of the Shorthorns is uncertain ; they originated from the Teeswater and Holderness varieties, but where these came from is a matter of dispute. Young, in his Northern Tour, 1 says, ' In Yorkshire the common breed was the short- horned kind of cattle called Holderness, but really the Dutch sort '; and many have said the Holderness and the Teeswater breeds both came from Holland, and were practically the same, while others assert the original home of the Teeswaters was the West Highlands. 2 John Lawrence speaks of the Dutch breed with short horns in T726 3 ; but, unless they were smuggled over, it certainly seems strange that any Dutch cattle should have been im- ported in the eighteenth century, for the importation of cattle was strictly forbidden during the whole century. It was George Culley's opinion that they came from Holland, because few were found except along the eastern coast ; he also knew farmers who went over to Holland to buy bulls. 4 Be this as it may, it was the cattle of the Teeswater district in Durham that the Collings improved, and they are still called Durhams in many parts. The work of the Collings 5 was carried on by Thomas Booth, who farmed his own estate of Killerby in Yorkshire, where he turned his attention to Shorthorns about 1790, and by 1814 he was as well known as the Collings. He improved the Shorthorns by reducing the 1 ii. 126; about 1770. 2 Youatt, Complete Grazier, p. 18, and see ' Druid ', Saddle and Sirloin. 3 Cf. supra, p. 167. 4 Culley on Live Stock (1807), p. 42. 8 See p. 233. 338 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE bone, especially the length and coarseness of the legs, the too prominent hips, and the heavy shoulder bones. In 1819 he removed to Warlaby, and died there in 1835, having given up the Killerby estate to his son John, who with his brother Richard ably sustained their father's reputation. 'Booth strains' equally with ' Bates strains', the results of the work of Bates of Kirkleavington, whose cattle we have seen at the Oxford Show in 1839, and whose herd was dispersed in 1850, have been the foundation of many famous herds, and can be traced in many a pedigree animal of to-day. The palmy days of the Shorthorns were the ' seventies ' of the last century, when they made fabulous prices. At the great sale at New York Mills, in 1873, eleven females of the Duchess tribe averaged 4,522 M^- 2^., and one cow sold for 8,458 6s. %d. In 1877 Mr. Loder bought Third Duchess of Hillhurst for 4,100 guineas; in 1876 Lord Bective gave 4,300 guineas for Fifth Duchess of Hillhurst, then 16 months old ; and in 1875 the bull Duke of Connaught sold for 4,500 guineas. It was not likely that with the advent of bad times these prices would continue, and nothing like them in the Shorthorn world has occurred since. Herefords. 1 Herefordshire cattle have long been famous as one of the finest breeds in the world. Marshall, writing in 1788, does not hesitate to say, ' The Herefordshire breed of cattle, taking it all in all, may without risque be deemed the first breed of cattle in the land.' Their origin has been accounted for in various ways. Some say they were originally brown or reddish-brown from Normandy or Devon, others that they came from Wales, while it is recorded that Lord Scudamore in the latter half of the seventeenth century introduced red cows with white faces from Flanders. However, they do not 1 Much of these accounts of Herefords and Devons is from the author's articles in the Victoria County History. MODERN FARM LIVE STOCK 339 emerge from obscurity until about the middle of the eighteenth century, when Messrs. Tomkins, Weyman, Yeomans, Hewer, and Tully devoted their energies to establishing a county breed. There were four varieties of Herefords, which have now practically merged into the red with white face, mane, and throat : the mottle face, with red marks intermixed with the parts usually white ; the dark greys ; light greys ; and the red with the white face. The rivalry between the breeders of the white and the mottle faces almost caused the failure of the Herd-Book commenced in 1845 by Mr. Eyton. The mottle-faced party seems to have been then the most influ- ential, but the dark and light grey varieties also had strong adherents. In 1857 Mr. Duckham took over the management of the Herd-Book, and to his exertions the breed owes a deep debt of gratitude. One of the greatest supporters of the Herefordshire breed was Mr. Westcar of Creslow, who, starting in 1779, attended Hereford October Fair for forty years, and when the Smithfield Show commenced in 1799 won innumer- able first prizes there with Herefordshire cattle. Between 1799 and i8u twenty of his Herefordshire prize oxen averaged 106 6.$-. each, and at the sale of Mr. Ben Tomkins's herd after his death in 1819 twenty-eight breeding animals averaged 152, one cow fetching 262 15^. Herefords are famous for their feeding qualities at grass, and good stores are scarce, the best being fattened on their native pastures. They are not only almost the only breed in their own county, but few English counties south of Shropshire are without them ; they have done well in Ireland, and in Canada, the United States, South America, and Australia have attained great success. They are not so well qualified for crossing as Shorthorns, but have blended well with that breed, and produced good crosses with Ayrshires and Jerseys, but not with Devons. It has been said that they are not a favourite sort with London butchers, as they require time to ripen, which does not suit a hurrying age. Hence they probably flourished best under the old z 2 340 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE school of graziers, who sometimes kept them to six or seven years old. At all events they are a very fine breed for beef purposes, their meat being particularly tender, juicy, and fine- grained. They are seldom kept for dairy purposes, being poor milkers ; consequently the calf is nearly always allowed to run with the dam, which accounts for the fact that one seldom sees pure-bred Herefords that are not well grown. The highest price paid for a Hereford was 4,000 guineas for Lord Wilton in 1884. Devons. The cattle of North Devon can be traced as the peculiar breed of the county from which they take their name from the earliest records. Bradley mentioned the red cattle of Somerset in 1726, and no doubt there were many in Devon- shire. 1 William Marshall states (1805), and he is supported by subsequent writers, that 'they are of the middle horn class', and in his time so nearly resembled the Herefordshire breed in frame, colour, and horn, as not to be distinguishable from them, except in the greater cleanness of the head and fore-quarters, and their smaller size. Yet they could not have had the white faces and throats of the Herefords, as they have always been famous for their uniformity in colour a fine dark red. 2 He also compares them to the cattle of Sussex and the native cattle of Norfolk. 3 The Devons then differed very much in different parts of the county ; those of North Devon taking the lead, being ' nearly what cattle ought to be'. They were, considered as draught animals, the best workers anywhere beyond all comparison, though rather small, for which deficiency they made up in 1 See above, p. 1 68. 2 Risdon, Survey (1810), Introd. p. viii. 3 Rural Economy of West of England, i. 235. Risdon says of Devon- shire : ' As to cattle, no part of the Kingdom is better supplied with beasts of all sorts, whether for profit or pleasure,' those for pleasure being ap- parently wild ones kept in parks. Chappie's Review of Risdon 's Survey, P- 23. MODERN FARM LIVE STOCK 341 exertion and agility. As dairy cattle they were not very good, since rearing for the east country graziers had long been the main object of Devon cattle farmers, but as grazing cattle they were excellent. Vancouver, a few years after this, praised their activity in work and their unrivalled aptitude to fatten, but says they were then declining in their general standard of excellence, and in numbers, owing to the great demand for them from other parts of England, where the buyers (Mr. Coke, who had established a valuable herd of them, and others) spared neither pains nor price to obtain those of the highest excellence. This danger was clearly perceived by Francis Quartly of Molland, who set to work to remedy it by systematically buying the choicest cows he could procure. As the reputation and perhaps continuance of the Devon breed is due to him more than to any other man, his account of his own efforts on behalf of it is specially valuable. 1 At the end of the eighteenth century the principal North Devon yeomen were all breeders, and every week you might see in the Molton Market, their natural locality, animals that would now be called choice. There were few cattle shows in those days, and therefore the relative value of animals was not so easily tested. The war prices tempted many farmers to sell their best bulls and cows out of the district, so that good animals were becoming scarce, and the breed generally going back. Mr. Quartly therefore for years bought all the best animals he could find with rare skill and judgement, and continued to improve his stock till he brought it to perfection. About the year 1834 cattle shows began at Exeter, and for the first year or two Mr. Quartly did not compete ; then he allowed his nephews to enter in all the classes, and they brought home all the prizes. This lead they kept, and at the Royal Show at Exeter in 1850 their stock obtained nine 1 R. A. S.E. Journal (ist ser.), xi. 680. See also ibid. xix. 368, and (2nd ser.) v. 107 ; xiv. 663 ; xx. 691. 342 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE out of the ten prizes for Devons. The Devon Herd-Book was first published in 1851 by Captain T. T. Davy, and a writer in 1858 says that of twenty-nine prize bulls in the first three volumes twenty-seven were descended from the Quartly bull Forester, and of thirty-four prize cows twenty- nine from the cow Curly, also of their stock. Among other famous breeders of Devons contemporary with Quartly were Messrs. Merson, Davy, Michael Thorne, Yapp, Buckingham, the Raises, and George Turner. In 1 829 Moore says, ' The young heifers of North Devon, with their taper legs, the exact symmetry of their form, and their clear coats of dark red, are pictures of elegance.' Their superiority for grazing and draught was proved by the high prices demanded for them, but they were not equally es- teemed as dairy animals, 1 though of late years this reproach has been removed. The ploughing of two acres of fallow land was the common work of four oxen, which, when fattened at five years old, would reach eleven score a quarter. Since the publication of the Herd-Book, Devons have spread all over the world, to Mexico, Jamaica, Canada, Australia, France, and United States, and the fact that in their original home they have been largely kept by tenant farmers proves them a good rent-paying breed. Yet it cannot be pretended that away from their native country they are as much valued as the Shorthorn and Hereford. The South Hams breed of South Devon is a distinct variety, though it is believed to be descended from the ' Rubies ' 1 and apparently has at some time been crossed with the Guernsey ; they are good milkers and attain a great size, but the quality of the meat is decidedly inferior to that of North Devon. From the earliest times the real Devon colour has been red, varying from a dark to a lighter or almost chestnut 1 History of Devon, i. 456. 2 R. A.S.E. Journal (y& ser.), i. 527. MODERN FARM LIVE STOCK 343 shade ; half a century ago the lighter ones were more numerous than at present, and they are often of richer quality though less hardy than the dark ones. The Sussex is larger and coarser than the Devon, of a deep brown chestnut colour, very hardy, a beef-producing but not a milk-yielding sort. Longhorns, 1 a generation ago nearly extinct, once the favourite cattle of the midlands and portions of the north, are descended from a breed long established in the Craven district of Yorkshire. ' The true Lancashire/ said Young in 1770, 'were Longhorns, and in Derbyshire were a bastard sort of Lancashires.' 2 It was this breed that Bakewell im- proved, and of late years great efforts, chiefly in Warwick- shire and Leicestershire, have been made to revive it. The Red Polled, or Norfolk Polled, is the only hornless breed of English cattle, and they are good milkers and fatteners. The Lincoln Red is a small red variety of the Shorthorn. Many of the Welsh breeds have spread into the adjacent parts of England, and may be classified as North and South Welsh, or Angleseys and Castle Martins ; black in colour, and generally with long horns. The Scottish cattle the Aberdeen Angus, the Galloways, the Highland breed, and the Ayrshires are also seen in England, but not so often as the Jerseys and Guernseys from the Channel Islands, while the small Dexters and Kerrys from Ireland are favourites with some English farmers. SHEEP The sheep of the British Isles may be divided into three main classes : i. Longwools, containing Leicesters, Border Leicesters, Cotswolds, Lincolns, Kentish, Devon Longwool, South Devon, Wensleydale, and Roscommon. 1 See above, p. 275 n. '* Northern Tour, ii. 126. 344 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 2. Shortwools : the Oxford Downs, Southdowns, Shrop- shires, Hampshire Downs, Suffolks, Ryelands, Somerset and Dorset Horned, and Clun Forest. 3. Mountain breeds : Cheviots, Blackfaced Mountain, Herd- wick, Lonk, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Welsh Mountain, and Lime- stone. These are all English except the Border Leicester, Cheviot, and Blackfaced Mountain, which are Scotch; the Welsh Mountain is of course Welsh, and the Roscommon Irish. i. The Leicesters, the largest and in many respects the most important of British longwool sheep, are the sheep which Bakewell improved so greatly. They are capable of being brought to a great weight, and their long fine wool averages 7 Ib. to the fleece. The Border Leicesters are an offshoot of the last named, bred on the Scottish Border, and originating from the flock which George and Matthew Culley in 1767 took from the Tees to the Tweed. The Cotswolds have been on the Gloucestershire hills for ages, and have long been famous for the length of their fleece, hardiness, and breeding qualities. The Lincoln is the result of the old native breed of the county improved by Leicester blood. They have larger heads and denser and heavier wool than the Leicesters, averaging 8 to 9lb. to the fleece, but have been known to yield 14 Ib. The Kentish or Romney Marsh have long existed in the district whence they obtain their name, but are not much known away from that locality. The Devon Longwool is a result of the infusion of Leicester blood among the old Bampton stock of Devonshire called Bampton Notts or polled sheep. The South Devons or South Hams are another local breed, and are a result of the improvement of the South Hams Notts by the Leicester. 345 The Wensleydales are descendants of the old Teeswater breed, itself a variety of the old Leicester and improved by the new Leicesters of Culley. a. Oxford Downs, a modern black-faced breed, now widely spread all over the midland counties, are a mixture of Cotswolds with Hampshire Downs and Southdowns, and originated at the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign, but were not definitely so called till 1857. This cross of two distinct varieties, the long and the short wool, has approxi- mated to the shortwool type. The Southdown, formerly Sussex Down, an old breed bred for ages on the chalky soils of the South Downs, is ' perhaps ', says Youatt, ' the most valuable breed in the kingdom.' It was to John Ellman of Glynde, at the end of the eighteenth century, that they owe their present per- fection, and they have exercised as much influence among the shortwools as the Leicesters among the longwools. The Shropshire sheep is a descendant of the original Long- mynd or old Shropshire sheep, which began to be crossed by the Southdown at the commencement of the nineteenth century. 1 They were recognized as a distinct breed in 1853, and since then have become one of the most valued breeds, combining the symmetry and quality of the Southdown with the weight of the Cotswold and the fattening tendency of the Leicester, with a hardier constitution. The Hampshire Down is another instance of the widespread influence of the Southdown, being the result of crossing that breed with the old Wiltshire sheep, which had long curling horns, and the Berkshire Knott. They are heavier than the Shropshire, and are perhaps more distinguished for early maturity than any other breed. TheSuffolk is derived from the old horned Norfolk ewe mated with the Southdown, and was first granted its name in 1859. The Ryeland is a small, hornless, white-faced breed which 1 R. A. S.E. Journal (1858), p. 42. 346 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE has been in Herefordshire for centuries, but of late years has dwindled in numbers before the advent of the Shropshire. The Somerset and Dorset Horned is another old breed, preserved in a pure state, much improved in modern times, and very hardy. The Clun Forest breed of West Shropshire and the adjacent parts of Wales is a mixture of the Ryeland, Shropshire, and Welsh breeds. 3. The Cheviot is found on both sides of the hills of that name, though Northumberland is said to be its original home, and it was improved in the eighteenth century by crossing with the Lincoln. The Blackfaced Mountain breed is found chiefly in Scotland, but thrives on the bleak grazing lands of the north of England. The Herdwicks' home is the hills of Cumberland and West- moreland, where they are hardy enough to fatten on the poor, thin pasture. The Lonk is the largest mountain breed, belonging to the fells of Yorkshire and Lancashire. The Dartmoors and Exmoors almost certainly came from one stock, though the former are now the larger, and are the few real survivors of the old forest or mountain breeds of England. The Exmoor is horned, the Dartmoor hornless. The Welsh Mountain is a small, hardy, soft-woolled breed, their mutton having the best flavour of any sheep, and their wool making the famous Welsh flannel. The Limestone is little known outside the fells of West- moreland. PIGS Our pigs may be roughly divided into white, black, and red ; the first comprising the Large, Middle, and Small Whites, formerly called Yorkshires ; the second the Small Black (Suffolk or Essex), the Large Black only recently recognized, but apparently very ancient, and the Berkshire, which often has white marks on face, legs, or tail. The red is the Tamworth, one of the oldest breeds, its skin being red with dark spots. APPENDIX I AVERAGE PRICES FROM 1259 TO 1700 l 1259-14 1401-154 1541-82 1583-17 CORN PER QUARTER. WHEAT. BARLEY. OATS. 2S. 5 j2 SHEEP. LAMBS. (GROWN)< BOARS. 1259-1400 13.?. i\d. gs. 54<*-540 rc^ ' ^.ered f # unaltered 6, 1541-82 55*. great 3^. to 2s. to 6s. 8d. increase 4^. 6d. $s. to 8^. 1580-1640 1583-1700 loo*. 6os. ?.?? ios. 7d. great increase POULTRY AND EGGS. HENS. DUCKS GEESE. EGGS. 1259-1400 1401-1540 1541-82 1583-1700 8 i^d. 2d. 2\d. 2\d. 4%d. 4%d. 343, 344- Balance sheet, estate, 307 ; farm, in 1805, 247; in 1888, 309. Balks, 3. Ball, John, 60. Banbury cheese, 173. Bank Restriction Act, 239, 240, 263. Barking Nunnery, vineyard at, 144. Barley, 20, 33, 36, 65, 91, 124, 135, 142, 155, 182, 227, 331-2, 353; cost of, per acre, 198; produce, per acre, i65n., 197-8; profit on, 179,180. (See Prices.) Barns, size of, 51. Barren years at end of seventeenth cen- tury, 115, 157. Basic slag, 304. Bassingthorpe, 103. Bates, Thomas, 274, 338. 358 INDEX Bath, wine made at, 145. Beale, John, 128, 130. Beans, 17, 33, 49, 124, 155, 187, 201, 262, 331-2, 353 ; cost of growing, 199; profit on, 180. (See Prices.) Bedford, Duke of, 225, 318, 321. Bedfordshire, 3, 18, 79, 120, 123, 238, 306. Beef, price of, see Prices. Beer, 36, 329. Belgium, live stock in, 334 ; wheat crops in, 332n. Belvoir estate, 115, 286, Berkeley estates, 3, 27 n., 35 n., 48, 56, 64, 74. 75- Berkshire, 104, 175, 237, 284, 286, 306 n. Berkshire Knotts, 345 ; pigs, 346. Berlin decrees, 242. Best, Henry, accounts of, 138-40. Bideford, 262. Biggleswade, 318. Birds eating fruit, 129. Black Death, 27, 41-3, 59, 75. Black Year, the, 294. Blight, Hop, 150. Blyth, 113, 127, 137, 152. Board of Agriculture, 192, 193, 214, 229-33, 2 555 (Government), 290. Bones for manure, 154-5, 2 73> 275-6, 299. Booth, Thomas, 337-8. Bordarii, 8, n. Boston, 308, 318, 327. Boys' wages, 206. Bradley, 152, 167, 168-9, ' 7> I 7 I I 8i, 336. Brampton, 235. Bread, different kinds of, 54, 102, 206-7, 230; rye, 101, 134, 206; wheaten, a luxury, roi ; common, 207, 240; made of turnips, 157; price of (see Prices). Breeding of stock, 37, 146, 167, 215-7, 256, 273. Brentford, 157. Bridport, 262. Bright, John, 280. Buckinghamshire, 78, 146, 172, 291, 306 n. Buckwheat, 332. Budget, labourer's weekly, 206, 208, 356. Buildings, farm, and repairs, 51, -272, 279, 282, 299, 302, 307, 310. Bull, description of a (1726), 167 Burford, riot at, 185. Buri, 8, n. Bury St. Edmunds, no, 147. Butter, 33, 63 n., 66, 114, 138, 140, 161, 174, 205, 20611., 241, 247 (see Prices), 34 35, 313. 325 ; exports of, 326-7. By-industries of peasant, no, 239, 250, 257, 260, 269, 317. Cabbages, 112, 143, 187, 191, 194, 200, 201, 331. Cadaveratores, 13. Caird, Sir James, 279, 281, 285, 287, 31, 3 J 4> 3i9 n - Cake, 296, 300, 305, 314. Calstock, 318. Calves, killing of, forbidden, 86 ; rear- ing, 125. Cambridgeshire, 79, 151, 167, 222,262, 306 n., 318. Camden, 173, 335. Canada, imports from, 323-4. Canterbury, hops from, 171. Capital of farmers, 197, 203-4. Carrington, Lord, 231. Carrots, 112, 128, 143, 167, 191, 194, 33i, S3 2 . Carter, wages of, no. Cart-horses, price of, 35, 114. Carts, 153. Cattle, Chillingham, 336 ; diseases, 85 ; export of, 326, 330; improvement in, 336, 337. 33,8 (see Cattle, size of) ; number of, in 1867 and 1878, 288; in 1907, 333-4; original breed of, 336 ; price of, see Prices ; size of, 37, 104, 146, 169, 288, 336, 34 2 ; separation of, for summer pasture, 124; sorts of (1726), 167 (see under Various breeds); about 1800, 235; in 1839, 274; in 1892, 274, 336; time to buy, 125. (See Bakewell, Collings, Exports, and Imports.) Cattle plagues, of eighteenth century, 172, 185-6, 290; of nineteenth cen- tury, 289-90, 294. Cauliflowers, 143. Causes of high prices at end of eight- eenth century, 240. Celery, 318. Chamberlayne, 259. Cheddar cheese, 173. Cheese, 33, 6sn., 66, 161, 173, 174, 200, 20611., 276, 305, 313, 325. (See Prices, Exports, and Imports.) INDEX 359 Chelmsford, no, 171, 307. Chemistry, agricultural, 232, 243, 275. Cherries, 15, 129, 130, 131, 136, 143, 171, 329.332. Cheshire, 3, 110, 167, 173, 224, 276, 295, 306. Chestnuts, 136. Cheviots, 344, 346. Child, Josiah, 117. Christ Church, Canterbury, 42. Cider, 37, 130, 131, 135-6, 149, 187-9, 207, 269. Cistercians, good farmers, 29, 327. Civil War, checks improvement, 113; family settlements after, 123. Claret made in Oxfordshire, 145. Clarke, 236. Close parishes, 158, 284. Cloth made in England, 69, 70. Clothes, part of wages, 28, 109 ; of labourer, 54, 71, 109, 185, 206-8, 211, 311 ; of farmer, 105, 213. Clover, cost of growing, 198 ; extent of, 33i, 333. 353; introduced, in, iia; spread of, 115, 141-2, 164, 166, 178, 179, 191, 194; seed, price of, 223; sown with corn, 166. Clun Forest sheep, 344, 346. Clydesdale horse, 335. Cobbett, 107, 226, 265, 268. Cobden, Richard, 2798., 280, 2850. Coinage, depreciation of, 44, 59, 89. Coke of Holkham, 163, 182, 224-8, 375. 34 1 - ' Coke's Clippings ,227. Coleseed, 115. Coliberti, 8. Collings, the, 146, 163, 167, 233-5, 337- Combe, 53. 'Comet, 1 234, 235. Commissions, Royal, on Agriculture, &c., 260, 266, 289, 294-6, 300, 303, 304. 35 SH-'H.S 16 , 3!8, 320, 329. Committees, Parliamentary, 256, 258, 263 n., 266, 267. Common, John, 303. Common fields, 22, 26, 78, 112, 113, 118-9, I2 . !94> 253, 258. Common land, 3, 145, 148; evils of, 148, 194, 256, 257 ; improvement of, 1 66. Common pasture, see Pasture and Meadows. Commons, advantages of, 165 ; extent of, in 1795, 231; rights of, lost, 253. Communities and corporations con- trasted, 2. Commutation of labour services for money, 27, 45. Compensation for improvements, 296, 299-302. Competition, foreign, 296, 297, 312, 3*5. 319. 3*3-30. Consolidation of farms, see Amalgama- tion. Contractors for labour, 209. Co-operation in agriculture, i . Copyholders, 59, 121-2. Corn laws, 63, 64, 69, 70, 159, 160, 242, 248, 250, 265-6, 277-80. Cornwall, 136, 186, 295, 309, 318. Cost of living (1773-1800), 241. Cotarii, 8, n, 25. Cotswold sheep, 233, 275, 343, 344; wool, famous, 172. Cottages, 5 2, 117, 12 in., 139, 158, 159, 206, 209, 250, 254, 255, 267-8, 285, 29734. 3i in-, 315-. Court Rolls, of Manydown, 13. Cowper, John, 165. Cows, decrease in number of, 96 ; in- crease, 325 ; let out by the year, 34, 57 6 5 5 y ie l d of > 33i 6 4- (See Prices of Cattle.) Craik improves drill, 202. Craven, migration from, 44. Crimean War, effect of, 277n., 287. Crondall, 28. Crows' and magpies' nests to be de- stroyed, 100. Culley, George, 217, 234, 337, 344. Cultivated land, amount of, in 1685, 120; in 1867, 288. Cultivation, Walter of Henley on, 32 ; of England, in 1688, 155 ; the old and new ways of, 177, 180, 194, 200-2. Cultivation clauses, 57, 178, 218, 296, 302, 322. Cumberland, 238, 295, 309, 311, 346. Currants, 331. Custom of the country, 299, soon., 302 (see Tenant right). Cuxham, manor of, 24. Cylindrical drain pipes, 272 D Dairy, the, and dairying, 33, 59, 168, I7o, i?3, 199-200, 297, 304, 306, &$, 319. 325. 340-J- (&* Butter, Cheese, and Milk.) 3 6o INDEX Damsons, 15, 136. Danegeld, 6. Dartmoor sheep, 344, 346. Davenant, 115, 117, 120, 260, 354. Daventry, common fields at, 1 1 8. Davy, Sir H., 232, 276; T. T., 342. Dealers, legislation against, 86, 93, 134 ; complaints against, 237. Defoe, Daniel, 166, 168, 169, 171, 174, 220, 259. Degge, Simon, 122. Demesne, 7, 15, 30, 45, 56, 58, 65, 74, 97, 99- Denmark, imports from, 241, 262, 323- 4 ; livestock in, 334 ; wheat crops in, Depression, agricultural, 163, 183, 184, 223, 228, 242, 248, 262-70, 281, 292, 293-6, 305-14- Derby, Lord, estate of, 320 n. Derbyshire, 44, 167, 309, 343. Devon cattle, 168, 217, 225, 233, 274, 288, 336, 339,340-3. (See Southams.) Devon sheep, 343, 344. Devonshire, 37, 73, 107, 113, 128, 132, 136, 186, 187, 244, 245, 269, 272, 295, 306, 309, 338. Devonshiring, 141. D'Ewes, Sir S., quoted, 117, 133. Dexters, 343. Dibbling wheat, 135. Digging for wheat, 135. Diseases of Animals Act (1890), 290. Dishley, 214-6. Distress, law of, 296, 301 ; periods of, 42, 68 (see Depression, agricultural), 237, 242. Divining rod, 232. Domesday, 5, 14, 16, 19, 60, 79, 144. Doncaster, roads near, 221. Dorking, manor of, 65. Dorset, 3, 263, 285, 291, 312, 318; sheep, 344, 346. Dovecotes, see Pigeons. Drainage, 16, 32, 113, 128, 129, 137, 154, 163, 201,202, 213-4, 219, 230, 271, 273, 279, 282, 288, 299, 300. 305, 307, 3io. Drills, 113, 152, 175-7,180,183, 200-2, 226, 227, 271, 274. Drinking habits, 207-8, 269. Drying hops, 151. Duchesses, the, 234, 274, 338. Duckham, Mr., 339. Ducks, 170 (see Poultry). Dugdale, 77. Du-Hamel, 202. Durham, 119,337. Durham ox, 234, 235. Dutch breed of cattle, see Shorthorns. Eakring, common meadows at, 22. Eardisley, 5. East Indies, wool from, 328. Eden, account of potatoes, 106, 207, 238, 256. Education Acts, 292, 297. Egypt, imports from, 323. Eighteenth century, general character- istics of, 162. Electricity applied to vegetables, 236. Elevator, hay and straw. 304. Elkington of Princethorpe, 213-4, 230, 271. Ellis, Chiltem and Vale Farming, 180. Ellman, John, 217, 345. Enclosers prosecuted in Star Chamber, 120. Enclosure, 74-82, 85, 92, 96, 97, 119, T 73> X 82, 194, 228, 252-261 ; agree- ment as to, 98 ; acts of, 1 19, 163, 196, 231, 233, 252, 253, 258; amount of, exaggerated, 121; different kinds of, 73, 1 19, 165, 196 ; eighteenth century, 163, 165, 173, 182, 183, 194, 196, 253; evils of, 194,195,252-3,254-61, 316; expense of, 196, 252 ; non-parlia- mentary, 165, 253; a deed of, 75 ; a sign of progress, 76, 114, 139, 145-8, 253 ; legislation against, 79, 80, 120; checked, 120. England, appearance of, in fifteenth century,78; in the seventeenth, 120-1. English invaders, i. Entails, barred, 122. Essex, 62, 78, 106, 128, 173, 190, 225, 286, 295, 306, 309, 319. Estates, great, accumulation of, 123; advantages of, 322 ; often a loss, 321. Evelyn, John, 127, 149. Evesham, Vale of, 318. Ewes, milking ol, 33, 64, 200. Exhibition. Great, 287, 304. Exmoor sheep, 344, 346. Exporting country, England ceases to be an, 161, 163. Exports of butter and cheese, 326-7. Exports of corn, 63n., 64, 70, 159-161, J 83, 185, 242, 267, 348-9; reaches INDEX 361 its maximum, 186; of livestock, 325-6; of wool, 39, 69, 172, 327. Extensive cultivation, 2. Extent of the Manor, 10. Eyton, Mr., 339. Faggots, price of, 114. Fairs for hops, 171 ; horses, 105 ; sheep, 1720. ; wool, 1720. Fallows, utilized, 112, 177, 181, 191, 195; in 1877, 1907, 331 ; in 1850, 353. Families employed on common and on enclosed land, 195. Farm or feorm, 5. Farmer, day's work of, in seventeenth century, 134; discontent of, 127-8, 184; financial position of, 101, 103, 156, 162, 184, 195, 204, 212-3, 243. 247, 257-8, 264-5, 2 93, 307, 3o8, 310, 320; growing more skilful, 101, 132. Farmer's Letters, Young's, 192. Farmhouses, 51, 101, 116, 119, 213, 226. Farming, bad, 273, 281 ; improvement in, 28, in, 113, 115, 132, 160, 162, 192, 204, 211, 221, 229, 244, 265, 267, 271, 274, 275, 281, 288. Farming calendar, 17, 124. Farms, in sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies, 1 16-7; size of (1768), 202. Farnham, hops, 171. Fashion, farming becomes the, 192, 193. Fattening oxen, 31, 58, 125, 136-7, 166, 214, 216, 225n., 235, 288 ; sheep, 112, 1 66, 22gn. ; chickens, 170. ' Favourite', 234. Feeding pigs, 16, 125. Fences, legislation as to, 4. Fens, the, 78, 123, 170, 318. Feversham, fruit growing near, 128, 171. Fifteenth century, character of, 68. Figs, 15,93, '36. Filberts, 93, 136. Fitzherbert, 31, 61, 76, 77, 83-5, in, 132, 135- Fixtures, 301. Flanders, cattle, 338; clover from, in, 1 66; hops from, 86, 150; wool ex- ported to, 39, 327; sheep exported to, 326. Flax, 17, 105, 135, 141, 151-2, 191, 251, 33i 332. Fleece, weight of, 37, 41, 104, 200, 215. Fleta, quoted, 12, 13. Floor, for hop-picking, 91, 151. Flour, exports and imports of, 348-9. Fluctuations in price of corn, 35, 66, 89, 133, M 2 , 1 57> !86, 221, 223, 277. Foldsoke, 9. Folding quality, of sheep, 253. Food, labourer's, 9, 25, 34, 37, 53, 54, 61, 62, 102, no, 134, 139-40, 164, 206-8, 211, 240 n., 268, 290-1, 297, 308, 311; farmer's, 101, 128, 213, 240 n., 246, 308. Foot-and-mouth disease, see Cattle Plagues. Foot-rot, 294. Foreman, requirements of, 139. Forncett, manor of, 25, 45, 46. Fountains Abbey, 81. Four-course rotation, 183. Four-field system, 99. Fourteenth century, characteristics of, 38. Fowler, John, 304. Fox, the, 140, 244. France, exports to, 349 ; imports from, 243, 323; livestock in, 334; small holders of, 202-3 > wheat crops in, 332. Freeholders, see also Yeoman, 119, I2I-2. Freemen, 7. Free tenants, 24, 29, 45. Free trade, 161, 277-81, 323; effect of, 281, 284, 288, 293, 296. French War, great, see Wars. Fruit, 15, 93, 128, 143 ; imports of, 305. Fruit-growing in seventeenth century, 129-131, 132, 136; in eighteenth century, 171, 186-9; i nineteenth century, 319, 329, 330. Furlongs, 3, 118. Furniture of manor house, 5 2 ; labourer's home, 52. G Gafol, 9, 10. Galloway cattle, 169, 343. Game, damage by, 302. Game law, the first, 55. Gang system, 292. Geese, 34, 170. (See Poultry.) Gentry, at the Revolution ,156; estates of, under Walpole, 183 ; status of, 50, 97 ; supplanted, 122 ; 128, 137, 140, 156, 184, 211, 212, 310. (See Landlords a nd Squire). 362 INDEX Gerard, 106, in. 'Gerefa, the', 15. Germany, exports to, 63 ; imports from, 20, 66, 69, 241, 243, 262, 323-4, 328 ; livestock in, 334; wheat crops in, 332n. Gilbert, 275. Gilbert's Act, 237. Gilbey, Sir W., 335. Glamorganshire, vineyards in, 145. Glastonbury Abbey, 13. Gleaning, 133. Gloucestershire, 19, 78, 128, 136, 143, 144, 173,207, 295,344. Gloves, gifts of, 62. Gold premium, 305. Googe, Barnaby, 144, 173. Gooseberries, 331. Grafting in seventeenth century, 1 30. Grain crops, chief source of lord's in- come, 25. Grapes, 136, 329 (see Vineyards). Grass, acreage under, in 1877 and 1907, 33 T -2 ; in 1850, 353; arable land laid down to, 56, 58, 75, 79, 91, 93-4, 117-9, 120, 196,219, 231, 305; con- verting, to tillage, 231, 263; more profitable than arable, 199; seeds, 165, 191, 194, 226-7. Grass land, price of, see Pasture and meadow, price of; ploughed up, 186, 218, 245. Grass section of England in 1893, 306 n. Grasshoppers, plague of, 185. Graziers, profits of, 184. Greycoats of Kent, 259. Ground Game Act, 303. Guano, 232, 276. Guernsey cattle, 342, 343. Gun, the, in seventeenth century, 140. H Haggard, Rider, Mr., 314-5. Hallam, 210. Hambleton, Sir A. Barker of, 142. Hamlets, 5. Hampshire, 28, 36, 79, 116, 132, 145, i6sn., 240, 253, 266, 268, 3o6n., 309, 314; sheep, 275, 288, 344, 345. Handborough, 53. Harrison, 'Description of England,' 19, 28, 50, 56, 86, 91, 95, 101, 104, 149. Harrow, the, and harrowing, 17, 65, 84, "5. *35, Mi J 53-4. 166. 176, 179, 194, 201, 203, 246. Hartlib, Simon, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 142-3. Harvest, importance of, 9, 108. Harvest homes, 104, 269. Harvest work, 25, 62, 125, 138, 209. Hatfield Chase, 78. Hawsted, 20, 30, 35, 54, 57, 58, 62, 63, 67, 112, 115, 116, 178, 179, 205, 207. Hay, 112; price of, see Prices; carrying off, 178, 219, 302; imports of, 262. Hay tedder, 304. Haymaking, 4, 44, 124, 125, 138, 142. Headlands, 3. ' Heaths', Shropshire, 220. Hedges, 124, 148, 150, 163, 178, 282. Hemp, 100, 105, 135, 151, 191, 250-1. Henley, Walter of, 19 n., 31, 36, 83. Henry of Huntingdon, 327. Hens, number of eggs from, 35. Herdwick sheep, 344, 346. Hereford cattle, 233, 235, 274, 288, 336, 338-40, 342. Herefordshire, 5, 40, 128, 130, 132, 136, 143, 171, 186-7, 1 88, 240, 247, 249, 250, 267, 291, 306, 309, 316. Hertfordshire, 150, 174, 179, 225, 238, 306 n. Hentzner's description of English farm- ing, 104. Hide, 16. Highland, West, cattle, 217, 343. Hoeing, 153, 166, 188, 201-2, 354; horse, 198, 201. Holder, the small, 73, 76,119, 121-2, 164, 191, 195, 202, 205, 220, 253-61, 268,308,310,311,316-9; decrease of, causes of, 122, 259; new class of, 260. Holderness cattle, 337. Holdings, various sizes of, 334. Holland, Shorthorns from, 337 ; live stock in, 334 ; wheat crops in, 332 n. Honey, 10, 144. Hops, 28, 86-7, 89-91, in, 125, 128 M3, i49 I 5> !7i> 2 97-9. 329-3 331 ; acreage of, in 1729, 171 ; 297-8 329 ; average crop, 333 ; duty on 297-8 ; imports of, 329-30 ; profit on 90, 150, 171, 298-9, 330; sub- stitutes, 298, 329. Horse fairs, 105. Horse shoes, 36. INDEX 3*3 Horses, deterioration of, 85, 146; export of, 325-6 ; kinds of, 274, 335 ; number of, 3335 size of, 104, 105, 217; tax on, 249 ; working powers of, 31, 153, 204. (See Prices.) Houghton, account of potatoes, 106, 127, 165. Houses, wooden, 50 (see Farmhouses); of the squire and yeoman, 103, 212. Housing cattle and horses, 126. Howberry, 175-6. ' Hubback', 234. Hundred Rolls, 28, 76, 327. Hunting, 140, 210. Huntingdonshire, 3, 25 n., 73, 120, 123, 222, 306 n., 309. Hurdles, 354. Husbandry, old and new, see Cultiva- tion. Implements, cost of, rises, 242 ; in seventeenth century, 135, 152-3, 154; in eighteenth century, 188, 194, 203, 229, 236; in nineteenth century, 271, 273-5 276, 287 n., 303-4. 3i6; im- provement in, 113; list of, in eleventh century, 17-52 ; prices of, 83, 138. Importing country, England becomes an, 163. Imports cause low prices, 295. Imports of clover seed, 166; of corn, 20, 63 n., 66, 69, 70, 159-61, 183, 184, 223, 224, 239, 240, 241-4, 247, 248, 249, 262, 266, 267, 277-80, 287, 2 93- 35> 3 2 3-4> 33. 34 8 ~9; of dairy produce, 325; of fruit, 188, 329; of hops, 150; of linen, 105; of live- stock, 161, 280-1, 305, 324-6, 337 ; of meat, 161, 305, 325,330; of wool, 39, 161, 305, 328, 354. Improvements, amount expended in, 320-1 ; needed in eighteenth century, 191 ; in farming in eighteenth century, 192 (see Agriculture, state of), 193, 204 (see Farming). Inbreeding, Bakewell and, 214; the Collings and, 234-5. Income and expenditure of landed classes (1688), 156. Incubators, early, 132. India, imports from, 324; wool from, 328. Ine, laws of, as to fencing, 5. Inherent capabilities of the soil, 301 . Inns, markets for produce, 323. Inoculation of fruit trees, 131. Intensive cultivation, a. Irish imports, 161, 262, 324-5, 328; labourers, 209, 306. Irrigation, 113, 132, 217. Isle of Wight, 172 n. Italy, exports to, 349^ wool exported to, 39. 337- J Jamaica, wool from, 328. Jersey cattle, 275, 339. (See Aldemey.) Jus faldae, 64. Justices regulate wages, 107. K Kent, 40, 128, 143-7,157, 171, 173, 186, 259, 265, 283, 295, 306 n., 309. Kentish cattle, 168 ; sheep, 343, 344. Kerry cattle, 343. Kett, rising of, 96. Ketton, 233, 235. Kilns, hop, 151. King's, Gregory, statistics, 1 20, 140, 141, 155, 258-9, 260, 353. Kingston, Lord, estate rents of, 116. Knights Hospitallers' estates, 40. Labour, cost of, per acre, 313 ; services, 6, 12, 25, 27, 42, 45, 56,61. Labourer, character of, in eighteenth century, 175, 184, 201, 204, 205, 2 10 ; condition of, at end of eighteenth century, 237-9; condition of, in nineteenth century, 257, 266-8, 269, 270, 279, 283-4, 285, 290-2, 297, &i-2,3 l 3-4,3*5, 320,355; decrease of, 305, 311 n., 315 ; life of, in Middle Ages, 53, 54, 67, 7 1 , 103 ; made a land- less man by enclosure, 196, 257 ; num- ber of (1688), 156 ; savings of, 102-3, 156 ; sports of, 55 ; the home of the, 52, 158; wages of, see Wages. Lambs, to fall March 25, 126. Lammas, 4, 112, 137. Lancashire, 44, 78, 106, no, 147, 163, 167, 207, 216, 219, 282, 283, 284, 309, 312, 316, 320, 343, 346. Land, value of, 19, 36, 40, 66, 117, 133, 149, 183, 243, 286-7, 2 93, 34i 3io, 328, 348. Landlords, absentee, 184, 191; of the fourteenth century, 48 ; new class of, INDEX 59, 75, 97, 122; houses of the, 103 (see Cottages) ; improve estates, 132, 162, 224, 232, 255, 268, 320; pro- tectionists, 160-1 ; ignorant of estate management, 175, 193, 249, 281 ; in nineteenth century, 265, 281, 304, 307, 309, 320-2 ; position, weakened, 399; relations of, and tenant, 218, 226, 282-3, 299, 301, 322; suffered most from present depression, 320 ; re- serve sporting rights, 1 1 5 ; take to farming, 182. Landlordship, 6. Lawes, Sir John, 275, 276, 314, 319. Lawrence, John, 152, 165, 166, 167, 173,337- Laxton, Notts, 22. Leases, 45 ,56, 57, 65, 81,97, 113,115-6, 121-2, 178,218, 219, 263n., 272, 282, 383. Leicester sheep, 215-6, 235, 274, 275, 343> 344- Leicestershire, 8, 78, 79, 120, 151, 172, 174, 214-6, 268, 306 n., 309, 343. ' Lemmons', 93. Leominster, manor of, 18 ; wool, 40, 171, 172 n. Liberi homines, 7. Liebig, 275, 276. Lime, 112, 141, 177, 187, 197. Limestone sheep, 344, 346. Liming the land, 77, 113, 218, 219, 246, 300. Lincoln red cattle, 343 ; sheep, 215, 235, 275. 2 88, 343, 344, 34 6 - Lincolnshire, 3, 8, 40, 99, loo, 103, 123,151, 168,172, 250,252,255,283, 306 n., 307, 318, 321. Liquorice, 143, 191. Liverpool, apples at, 188; wheat at, 185. Liverpool, Lord, 232, 264. Live stock, depreciation of, 306, 330 ; ex- ports of, 325-6, 330 ; number of (1877 and 1 907), 333-4; in England (1688), T 55> ^4 ; duty on, repealed, 280. Locusts in England, 185. London, affects wages, 205 ; attracts country folk, 209, 210 ; potato grown near, Jo6; carrots grown near, 167, 1 68 ; roads near, 222 ; sheep and cattle driven to, 221. Longhorn cattle, 167, 216-7, 233, 234, 2 74. 2 75 n -> 336, 343- Longmynd, 345. Lonk sheep, 344, 346. Lord of the manor, 6, 14, 19, 25,42, 121, 12 7, 2 55 5 small holder suffers at his hand, 121. ' Lord Wilton ', 340. Lucerne, 143, i67n., 191, 201. Luffenham, South, 22 ; North, 103. Luxury, spread of, 211, 243, 264. Lyttelton, Sir H., 145 ; Lord, 183. M Macadam, 220, 223, 230. Machinery, use of, 271. Madder, 17, 143, 191, 194. Maidstone hops, 171. Maize, imports of, 262, 296, 313. Mangolds, 237, 331-2, 333, 353. Manor, regulations of the, 13, 99. Manor, the typical, 14. Manorial balance sheets, 26. 65. Manorial system, 6, 7, 18, 24, 45, 76, 97- Manors, 6, 7, 14, 18, 25, 42, 45, 65, 97, 99, 1 18. Mansion house, 14, 50. Manufactures, influence of, on wages, 284, 297, 315. Manures, 113, 119, 136,144,150-4,177, 178, 179, 187, 191, 197, 201, 219, 221, 254, 275-6, 296, 299, 300, 304, 305, 3i4- Manydovvn, Hants, 13. Market gardening, 306,308, 319. Markham, Gervase, 127, 134-7, 146,151, 171. Marling, 77, 113, 183, 191, 197, 202, 219, 300. Marshall, William, 188, 204, 207, 213, 222, 298, 314, 336, 338, 340. Maryland, wool from, 328. Mattocks for breaking clods, 129. M c Cormick, 303. M c Culloch, 281, 324, 349. Meadowland, 2, 19, 22, 40, 58, 155. Meadows, 16, 30, 73,99, 100, 118, 124, 148,253, 258; value of,40, 58, 115-6, 139, 231. Meat, imports of, 161, 305, 325. Medlars, 136. Meikle, 230, 236. Menzies, 236. Merino sheep, 233, 328 n. Messor, the, 13. Middlesex, 41, 145, 3o6n. Midland counties, enclosure in, 1 20 ; sheep in, 216, 218. INDEX Migration of labourers, 44, 1580., 209, 238- Milk, 63 n., 168 (see Dairy), 170, 205, 275. 297, 33. Mill, suit of, 9. Mills, excessive number of, 114. Minimum wage proposed, 241. Minister of Agriculture, 305. Mixtil, or mastlin, or mesling, 9, 102, 125, 138, 207n. Moles, 114, 124. Molton Market, 341. Monasteries, 68, 81. Money payments, 24, 27, 45, 56. Mortimer abuses the law, 74. Moryson, 102, 105, 122. Mountain sheep, 344, 346. Mowing corn, Fitzherbert's advice, 84, 125, 135, 138, 199, 354; machines for, 303-4- Mowing grass, cost of, 34, 44, 65, 71, 109, 138, 142,348,354; Fitzherbert's advice, 84. Mulberries, 15, 146. Murrain, 13, 42 n., 68. Mutton, price of, see Prices. N New world, influx of precious metals from, 89, in. New Zealand, wool from, 328. Newark, 157. Nitrate of soda, 276. Non-intercourse Act of United States, 242. Norden, Sir John, 127-8, 220. Norfolk, 8, 40, 45, 63 n., 94, 96, 97, 167 n., 169, 170, 182, 217, 224-8, 306 n., 308, 340. Norfolk, or four-course rotation, 183. Normandy, 338. North, difference of wages between, and South, 283-5 > superior thrift in, 207-8. Northamptonshire, 8, 78, 79, 120, 151, 157, 172, 222, 3o6n. Northleach, rates at, 295. Northumberland, igsn., 236, 295, 303, 309, 34 6 - Norwich, 169, 182. Nottinghamshire, 8, 22, 78, 116, 144, 1 7 2 > 237> 2 76, 283, 3o6n., 308, 309. Nowton, Suffolk, 57. Nucleated villages, 5. Nuts, 136. O Oak timber, value of, 137 ; Coke's, 225-6. Oakham, 1 10. Oats, 20, 33, 65, 91, 124, 135-8, 142, J 55> 227, 305, S3 1 - 2 , 353; cost of growing, in 1770, 199; produce, per acre, in 1712, i65n. ; in 1770, 197-9; profit on, 1 80. (See Prices.) Occupiers of land, 355. ' Old Comely ', 216. Olives, 93, 136. Onions, 143, 332. Open parishes, 158, 284. Oranges, 93. Orchards, 17, 128, 131, 143, 186, 188, 255, 332; seventeenth century, 135-6. Owners and occupiers, percentage of, 334- Owners of Land, return, 260-1. Owners, small, see Holders, small. Ox teams, 16, 31, 64, 84, 143, 147, 153, 191, 204, 340. Oxen, description of, in 1592, 104; value of, 19, 20, 35, 57, 66, 1 14. (See Cattle, price of.) Oxford, 63, 273, 338. Oxford Down sheep, 275, 288, 344, 345. Oxfordshire, 24, 40, 78, 99, 145, 151, *75> 273-4, 306 n., 309. Pack-horses, use of, 138. Packing fruit in seventeenth century, 129, 130. Paring and burning, 141, 153. Parsnips, 143. Pasture, breaking up, 218. Pasture, common, 2, 4, 16, 19, 73, 99, 113, 195 ; often worth little, 256 ; per- manent, in Holdings Act, 299; extent of, in 1688, 155; in 1770, 196; ploughed up during French War, 243 ; sparing, 124. Pasture land, price of, 41, 59, 115-7* 139- Patents, 113, 236. Peaches, 15, 93, 136. Pears, 15, 93, 130, 131, 136, 143, 329, 332. Peas, 33,69, 124, 155, 200, 227, 331-2 353- Peasants' revolt, 60. Peel's drainage loans, 272. 3 66 INDEX Penalty for breaking up pasture, 1 78. Perry, 130. Pestilences, 38, 42, 68, 79. Piecework, 28, 163, 206. Pigeons, number of, 49, 96, 105, 143, 244, 274, 275. Pigs, export of, 330 ; feeding, 16, 125; foot-and-mouth disease attacks, 290; import of, 326 ; number of, 333~4 ', profit on, in 1763, 200; size of, in 1592, 104; value of, 20, 35 n., 96, 200-3; varieties of, 170, 346. (See Prices.) Pinchbeck, 103. Pitt, William, 238, 239. Plat, Sir Hugh, 127, 152. Plattes, Gabriel, 76, 127. Pleuro-pneumonia, see Cattle plagues. Plot, 145. Plough, eleventh- and twelfth-century, 17- Ploughing, cost of, 33, 65, 135, 141, 177, 179, 246 ; months for, 17, 124. Ploughland, the, 16, 18. Ploughs and ploughing, 65, 83, 113, 125, 129, 135, 143, 147, 150, 153, 177, 191, 203, 217, 218, 225, 273, 34 2 > 354- Plums, 15, 93, 130, 131, 136, 329, 332. Poaching, 48; by labourers, 55, 210, 248, 282, 291. Population of England, 79, 89, in, 120,140, 156, 160, 163, 211, 240,287. Pork, price of, see Prices. Porter, 'Progress of Nation,' 276, 279, 286, 287. Portugal, exports to, 349. Potatoes, 106, 107, 112, 187, 191, 194, 227, 3 l8 331-3, 353J disease, 277. Poultry, 41 n., 66, So, 132, 169, 170 (.^Prices) ; carrying, to London, 171. Praepositus, 12. Precarii, or boon days, 9. Precious metals, influx of, 89, in; scarcity of, 66 n. Prices : Apples, 15, 65, 1 88, 189. Bacon and pork, 96, 102, 238, 239, 263, 3 I 3> 334- Barley, 20, 35, 69, 114, 133, 138, 142, 155. 179, 223, 247, 312, 347, 350-3 Beans, 35, 155, 180, 347. Beef, 96, 102, 114, 164, 206 n., 239, 240, 241, 242, 247, 262, 263, 265, 285, 3i3 334. 356- Prices : Bread, 2o6n., 2O7n., 223, 230, 24211., 280, 285, 286, 291. Butter, 33, 66, 114, 206 n., 241, 247, 285-6, 312, 334, 347. Carts, 203. Cattle, 19.20,35,41,65,89, 105, 114, "9. J 33, J 46, 163, i6sn., 167, 169, 203, 235, 263, 307, 312, 347. Cheese, 173-4, 2o6n., 241, 242, 312, 334. 347- Clover, 1 66. Eighteenth century, 145, 160, 163, 164, 165 n., 166, 167, 169, 170, 172, 173-4, 179, 180, 186, 188, 189, 200, 203, 2o6n., 222, 223, 227, 229, 230, 23 1 , 2 37> 2 3 8 , 239. 240, 285, 341, 355. Fifteenth century, 40, 66, 69, 355. Fourteenth century, 39, 40, 41, 59,65, 327, 355- Flax, 152. Grapes, 144. Harness, 203. Hay, 157, i65n., 166, 241-2, 262, 347. Hops, 87, 89, 150, 247, 298, 330, 347. Horses, 19, 20, 35, 36, 114, 142, 165 n., 203, 347. 355- Horse-shoes, 96. Implements, 83, 138. Malt, 89, 240, 241. Milk, 168, 170, 312. Mutton, 96, 102, 206 n., 239, 240, 241, 247, 262, 263, 265, 313, 334. Nineteenth century, 227, 235, 240, 242-4, 245, 247-8, 262, 263, 264-6, 267, 277-81, 285, 287, 293, 295, 296, 305.30 6 , 37,3! 2, 324, 329,33o,334- Oats, 20, 35, 69, 114, 138, 155, 180, 223, 241,312, 347,350-3- Peas, 69, 155, 200, 247. Pedigree cattle, 234, 235. Pigs, 20, 41, 96, 200, 203, 347. Potatoes, 1 06. Poultry and>ggs, 41, 96, 114, 133, 170, 247, 347- Rabbits, 174. Rams, 202, 215, 235. Rollers, 203. Rye, 4, 16, 91, 125, 133, 138, 155, 34?. Saffron, 106. Seventeenth century, 89, no, in, 1 14, 118, 119, 127,133-4, 138, 142, 144, 146, 150, 152, 157, 159, 160, 328, 355. Sheep, 20, 35n., 36,41, 80, 114, 138, 165 n., 203, 206 n., 263, 312, 347. INDEX 367 Prices : Sixteenth century, 80, 87, 89, 95, 96, 102-6, 109, 355. Straw, 179, 1 80. Tenth century, 19. Thirteenth century, 33, 35, 39, 355. Twelfth century, 20. Vetches, 155. Waggons, 203-4. Wheat, 20, 35, 66, 69, 89, no, 114, *33> 134. T 38, M 2 , *55, I57> 1 60, 163, 164, 179, 186, 223, 231, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242-4, 247-8, 262, 265, 277-8, 281, 293, 306, 312, 334, 347, 35-3. 355- Wine, 145. Wool, 39, 40, 80, 89, 96, 114, 118,119, 142, 163, 172, 173, 223, 239, 242, 285-6, 306, 312, 327, 328, 329, 347. Prickly comfrey, 237. Proclamation as to wages and prices, 42. Production, increased cost of, 295, 313. Prosperity, agricultural, 28, 101, 114, 163, 183, 210-1, 229, 243-4, 246, 264, 287 ; during French War, 243-6, 247, 264. Protecting fruit from blight, &c., 187. Protection, effect of, 250, 278-9, 281 ; highest limit of, 248 ; 265, 266, 277-9. Provender rents, 6. Pruning fruit trees, 131, 136. Pulverization of soil, 175. Quarter Sessions, assessment of wages by, 1 08. Quartly, Francis, 341. Quid Emf tores, statute of, 29. Quinces, 15, 136. Quit, notice to, 300, 301, 302. R Rabbits, rearing, 174; reserved to land- lord, 115. Railway rates, 295-6. Rake, horse, 304. Raleigh introduces potatoes, 106. Rams, ewes to, 126, 138 ; price of, 202, 215. 235- Ramsey, 72. Raspberries, 331. Rates, 229, 238, 241, 245, 247, 248, 249, 255, 269, 284, 295, 296, 307, 3*4- Rathgib, Jacob, 104. Reaping, cost of, 34, 44, 65, 71, 109, 1 10, 138, 177, 179, 180, 246, 348, 354 ; machines, 303-4 ; time for, 124; versus mowing corn, 135. Red Polled cattle, 343. Reeve, 12 ; duties of a, 17. Reigate, Flaunchford near, 64. Rents : Twelfth century, 27. Thirteenth century, 36, 57, 75, 348. Fourteenth century, 40, 41, 46, 65, 75, 348. Fifteenth century, 57, 58, 66, 348. Sixteenth century, 66, 76, 95, 115, 116, 348. Seventeenth century, 115, 116, 117, "7, *H, 139. i43t J 55, 161, 348, 354- Eighteenth century, 1 1 6, 177, 179, 183, 189, igsn., 224, 227, 328, 348. Nineteenth century, 243, 246, 248, 264, 266, 278, 285-6,287,297,304,306-9, 310, 319^, 321-2. Repairs, see Buildings, farm. Restrictive covenants, see Cultivation clauses. Revival, recent, in agriculture, 320. Revolt, Peasants', 60. Revolution, agricultural and industrial, 162. Ridges, high, 129, 175. Rinderpest, see Cattle plagues. Riots, 185, 223, 262, 266. Ripon, 147. Roads, 21,68, 105, 138, 171, 175, 182, 204, 210, 219, 220-3, 2 69 274, 295. Rock and Far Forest district, 318. Rogers, Thorold, 107, 229. Roller, farm, in seventeenth century, 135. Rolling, 166, 194. Romney Marsh sheep, 344. Romsey Abbey, 15 n. Roots, few, used for cows, 200 (see Tur- nips). Roscommon sheep, 343. Roses, 143. Ross, John, of Warwick, 76. Rot, see Sheep rot. Rotation of crops (see Four-course and Three-field system) 225, 275. Rothamsted, 275. Roundsman system, 239. Royal Agricultural Society, 373-4,281, 308. Royal Society, helps agriculture, 1 14. 3 68 INDEX Russia, imports rom, 323-4; wool from, 328. Rutland, 22, 102, 109, no, 120, 134, 142, 151, 255, 268, 306 n. ; Dukes of, 115, 286. Rye, 4, 16, 91, 125, 133, 138, 155; in Norfolk, 182, 276; produce, per acre, in 1770, 197. Rye-grass, 178-9, 218, 276. Ryeland sheep, 344, 345, 346. Saffron, 62, 106, 143, 167 ; Walden, 106, 167. Sainfoin, 112, 115, 143, 191, 194, 225, 33 1 - Saint Paul's, manors of, 16, 29. 50, 57, 58. Sales, famous, 234 n., 235, 338, 339. Salt, value of, 26. Samford Hall, 190. Scotland, cattle of, 336, 343 ; wheat crop in, 33 2 n. Scott, Reynold, 89, 151. Scottish cattle, 168-9. Scudamore, Lord, 132, 338. Seasons, bad, 20, 42 n., 66, 69, 89, 115, 157. !79, l8 4> l8 5 l86 > 2I i 22 3, 224, 237, 239, 242, 243, 247, 262, 265, 277, 292, 293, 294, 295, 297, 305 ; good, 239, 244, 262, 266, 287. Seed, amount of, for wheat, 33, 67 n., 84, 177, 179, 1 80, 227, 246; for clover, 112, 166, 176, 218; clover, price of, 166. Sefton, Lord, estate of, 320 n. Selions, 318. Self-binding reaper, 304. Seneschal, 12. Settled Land Acts, 305. Settlement, law of parochial, 157-8, 209, 238, 269 n., 284. Settlements, family, 123, 259-60. Seventeenth century, characteristics of, in. Sheaf-binding apparatus, 237. Shearing sheep, 125. Sheep, 94, 104, 126, 137, 146, 161, 200, 225, 233, 236, 263, 274, 275, 288,290; diseases of, 84; export of, 326, 330 (see Live stock) ; improve- ment of, 37, 164, 202 ; number of, in 1867, 288 ; in 1877 and 1907, 333-4; price of, see Prices; varieties of, 171, 172, 215-7, 233, 235, 275, 288, 343-6; washing, cost of, 65, 125, 354- Sheep-rot, 184, 242, 265 n., 294. Shepherd, wages of, 61, 71, 87, 109. Shire horse, 35, 335 ; Society, 335. Shoeing, 36, 65, 84, 203. Shorthorn cattle, 167, 225, 233-5, 274, 288, 336-8, 339, 342. Shows, Agricultural, 233, 273-5, 341. Shropshire, nn., i6n., 159, 173, 219, 220, 225, 250, 339; sheep, 275, 288, 344, 345, 346. Siberian Railway, 324. Sicks, uncultivated patches, 99 n. Sinclair, Sir J., 229, 230, 232. Sittingbourne, 128, 143. Sixteenth century, character of, 89. Slaves, 8, n, 20. Smith, Adam, 134, 210. Smith of Deanston, 214, 271-2. Smithfield, 168, 169; cattle show, 218, 273, 339; prices at, 239, 240, 241, 247, 26 5- Smyth, John, in. Society, Royal Agricultural, 193. Society for Encouragement of Arts, &c., 194, 227, 303. Socmen, 7. Somerset, 19, 58, 107, 168, 250, 309, 340; sheep, 344. Somerville, Lord, 231. Southams cattle, 342. Southdown sheep, 217, 225, 233, 236, 263, 274, 275, 344, 345. Spade, prejudice against, 112, 143; for hops, 150. Spain, exports to, 349 ; imports from, 323- Spanish wool, 38-9, 328. Speculation, in land, 243; in produce, 305- Speenhamland Act, 237-8. Spencer, Earl, 273. Sporting rights reserved, 115. Spraying fruit, 1 36. Squatters, 220, 256. Squire, the, 103, 128, 137, 140, 193, 2II-2. Stafford, Marquis of, 219. Staffordshire, 3, 44, 78, 122, 219, 286, 295, 39- Statesmen, 311. Statistics, agricultural, 230, 231, 232, 377, 288 (see King, Gregory), 331-2, 353- INDEX 369 Statute of labourers, 43. Statutes quoted: 20 Hen. III. c. 4, 73. 25 Edw. III. 2. c. i, 43. 34 Edw. III. c. 20, 63. 12 Ric. II. c. 4, 61. 12 Ric. II. c. 5, 64. 12 Ric. II. c. 6, 55. 13 Ric. II. c. 13, 55. 15 Ric. II. c. 5, 71. 17 Ric. II. c. 7, 63. 4 Hen. IV. c. 14, 67 n. 7 Hen. IV. c. 17, 70. 9 Hen. V. c. 5, 68 n. 3 Hen. VI. c. 2, 326. 3 Hen. VI. c. 4, 327. 4 Hen. VI. c. 5, 64. 15 Hen. VI. c. 2,69. 23 Hen. VI. c. 12, 71, 87. 3 Edw. IV. c. 2, 70. 3 Edw. IV. c. 5, 71 n. 22 Edw. IV. c. i, 7in. 4 Hen. VII. c. 19, 79, 94, 117. ii Hen. VII. c. 13, 325. 11 Hen. VII. c. 22, 87. 6 Hen. VIII. c. 3, 87. 6 Hen. VIII. c. 5, 79. 21 Hen. VIII. c. 8,86. 22 Hen. VIII. c. 7, 326. 24 Hen. VIII. c. 3, 102. 24 Hen. VIII. c. 4, 105. 24 Hen. VIII. c. 10, 82 n. 25 Hen. VIII. c.i, 86. 25 Hen. VIII. c. 13, 80. 27 Hen. VIII. c. 6, 85. 27 Hen. VIII. c. 22, 94. 32 Hen. VIII. c. 13, 85. 1 Edw. VI. c. 5, 326. 3 and 4 Edw. VI. c. 19, 86. 5 Edw. VI. c. 14, 86. 2 and 3 Phil, and Mary, c. 3, 96. 5 Eliz. c. 4, 107. 5 Eliz. c. 5, 105. 8 Eliz. c. 3, 326. 8 Eliz. c. 15, 82n. 13 Eliz. c. 25, 96. 14 Eliz. c. ii, 82 n. 31 Eliz. c. 7, 121 n., 159. 39 Eliz. c. i, 117. 39 Eliz. c. 2, 118. 39 Eliz. c. 18, 82 n. 43 Eliz. c. 2, 296. i Jac. I. c. 1 8, 150. 21 Jac. I. c. 28, n8n. 12 Car. II. c. 4, 161. Statutes quoted: 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 18, 326, 327. 14 Car. II. c. 12, 157. 15 Car. II. c. 7, 134, 326. 18 Car. II. c. 2, 161, 326. 22 Car. II. c. 13, 326. 32 Car. II. c. a, 161, 326. 3 W. and M. c. 2, 158. 8 and 9 W. and M. c. 30, 158. 7 and 8 Wm. III. c. 28, 327. 36 Geo. III. c. 23, 238. 41 Geo. III. c. 109, 231-2. 9 Geo. IV. c. 60, 278. 4 and 5 Wm. IV. c. 76, 269. 6 and 7 Wm. IV. c. 71, 270. 5 Viet. c. 14, 278. 9 and 10 Viet. c. 22, 280. 9 and 10 Viet. c. 23, 280. 14 and 15 Viet. c. 25, 301. 30 and 31 Viet. c. 130, 292. 38 and 39 Viet. c. 92, 299. 43 and 44 Viet. c. 47, 303. 46 and 47 Viet. c. 01, 300. 59 and 60 Viet. c. 16, 31 4 n. 63 and 64 Viet. c. 50, 301. i Edw. VII. c. 13, 314 n. 6 Edw. VII. c. 56, 301. 7 Edw. VII. c. 54, 316. . Steam, applied to threshing, 237 ; culti- vator, 304. Stilton cheese, 173-4. Stinting the common pasture, 4. Stock and land leases, 57. Stocking a farm, 170, 203. Stores, public grain, 133, 264. Stott, the, or affer, 35, 57, 65. Stonrbridge Fair, 171, i72n. Stratfieldsaye, 272. Straw, as winter food for cattle, 126, 217; carrying off, 178, 219, 302; price of, 179, 180, 330. Strawberries, 15, 329, 331. Stubble, grazing of, 4, 125. Suffolk, 8, 30, 40, 57, 63 n., 78, 112, 128, 147, 166, 168, 170, 173, 174, 188, 207, 225, 238, 284, 306 n., 309, 313 ; Punch, 335 ; sheep, 275, 344, 345. Supplies of corn per head, 330 (see Wheat, home supplies). Surrey, 64, 128, 143, 144, 168, 180, 283, 306 n. Surveyor, the seventeenth-century, 1 27. Sussex, 54, 78, 259, 763, 283, 306 n. ; cattle, 274, 288, 336, 340, 343. Swanage, 262. Bb 37 INDEX Swedes, 227, 237, 276, 288, 33i- 3 >333- 'Swing' riots, 266. Taltarnm's case, effect of, 122. Tamworth pigs, 346. Taunton, manor of, 18; good fanning near, 128. Taxes, 247, 263-4, 37> 3'; weight of, 183, 191, 229, 245, 246, 249, 250, 263, 320, 321. Tea, drinking, 205, 207, 213, 291 ; price of, 205. Teams, composition of, 16. Telford, 220, 222. Tenant farmers, assist in agricultural progress, 162; number of, 141, 156; origin of, 46, 119. Tenant-right, 283. Teeswater cattle, 337. Tewkesbury, 255. Thatchers, 139, 354. Thomson of Banchory, 276. Thorney and Wobnrn estates, 321. Three-field system, 4, 99. Threshing, cost of, 34, 44, 65, 163, 179, 180, 198-9, 246; machine, 230, 236- 7, 282 ; time for, 17, 126. Tillage, decrease of, 79, 80, 94; en- couragement of, 79, 108, 117-8; reaction against, 118. (See Arable, and Grass.) Timber (see Oak timber), 227; spoils crops, 282. Tiptree, 319. Tithe, dispute, 102; on turnips, 166; rent charge, 270. Tithes, 116, 144, 151, 189, 195, 230, 232, 247, 248, 249, 250, 270, 305, 307- Tooke, 179, 266. Tours, Young's, 190, 192. Towns, movement of rural population towards, 64, 70, 108, 185, 192, 195, 209, 315, 3i6-7- Townshend,Lord, 163, 182-3, T 9 2 > J 93- Treatise on Husbandry, 33, 54. Tnll, Jethxo, 152, 163, 174-7, J 7 8 l $> l8 3> I 93 200-1, 204. Turkeys, 170. Turkish dominions, imports from, 323. Turnip cutters, 276. Turnip fly, remedies for, 166. Turnips, 93, in, 112, 115, 141, 143, 157, 164, 166, 168, 178, 183, 251, S3 1 - 2 , 333J cost of growing, in 1770, 198 ; injure wool, 329 ; sheep first fat- tened on, 112; spread of, in eighteenth century, 165, 166, 179, 191, 194, 200, 201, 225; varieties of, in 1726, 165. Tusser, 63, 90, 91, 92, 101, 102, 105, in, 124, 126. Two-field system, 3. ' Twopenny ', 216. U Underwood, value of, in seventeenth century, 137. Unions, Agricultural Labourers', 291-2. United States, see America. Unreasonable disturbance, 302. Upwey, 318. V Vaughan, Rowland, 132-3. Vegetables, 15, 93, 106, H2n., 143, 236 n. Ventnor, vineyard at, 145. Vermin, destruction of, 82, 100, 244. Vermuyden, Cornelius, 123. Vetches, 125, 155, 331. Village, the, of the eighteenth century, 164. Village smith, the, 35. Villeins, 6, 7, 8, 18, 24, 29, 42, 45 ; disappearance of, 46, 59, 60, 105. Vills or villages, 2, 5, 7, 15, 98, 119. Vineyards, 15, 16, in, 144-5. Virgate, 8. Virginia, potatoes from, 106 ; wool from, 328. W Wages : Twelfth century, 27. Thirteenth century, 27, 28, 34, 348, 355- Fourteenth century, 27, 28, 41, 43, 59, 61, 62, 348, 355. Fifteenth century, 67, 71, 348, 355. Sixteenth century, 67, 87, 348, 355. Seventeenth century, 119, 138, 139, 348, 355- Eighteenth century, 163, 164, 184, 203, 205-6, 210, 237, 238, 240, 285, 348, 354-5- Nineteenth century, 241, 242, 249, 267, 268, 283-4, 28 5> 290-2, 297, 309, 311, 312, 313, 315, 355. 356. Wages, on a farm in 1805, 247 ; regu- INDEX lated by statute, 43, 61, 71, 87; by Justices, 107, 109, no. Waggons, 153, 204. Wainage, 8. Wales, cattle of, 167, 336, 338, 343. Wallachia and Moldavia, imports from, 323- Walsingham states demands of villeins, 60. Wars, effect of, 38, 68, 71, 193, 205, 212, 229, 237, 260, 286, 287, 341. Warwickshire, 40, 77, 78,94, no, 172, i/3, 213, 215, 216, 272, 282, 290, 306 n., 309, 343. Waste land, 231 ; committee on, 255 n., 256; good crops from the, 119; Young and, 191. Water carriage, cheapness of, 21, 173. Weaning lambs, time for, 125. Weaving, 70, 76, no, 257. \Vebster of Canley, 216. Weeding hook and tongs, 84, 152. Weeds, 125, 180, 201. Week work, 8. Welsh mountain sheep, 344, 346. Wensleydale sheep, 343, 345. Westcar of Creslow, 339. Westcote, 128. Westmoreland, 216, 295, 346. Weston, Sir R., introduces clover, HI, 127, 141. Weyhill Fair, 173. Wheat, acreage under, in 1907, 331-2 ; consumption of, per head, 2 79 ; cost of growing, 177, 180, 198, 199, 246, 307; crops, 33, 67, 77, 91, 129, 142, 155, 165, 179, 180, 197-9, 227, 246, 282, 285, 286, 332 ; cultivation of, 4, 16,32, 36, 113, 125, 135, 177-9, l8 , 184, 353 ; different kinds of, 146, 167 ; home supplies of, 277, 279, 313, 330 ; price of, see Prices. White, Gilbert, 223. Wilton, hops near, 171. Wiltshire, 143, 174, 253, 268, 283, 286, 309, 312, 313 ; sheep, 345. Winchelsea, Lord, 255, 257, 268. Winchester, 147, 150. Wine, 144-5. Wire binder, 304. Wirral, 66. Wisbech, 318. Woad, 17, 152. Women, work of, on the farm, 62, 85, 206, 316. Wood, W. A., 304. Woods, 2, 1 6, 59, 74, 78, 115, 125, 136, *55- Woodstock, 53. Wool, 37, 38-41, 69, 75, 80, 94, 104, 114, 118, 119, 142, 161, 163, 171-3, 184, 223, 285, 329, 354, 355; export of, see Exports; import of, see Imports ; price of, see Prices. Wool, custom of picking refuse, 100 ; storing, 125. Worcestershire, 74, 128, 136, 143, 171, 306. Work, hours of, 87, 147, 291. Worlidge, John, 127, 131, 132, 142-8, 150-4, 165. Worsley, Sir R., 145. Yeoman, the, 50, 71, 123, 128, 140, 156, 207, 258-61, 310, 320; house of, 103. Yeomen purchase lands of gentry, 122. Yorkshire, 15, 78, no, 138-9, 167, 168, 207, 225, 253, 283, 295, 3o6n., 309, 337. 343, 346. Young, Arthur, 160, 162, 163, 172, 180, 182, 188, 190-3, 194, 197, 200-6, 210, 211, 222, 224, 230, 232, 236, 240, 253, 255, 257, 260, 284, 285, 288n., 298, 3M, 3 r 7, 335. 336, 337.343, 353, 355 ; opposed to drilling, 178; pet aversions of, 191 ; statements of, as to growth of clover, 112. OXFORD PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, M.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY CLARENDON PRESS BOOKS HISTORY Greece, Italy, Egypt, etc Clinton's Fasti Hellenic!, from the LVIth to the CXXIIIrd Olympiad. Third edition. 4to. 1 14s.6d.net. From the CXXIVth Olympiad to the Death of Augustus. Second edition. 4to. 1 12s. net. Epitome. 8vo. 6s. 6d. net. Clinton's Fasti Romani, from the death of Augustus to the death of Heraclius. Two volumes. 4to. 2 2s. net. Epitome. 8vo. 7s. net. Greswell's Fasti Temporis Catholici. 4 vois. 8vo. 2 ios. net. Tables and Introduction to Tables. 8vo. 15s.net. Origines Kalendariae Italicae. 4vols. 8vo. 2 2s. net. Origines Kalendariae Hellenicae. 6vols. 8vo. 4 4s. net. 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